In Strict Tempo, vol. 52: Happy Birthday to Me!
We made it then. One year of In Strict Tempo. I’m not really sure what I thought the plan would be when I started this, write a bit about music I liked and industry issues I guessed, share a bit of music that I thought was underappreciated, or just plain good. Some editions of the newsletter have been deep dives into labels I enjoy, others mere ramblings on the state of the industry, sometimes I’ve been inspired to write a tonne, other times I’ve struggled to put a newsletter together.
This is one of those weeks - I was in Berlin last week, and despite my original plans I didn’t make it clubbing at all, or even to visit any record shops. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t go record shopping on holiday. Being out of the country, and mostly off my phone means the fast pace of the music world can pass you by, in all honesty the past six weeks have been a blur, from moving house, to ADE and now a break I feel like I’m just starting to get back into the swing of things again. For the music industry though this is a weird time, all the big Q4 releases are out and we’re in that weird hinterland before Spotify Wrapped and all the AOTY lists takes our attention.
What does the future hold for In Strict Tempo? I’m not too sure if I’m honest, but I’ll keep writing about music and things like that. I’ve had so much great feedback it would be daft not to continue, even though I don’t really like blowing my own trumpet too much. I believe that much of the best music writing at the moment exists on Substack even though it’s not a perfect platform (it gets expensive subscribing to more than a few, which is why I’m not going to make IST a paid newsletter). I’m slowly starting to use Twitter less and less and Bluesky more. I’m not convinced of the merits of replacing one toxic social media platform with another but I’m willing to give it a go - I’m hoping that the era of a new social platform can usher in some kind of change in how we talk about, share and consume music so let’s see what happens.
I’m also working on a couple of things in the background - they should become clearer soon.
I guess all that’s left to say this week is thankyou to everyone subscribed and who’s ever read and shared In Strict Tempo. Knowing that 150 or so people are interested makes it a lot easier to carry on writing, and this newsletter wouldn’t be what it is without the readers.
Here’s to In Strict Tempo year two!
New Music Friday
There’s not as much new music that’s grabbed my attention this week as I’d have hoped, but here’s a few bits to get yer ears around.
Actress - Даpрен Дж. Каннінгем [Smalltown Supersound]
Say what you want about Resident Advisor, now and again they really pull off something special. This new album is Actress’ RA mix from a year or so ago, now on vinyl. I’ve often thought that a lot of these online platforms should release their mixes physically as special editions, but I guess most of the time they can’t be arsed to license the tracks involved. As this mix is all Actress productions it shouldn’t have been too difficult, but Smalltown Supersound put it out instead. Anyway, listen to this in one long sitting like it’s meant to be heard.
Helena Hauff - Multiplay Your Absurdities [Tresor]
It feels like that classic electro sound has been bubbling away for some time now, mostly driven by the likes of Sheffield’s excellent CPU label. This new one from Helena Hauff on Tresor is a fine addition to the canon, and is gonna sound immense on a big system. I rarely buy 12”s any more but might have to make an exception for this.
Black Rain - Neuromancer [Room 40]
I guess most people’s introduction to Black Rain was on the Blackest Ever Black retrospectives back in the day, this was always rumoured to exist, a 1994 soundtrack to the audiobook of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. I’ve never read it, but always kind of wanted to as it’s meant to be one of those foundational sci-fi books.
B. Rupp - Pop Music [Accidental Meetings]
Boomkat says “Wickedly detuned and cruddy sorts of psycho death rock wallow and sputtering propulsion” and as usual say it better than anyone else. Bill Orcutt meets Raime in late 70’s New York.
UEVPD - 2 [World of Echo]
About as sparse and minimal as you can get - the sound design here has me looking outside every few seconds to see if powerful motorbikes are driving down my road. Looking forward to the rest of the album.
Theo Parrish - Traffic Jams [Sound Signature]
New Theo sounds like you’d expect new Theo to. Hands up if you miss Plastic People?
That’s it for this week, thanks for reading!