Dance and Electronica Roundup - Ft. Low End Activist, NHK yx Koyxen, Pris, + Henzo

Low End Activist - Dry Chat, Wet Rag

Dry Chat, Wet Rag delivers quintessentially UK experimental dub dance. This album sounds very crisp but there’s an edge to it, an inescapable sense of grime and dystopia. Otherwise standard breakbeat and techno beats are paired with unique instrumental choices sprinkled in just enough to keep you on your toes. Textures like chirping crickets, running water, and the sound of squishing make you start to wonder whether what you're listening to is real. This album was the smallest bit disorienting, a descriptor that sets it apart and makes it fun to listen to.

- Carrie

NHK yx Koyxen - Climb Downhill 2

This “mutated hiphop” release from Japanese experimental electronica artist NHK yx Koyxen is highly emotive and evocative. Delivering a techno sound with flair and style, each deeply textured track is delightfully, weirdly danceable. Crunchy bass and slippery synth balance each other out, building into complex polyrhythms that tickle your brain in all the right places.

- Kaylen

Malik Hendricks - Tessera

This NYC techno record starts off strong and stays strong all the way through. Featuring a 4-song collection of funky melodies laid over techno beats, this album manages to do a little bit of everything while maintaining a strong sense of self, never straying too far from the dance floor. Totem is an especially strong track, evoking a jungle house vibe with the occasional spacey synth that gives it almost a sci-fi feel. While Tessera constantly plays with pacing, energy levels, and features tons of different sounds and voices, it never feels like it drags and it never gets overwhelming.

- Carrie

Pris - Phantom

“Phantom” is a fitting name for this dark IBM-flavored techno release. This experimental album begins like the first signs of a haunting, with warbling tones and bursts of TV-static noise straight out of Poltergeist. Slowly building up from the ghostly introduction into a groovy pace with a brooding, introspective atmosphere, this record rewards dedicated listening. Delicately produced, everything about this release feels deeply thought-out and intentional, earning it a much-deserved spot in this week’s roundup.

- Kaylen

Henzo - The Prowl

his short EP evokes the feeling when you realize the party has gone on for a little too long. Opening with “Cheapest Reverb”, woozy vocals mumble like the most fucked-up guy at the club trying to talk to you in line at the bathroom about “dope beats” and “you know what I’m saying?” The jungle-y “A Healthy Fear of Snakes (Down The Sewer Mix)” builds up the intensity over off-kilter tropical beats, like the “purging” session during a Peruvian Ayahuasca ceremony before the trip really kicks in. Title track “The Prowl” is perhaps the most experimental song on this release, playing with interesting, glitchy buzzing layered over more exotic percussion. But this release is truly apart thanks to the amount of spaciousness in each track. The production is relatively subtle, a careful arrangement that allows each individual tone to really come through and develop into an intricately striated soundscape before your eyes.

- Kaylen