Aether - a transcendental waveform market

Ian Mugerwa aka Dawuna is a New York-based producer, composer and singer-songwriter. On his album Gas Lit Dream, praised by both music critics and the underground, the artist combines intimate and timeless R&B elements with experimental electronics and a quiet and equally unusual production style that is all his own. The compositions feel like non-linear streams of consciousness that are repeatedly channeled and calmed by Dawuna’s velvety vocals.

Berlin-based Turkish sound artist Hüma Utku uses psychological research as the basis for her compositions. Her album The Psychologist moves sonically into more somber territory, where shadowy abstractions of strings and electronics create moods that often feel cinematic. The productions always unfold at a careful pace, synthesizing diverse influences – from electroacoustic music to abstract techno and industrial sounds – into a cohesive whole of woozy orchestral flourishes and gurgling analog electronics.

Heith is the pseudonym of Milan-based artist and musician Daniele Guerrini, a linchpin of Haunter Records and the Milan scene, whose artistic arc has been winding into crazy new forms in recent years. His latest album X, wheel was released in October 2022 on the Berlin label PAN and weaves aspects of arcane folk, wyrd metal, chamber electronics, offbeat dance music and noise into his own vision of electroacoustic, psychedelic storytelling.

With her debut album Sultry Venom, Iceland’s Eva808 cut her very own swath through grime and dubstep in 2021. There, every track was still unmistakably influenced by the club hemisphere and bass tradition of the British Isle, and the dancefloor moment in every track in the leading role. On the just released second album, however, a much broader field is cultivated: While the beats remain just as heavy, the tracks are a lot more raw, experimental, conceptual. How this sounds in the club remains unanswered for now – the album is hot off the press and live sets by Eva808 remain a rare commodity.

“Everything below 140 bpm is ambient,” he says, describing not only the frenzy of his DJ sets, but the punch of all his current touch points with music. And there are many: Opium Hum is curator of the CTM Festival in Berlin, creator of his own music multiverse called Hyper Real, and perhaps the best known, but certainly the most likeable face of Boiler Room. Opium’s DJ sets mean rave, mean acid, mean 1 million bass drums.

Junge Eko is Catia Lanfranchi. Her solo project fuses stretched melodies with noise moments and a deeply moving, warm vocal presence. Last October, Lanfranchi released her first and deeply personal album as Junge Eko on BlauBlau Records. On it, eight mostly instrumental compositions unfold on organ or synthesizer, deepened in a few places with Lanfranchi’s quiet vocals, unobtrusively reminiscent of pop. Those who have been able to experience the musician live in recent months also know that we will probably be blessed with new music in the near future; probably with more voice-based and concrete song structures, yet still beautifully fragmentary and decelerated. Lanfranchi is also the composer and singer of the outstanding band Kush K, which manages like no other in this country to find a place between radio presence and underground credibility that does not require any bending or compromise. Kush K’s debut album Lotophagi was named album of the year in 2020 by the industry association IndieSuisse.

The Zurich duo has been on the road for quite a while. Nevertheless, it is not wrong to speak of a proper breath of fresh air in the Swiss club scene when describing Atrice. Daredevil would also be an apt word, because the duo manages in its productions what otherwise rarely succeeds: Packing sophisticated, complex sound design into uncompromisingly danceable vibes. The results are unbeatably original, deconstructed tracks that take place on major labels such as Ilian Tape. Originating from the Zurich-based collective Miras and still committed to it, Atrice now plays all over the continent.

The reference to Basel’s area code in the name is not local patriotism, yet it’s fair to say: the Rhine city’s DJ scene is thriving and moodybabe061 aka Mira Laune is an integral part of it, namely as a quarter of the bustling Swim collective. At Aether she opens the day’s program and her personal forecast for it is «sad-weird afternoon music». Whatever that might be, we’re thinking post-internet hyper-grimebient.