Grown Up Fun

Matt Gunn has featured here before, his various solo works taking in chuggy cosmische, dubbed out shoegaze, psyche rock and psychedelia. Always interesting, always groovy, always tuneful. Matt has got a new EP out under the name Freedom For Adults, the result of him catching up with an old friend from a band they were both in three decades ago, meeting at the end of 2025 and recording some new material. His friend, Ram Orion, was on temporary respite from his adopted country. They met in Todmorden, a place where the stars align and the channels cross, and then again in the Malvern Hills and then went back to Windsor where they wrote and recorded four songs- Freedom For An Adult, Thanks For The Offer, Zonkey Or Zorse and Your Tomorrow.

The first of those, Freedom For An Adult, is a slippery funky number with echoes of Talking Heads (the big, post- Eno Talking Heads), chanted vocals and synth bass with sinuous guitar lines. Thanks For The Offer comes in with cowbell and then buzzsaw guitars over dance beats, sounding like an indie- dance band crossing over on an early 90s Top Of The Pops, wide eyed and baggy trousered. Zonkey Or Zorse is slower with a cowboy bounce, woodblock and a loping gait, and vocals that sound like they've been beamed in from one of the 80s/ early 90s Creation band. Your Tomorrow is psychedelic indie- pop, infused with the spirit of possibility that the acid house revolution offered and the guitar band/ sampling sound pioneered by B.A.D. among others. The EP, Freedom For Adults OK! finishes with an Airsine remix of Thanks For The Offer that goes all 2020s ALFOS mirrorball chug. 

You can find Freedom For Adults OK! at Electric Wardrobe Records Bandcamp. There's loads of more Matt Gunn recordings, EPs singles, remixes and albums at Bandcamp. 

Three years ago Matt released an album called Mostly Fiction which included Learning Thru Loops, a stunning piece of electronic music that sets sail for the cosmos, and via the magic of bleeps and synths, piano and arpeggios and drum machines, arrives far away but bang on time. 

Do The Right Thing

Some more new electronic music for your enjoyment, from Mighty Force, from Paisley Dark and from Duncan Gray. I sometimes feel that writing about instrumental, electronic music leads to a certain amount of repetitive description, words like chug, synth, bass, cosmic, dark, dub and acidic re- arranged in various permutations. Needless to say, they don't always do the music justice. 

J- Lower (Jeff Lowes) records for Mighty Force. His latest album, Quanta, came out two weeks ago, an eleven track tour de force built on warm, soft drum pads, thick bass and light, ascending melody lines. Opening track Hive sets the scene, a track that builds into something that soars and lifts. The eight minute wonder Astral Awakenings has the same warm synth and drum sounds, a gently prodding rhythm and insistent melodies. You can play the whole thing from start to finish or drop in on any of the eleven tracks and find something to warm the heart and stimulate the mind. Get Quanta at Bandcamp. 

At Paisley Dark the latest EP comes via label boss John Paynter and co- producer Ben Lewis' A Space Age Freak Out complete with a full line up of remixes- Airsine, Cosmikuro, Hogt I Tak, Ben Hunt, Isis Moray, Keith Forrester, Plastic GRN, The Machine Soul and Viper Patrol are all present and correct. 

The original track is Song Of Siraba, a six minute dark disco outing that thumps along, high grade acidic chug. Airsine strips it down and slows it down, a slow burning acid churn. Cosmikuro follows suit, faint hint of ghostly backing vocals and increasingly chunky bassline coming to the fore. Keith Forrester speeds it up, strobe light, high tempo. Viper Patrol go metallic chug, lasers and widescreen sci fi. Isis Moray turn up the distortion and overload the limiters. Find those remixes and the others, all eleven versions, at Paisley Dark's Bandcamp. 

After Mighty Force in Exeter and Paisley Dark in Leeds we head to Slough where Duncan Gray is firmly back in the driving seat and releasing monthly tracks from his stockpile of recordings. In December he gave us Microfreaking, a seven minute throbber with synth and bass battling it out. January saw the release of Somebody Is Missing, a bassline and melodica heads down, slo mo, four four tribute to the departed, with a bass that never lets up- wonderful dubbed out disco. Right at the end of January Duncan dropped Do The Wrong Thing, a leftfield, off kilter delight that nods to Bowie and Iggy in West Berlin, Andrew Weatherall's Scrutton Street bunker and the never- ending thud of the four four kick drum. The wrong thing is most definitely the right thing. 

Friday Dub Disco Party

Earlier this year Matt Gunn released an EP titled Nowhere, three tracks long and led by the long drifting dubby electronics/ guitars of Something Ain't Wrong If Something Ain't Right- a track that sounded a little like early Verve produced by Adrian Sherwood. Matt's finishing the year with a new EP, four tracks brought together as Electric Dub Cuts. Big Static has a digital reggae bounce, long slow synth chords and the kind of space and feel of The Orb. Wicker Dub is credited to Gordon and Gunn, a seven minute odyssey with chopped up voices from TV adverts, an oompty sounding kick drum, the kind of bassline that gets a nervous system response and synths that prickle the skin and make the hairs on the nape of your neck stand up. 

The third track- Someone Else's Dream (Matt Gunn Dub Mix) by Electric Wood- is a woozy, bluesy, late night howl with a thumping dub rhythm. Electric Dub Cuts concludes with Dub Electric- eight minutes long and the sort of dubbed out indie dance that used to take up all of side B of a 12" single, the results of a guitar band sent spinning into the cosmos by a talented remixer. Lovely stuff. Get all four over at Matt Gunn's Bandcamp treasure trove. 

Out on Duncan Gray's Tici Taci today is the latest EP from Uj Pa Gaz, four tracks out of Tirana, Albania. It's an Adriatic delight, the blissed out feel of Balearica crossed with the chuggy Tici Taci sound and something else, the Tirana magic ingredient. Outerdubelic is expansive and led by a wonderful guitar topline over twinkling synths and chunky drums. Simple Brain is cut from similar cloth, optimistic and forward thinking psychedelic dance music, long synth chords and bursts of acidic squiggle. 

Dissimilar Function is a slo mo treat, a heady, dancing under the stars kind of track, an acid undertow with a two note refrain that splatters itself across the mix, grin inducing, ecstatic stuff. ALFOS via Albania. Shok cuts the tempos again and shuffles in, a voice buried somewhere in the, keys and synths, maybe a guitar, chuggy drums, sunsets... wonderful. Get it at Tici Taci. 

Edit: due to an admin error the release of Outerdubelic is delayed by a few weeks. There are some clips of each track at Soundcloud.

In Leeds Paisley Dark continues to put out high quality releases. The latest comes from Viper Patrol, a wonky acid/ dark disco track called Dancing Voices. The original comes with two remixes, one by  Cosmikuro and one by A Space Age Freak Out. Cosmikuro heads for the darker edges of the dancefloor, shimmering shards of guitar and funky clipped riffs lighting the way. A Space Age Freak Out freaks out, a psyche dub extravaganza. 

The second track is Def Charge- more dark disco with a trippy edge. The remixes of this one come from Ian Vale and Airsine. Ian Vale's is bass heavy and percussive. Airsine's is propulsive and insistent, punctuated by rippling synths and shouts. The whole package is at Bandcamp. 

Three For Friday

Some new dance/ electronic music for Friday, from a variety of sources. First up is the latest release from Leeds based label Paisley Dark, an EP by Airsine- the title track Like Fire and a trio of remixes. Like Fire is a low slung, dark corners chugger, pulsing with the stuff of lost nights and speaker systems. Rolling bassline, distorted voices, acidic toplines to mess with the synapses....

The remixes come from Mindbender, The Machine Soul and label boss John Paynter with Ben Lewis doing their Space Age Freak Out thing- stripped back and hypnotic, going nicely weird around the edges.  The EP is available at Bandcamp. 

Secondly, here comes the latest from Raxon whose track Your Fault was one of late 2024's peakiest peaks. Based in Barcelona but originally from Egypt, Raxon's newest release came out on Cologne's Kompakt in February, two tracks released as Speicher 134. Acid Call is in your face, high energy thumping acid. The flipside, Don't Cry Pluto, is slightly subtler but comes from a similar place and is no less nutty- kick drum and synth madness that is very persuasive. Available digitally and on 12" here. 

Thirdly/ finally Manchester's Sprechen label have just released an EP by Hull maestro Steve Cobby,  a man who over the course of a long musical career has left few musical stones unturned. His four track EP on Sprechen, UNO+, is unabashed house music and kicks off with No Rope Will Bind Those Who Refuse To Submit, a straight ahead, four four banger with percussion, synth whooshes, chopped up Afro vocals and all manner of seductive noises.

After that This House jacks and jerks, with stuttering vocals, rave breakdowns and massive bass. I Need A Fix slows things down slightly, a classic late 80s house tempo and synth chords- then the 303 kicks in and we're off again. On the last track Koreo Mr Cobby strips things down to drum track and single synth part, some bleeps and bloops and the deepest bassline. Fine work from Hull's hardest working shed based musician. Buy or listen here.