Anoraak, Pachyman, Stereolab and More New Music

Do you ever get the feeling that your friends can read your mind?

The other day, out of nowhere, I thought of Anoraak, the French musician/producer, whose tunes have turned up a bunch in my sets over the years. (Most frequently, “Gang,” a Disco Not Disco-style jam that I played often at The Lash coming out of lockdown.) I wondered if he had anything new out, but I was also in the middle of doing something else, so I didn’t look it up. An hour later, I get a text from my friend with a Spotify link, which just happens to be a song from Anoraak, “Magnifique (Italo Edit),” that was released a few months ago. It’s fire. His new album, Golden Hour, is a fun mix of disco, funk and synthpop, but my friend’s pick is the keeper. You’ll probably be hearing it in my sets soon.

Get Golden Hour by Anoraak

If there’s a moral to this anecdote, it’s to make friends with people who have good taste in music. They’re better than the algorithm. The algorithm doesn’t know you, it just throws shit some mysterious calculation that probably has more to do with your demographics and their ad revenue than your actual interests. (I’m still really offended by the Garden State anniversary concert ads that littered my feed earlier this year. I would never.) But, your friends with taste— the ones you’ve spent years going to clubs and concerts with— they probably know what’s up.

One album I looked forward to hearing asap was Instant Holograms on Metal Film by Stereolab because they have a kind of sentimental importance to me. During my freshman year of college, not long after I was hired as a DJ at KXLU, I saw Stereolab. They played the Troubadour and I can’t remember the details of the show so much as the feeling of a band opening up a whole new world for someone who still felt very much like just a dumb, boring kid from the Valley.

Even though I was excited for the new Stereolab album, I got bogged down in work stuff and it took about a week to get around to actually listening to Instant Holograms on Metal Film. There are already a lot of reviews out and Mojo has a good interview with Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier. But, what I do want to say is that the energy and attitude on the album is very much what I remember from that Troubadour show years ago, more so that what I’ve heard on previous Stereolab albums. It’s a horizon-expanding mix of sounds and styles, an overall inspiring listen.

Get Instant Holograms on Metal Film by Stereolab

For more than 30 years, German label !K7 has been releasing a series of mix albums called DJ-Kicks. They’re quality mixes that go in unexpected directions and the installments that came out in the early ‘00s, particularly the Playgroup, Tiga and Chicken Lips mixes, had a big influence on how I DJ. I let those CDs lapse over and over again in the car while I was stuck in traffic until I had the flow of the mixes committed to muscle memory. In May, !K7 dropped the latest mix in the series, from U.K. DJ/musician/producer Quantic. I wasn’t all that familiar with his work, but when a promo came my way, I downloaded it mainly based on my respect for the series. Quantic’s mix is the first DJ-Kicks volume comprised entirely of original productions that are exclusive to the compilation. These include Quantic’s own productions, like the single “Eko Eko,” as well as from contributors like Frente Cumbiero, JKriv and loads more. It’s an incredible mix that both in concept and execution that brings together jazz, disco, house and a good amount of cumbia.

Get Quantic’ DJ-Kicks Mix

Post-punk— as in the music from the late 1970s and early ‘80s, not the revival bands— drew a lot from dub. (Don’t believe me? Go listen to your Bauhaus records again. Like, really listen to them.) L.A.-based Pachyman, who I interviewed for Los Angeles a handful of years ago, flips the script on his recently released fifth album, Another Place. The dub artist expands his sound on this album and, while there are plenty of different points of reference on it, the post-punk connections come through on songs like “Berlin,” “False Moves” and “Hard to Part.”

Get Another Place by Pachyman