ONIKHO – Diu Diu Dang (Tunnel Song)

ONIKHO is a US-based composer, producer and singer of Taiwanese origin. Her excellent new single Diu Diu Dang (Tunnel Song) starts hypnotically with mantra-like vocals and a sparse electronic background and then takes the listener on a journey switching between different emotions, like a train takes its passengers through tunnels, mountains and valleys.

Carina (ONIKHO): "Diu diu dang is a Taiwanese children's folk song about a train going through a mountain. Its lyrics are onomatopoeias meant to simulate the sounds of the train's whistle and chugging. I wanted to put my take on it because it was the last song my mother taught me during our final trip to Taiwan before she passed away in the car accident that paralyzed me.

I really enjoy artists like Tokimonsta and Four Tet who masterfully create engaging soundscapes, so I wanted to do the same. I love to transport a listener to another place and time through my music. The lyrics of the original song are childlike and rhythmic, so I decided to slow it all down to make it more mystical and hypnotic.

I produce everything in Logic and use samples that I find from other artists, as well as home-recorded samples. In this song you can hear the rattle of an empty can of cat food, as well as me tapping on a kombucha bottle. I've also been really into Sonic Academy's ANA 2.0 synth, which has given me a lot of rich bass sounds."

Diskret – Dazed (Foam and Sand Remix)

We don't usually come across ambient remixes, especially such great ones. When listening to this beautiful contantly evolving soundscape we couldn't help thinking of the snow-covered Alps, where Diskret formed as a duo and started making music together, and the endless skies above them. "Ambient remixes are maybe not a normal thing to do but it absolutely makes sense in my opinion. Especially if you have an artist like Robot Koch handling the remix", says James Varghese of Diskret and the label Quiet Love Records. We asked Robert who did the job about his secret sonic weapons.

Robert (Robot Koch, Foam and Sand): "The signature sound of my Foam and Sand project is created with recordings of synths like Juno 60 or an acoustic piano to tape and then adding lots of compression with careful EQing, which magnifies the irregularities and imperfections of the tape recordings and that are then shaped into a meditative sound journey. Through the process, the grainy subtleties of the resampled sounds give way to vast and lush atmospheric soundscapes, of course with a healthy dose of vintage reverb.

i also run the tape signal through a guitar pedal (Fairfield Shallow Water) which randomly modulates a short time delay to create unexpected shifts in pitch that added to the unstable sound of the tape. The result is this hazy vibrato/chorus-type that adds to the vintage tape flavor I was going for."

Matti Charlton – Kingsville

Hooray to Matti Charlton! They never stop. The inspirationally productive songwriter and producer is back with Kingsville – a collection of experimental tunes borrowing from grunge, soul, vintage electronica and probably every other genre of music ever invented. The album was produced in its entirety over the course of six days while visiting family in the Canadian town of the same name. Our favourites from the record include the eerily goofy Funeral Orgasm sampling vocals from Michelle Rescigno and For Never that starts almost as a lounge track with a sense of danger around the corner and then falls apart together with our expectations.