Listen: Mica Levi, “slob air”
Naemi: Dust Devil
Dust Devil, the debut album from the Kansas-born, Berlin-based electronic shape-shifter Naemi, doubles as a majestic survey of an international, terminally online underground music scene that prizes earnestness as much as irony. The double LP features an array of guests, like Erika de Casier, Perila, and power couple Shy and Ben Bondy, stretching its slacker-ambient aesthetic across a canvas that includes pillowy downtempo soundscapes, cheesecloth-textured shoegaze, and stoned indie -rock. Sometimes it moves with the focus of someone fully locked in at 3 a.m. in their bedroom, and other moments with the “I can feel everything” interconnectedness of that moment right after you said, “This edible ain’t shit.” Like the ’90s touchstones it references, Dust Devil is ambitious, emotive, and unabashedly sprawling, capturing the artist—and a community—at the inspired peak of their powers. –Andrew Ryce
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Nick León / Erika de Casier: “Bikini”
Listening to “Bikini” feels like sipping a frothy French 95 while taking in a gorgeous last-day-of-vacation sunset. The slinky collaboration between Miami dance producer Nick León and Danish R&B experimentalist Erika de Casier conjures up its sun-dappled scene through walloping bass, hyaline synth melodies, and a sprightly pace to match the song’s sunkissed lyrics, complete with a deliciously memorable invitation of a hook: “Meet me at the beach/It’s me in the bikini/The one I always wear/Find me daydreaming,” de Casier coos, just before León pitch-shifts her words down into a frantic, intoxicating demand. Who could possibly say no? –Eric Torres
Listen: Nick León / Erika de Casier, “Bikini”
Nídia & Valentina: “Rapido”
Valentina Magaletti is a drummer from London’s arty underground; Nídia the first international star of Lisbon’s batida scene. “Rapido” lives where their worlds overlap. Its moody atmospherics and thunderous drumming are made for a rock club, that rattling bass and those persistent handclaps belong on the dancefloor, yet here they find glorious, rump-shaking common cause. But a sample of a woman moaning, deployed over and over again, telegraphs the track’s real message: it’s exciting when different scenes come together, but it’s even better when people do. –Matthew Blackwell
Listen: Nídia & Valentina, “Rapido”
Objekt: “Ganzfeld (Djrum Remix)”
When Objekt created his 2014 track “Ganzfeld,” the Berlin-based producer flouted many of the era’s dancefloor conventions, from the song’s tempo (far faster than normal) to its structure (nominally linear but sneakily antic) to its bassline (squirrelly as hell). Ten years later, Djrum’s remix takes a similarly maverick spirit to even more unpredictable extremes. More than 10 minutes long, the remix flips Objekt’s idiosyncratic anthem into a miniature suite: It begins with a contemplative ambient sketch, moves into flickering atmospheric jungle, then slips backward into a half-speed electro stomp with industrial-dub leanings—and that’s all before so much as reaching the halfway mark. (Still to come: woozy jazz-funk, jittery techstep, Amen-smashing jungle; no two bars are alike.) For all the liberties Djrum takes, though, he keeps the original’s unforgettable bass riff intact, underscoring Objekt’s vision in making the whole thing possible. It’s a remarkable homage to a song that predicted club music’s iconoclastic future. –Philip Sherburne
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
