Loud And Quiet

Earlham Mystics is the alter ego of Luke Abbott.

The way it has been described is as an opportunity to hop onto an “alternate timeline” for his career, which is a nicer on the eyes way of saying it’s a kind of side project.

And by the end of the year, he’s likely to have released an album’s worth of material under the guise.

First came the ‘Truth EP’, out back in March, which featured the beautiful title track ‘Truth’ and ‘Stolen Hearts’ which remains a favourite.

Now, he’s just confirmed that this Friday (28 July) he’ll put out a new four-track collection, the ‘Waters EP’. It’s the second in a trilogy of recordings. Again, it’ll be coming out via Gold Panda‘s NOTOWN Recordings. First digitally, then physically on 12″ vinyl on 15 September.

The release is proceeded by this new track ‘Waters’.

If you like the sound of it, Luke’s DJing at Corsica Studios, London on 29 July, too.

The majority of the video for Obongjayar’s new track ‘Endless’ might be set in the club, but the place the song actually exploring is far less tangible. It’s all about the space between life and death. Or, as Obongjayar himself puts it, the track “explores the celebration of life in death. How we never really due but live through our work and our effects on the people around us and our environment.”

The gripping video, which feels like one continuous stream of consciousness, is directed by Matilda Finn.

Following the release of the Nigerian-born London-based musician’s debut EP ‘Home’ last year, ‘Endless’ serves are the first taste from a new EP Obongjayar will release soon.

It’s late-ish. Maybe 1am. You’ve had a couple of Sambucas, mind wandering towards an end-of-night kebab. It’s hot and sticky and blurry on the dance-floor. Then this song comes on. Now, I’m not saying this is an instant classic, but you can just imagine Patience’s ‘White of an Eye’ turning the pub backroom into a teary mess.

It’s basically my way of saying this is really good – it has the feel of an ’80s pop classic.

Patience, by the way, is Roxanne Clifford, formerly of Veronica Falls. She was born in Manchester, but has now made a home in Los Angeles.

One of her first interviews about her new project is right her in fact. “It started as an experiment,” she said at the time. “I wanted to see if I could write like Robyn.” She can.

‘White of an Eye’, her third single, comes out via Glasgow’s Night School Records on 22 September.

No offence to London Grammar or The xx, but they make the kind of albums your mate who works at the insurance brokers pops on at a dinner party. You know, the kind of music that’s noticeable, but not too noticeable. Goes well with a humus dip selection, that kind of thing.

Mermaidens are a three-piece band from Wellington, New Zealand. They don’t make that sort of music, and they want it to be known.

Early next month, after an EP in 2014 and a locally released debut album last year, they’ll put out their first international album via the legendary Flying Nun label.

To introduce it, they’ve just shared this new track, ‘Sunstone’.

The wonderfully named Gussie Larkin from the band – who sings along with Lily West, with Abe Hollingsworth on percussion – has this to say about the song:

“‘Sunstone’ is made up of three contrasting sections, gradually becoming more and more brutal as the song progresses. I didn’t want the song to have a ‘hook’ that it returns to – instead I wanted to create an unpredictable journey: full of time signature changes, evolving guitar textures and imposing vocals. It’s a not a song you can just put on in the background!

The lyrics explore a few different zones of my mind – from the desire to reassure an anxious friend to the dynamics and complexities of a relationship. For the ‘chorus’ I settled on the words “100 floating beings come down!” simply because I needed something fun to yell – and I also love the imagery of that. “Floating Beings” is also a nod to our first album cover, which is an illustration of a vibrating floating body. Sunstone finishes up with a mantra-like chant that is still an earworm for me: “Wish I could loosen/Wish I could lose/Wish I could loosen under my skin.”

It’s good exercise for the brain.

Mermaidens’ new album ‘Perfect Body’ is out on 4 August.

This year Fuck Buttons members Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung are concentrating on other things.

Back in March, Power released his third album as Blanck Mass, ‘World Eater’. That LP was a blistering, consuming listen, still in the sonic postcode of FB.

In the past year, his bandmate has worked on a collaborative album with Beth Orton (‘Kidsticks’) and written the score for cult comedy horror film The Greasy Strangler.

He’s just shared his first solo track, too – and it isn’t like anything he’s done before. The most obvious difference is that he’s singing – not like he’s ‘sung’ in Fuck Buttons, screaming down a kid’s toy echo mic and distorting it to mask that the tortured static is coming from a human mouth. ‘Say What You Want’ instead feels pretty tropical.

Hung will release his debut solo album, ‘Realisationship’, via Lex Records on 6 October.

“I had no idea I was going to be singing on this record; it just happened,” he says. “Gaining the confidence to do that was the hardest part – singing as an expression is very new to me.”

Shout out to Andrew for wearing an FB’s tee in his new press shots, too.

Andrew Hung’s also announced details of a free show – he’ll play The Social, London on 15 August.

Yaeji is a producer and visual artist now based in Bushwick, NY. Kathy Yaeji Lee was born in Queens before spending parts of her childhood in Atlanta, Seoul and before now settling back in the States.

She invited Colin Groundwater to her studio in this month’s issue of Loud And Quiet – read the interview – but in the meantime, just before she heads to play a couple of US shows with SMERZ, she’s shared a new track ‘Therapy’.

It’s got the same heady vibe that made some of her earlier tracks like ‘Feel It Out’, and her recent self-titled EP on GODMODE, so magnetic.

There was the surreal sight of a bunch of pineapples whizzing around the screen in her ‘Feel It Out’ video. Now, with this new one, Yaeji takes a ride to work, walks her dog and generally gets on with just another average day… but somehow makes it look much more stylish than ours.

Some practical details first: Mount Kimbie have just announced a new album. It’s called ‘Love What Survives’ and will come out on Warp on 8 September. It’s their third album, and the follow-up to 2013’s ‘Cold Spring Fault Less Youth’.

Now, Kai Campos and Dom Maker have a fine track record when it comes to collaborators and King Krule (Archy Marshall) has been there with them since the early days.

Along with the new album announcement – in the past couple of months they’ve already put out collaborations with James Blake and Micachu – the duo share this new track, ‘Blue Train Lines’.

It’s a union that never seems to fail.

There wasn’t a wealth of information out there about Sloan Peterson earlier this year when we wrote about her track ‘105’. There still isn’t a huge amount.

Sloan Peterson is the alias of songwriter Joe Jackson, and her latest track ‘Rats’ gives a further insight into her past.

“‘Rats’ was written about low-lifes who wanna make something out of themselves, ratbags and teenagers who are on their own in a big city,” she says.

“I had a pretty rough couple of years between 13-16 living up in Brisbane, being involved with bad company, never attending school among other horrible situations, and this song speaks to how I was feeling after coming out of such a whirlwind, trying to start all over again in Sydney by myself at only 16.”

The track is going to appear on a newly announced self-titled EP on 8 September.

Those who like to keep a keen eye on BBC’s Most Read stories will probably have come across this one from four years ago. Inexplicably, at the time, almost 6,000 dead pigs were found washed up on the banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu river. The number eventually went on to be nearer 16,000.

That event is the subject matter for the latest single from Chinese band Re-TROS (the full title of the band is Rebuilding The Rights Of Statues) for straight forwardly titled new track ‘Pigs in the River’.

It’s the latest song that the Beijing-based band will release their third album ‘Before The Applause’, which comes out in the UK on 15 September.

They only made their UK debut earlier this year – playing a pair of shows, one in London, another in Liverpool. This track has that spooky, baritone, lounge feel or Kid Congo or Nick Cave.