Discover Blogly: Listen to new music from Chuquimamani-Condori, Hi-C, and more

It’s almost prohibitively difficult to make music that sounds wholly original as postmodernism’s epochal exponent continues to tick toward infinity. But there’s an artist who’s been doing so with remarkable consistency for 15 years — first as E+E, then as Elysia Crampton, and now as Chuquimanani-Condori. Paradoxically, they often achieve this daunting feat by reaching back further in time for source material than most artists are willing to, most notably by weaving huayño — an indigenous Andean style whose roots predate European colonization — between more modern artifacts (radio tags, video game samples) to create monumental sound tapestries. Despite their reliably mind-blowing output, DJ E, which dropped like a cannonball in November with zero external promotion and was followed by an equally explosive Fact Mix earlier this month, is perhaps this year’s most surprising gem. (Though it received plenty of love in experimental music communities online, its late, unannounced arrival excluded it from all but one major publication’s AOTY lists.) Listening to the album on a good sound system or quality headphones is a completely immersive experience: Ingeniously mixed to sound like it’s attacking you from all angles, it’s a record that will swallow you whole if you’re willing to give it half an hour of your time. From the panpipes that usher in “Breathing” to the panicked keys that underscore “Engine,” the satanic disc jockey growl that opens “Eat My Cum” to the pounding percussion at the climax of “Know,” the obliterating chaos of “Return” to the apocalyptic ecstasy of “Until I Find You Again,” let DJ E engulf you in its smothering embrace. — Raphael Helfand

Àlàáfíà was written in the immediate aftermath of the death of Honour’s grandmother, with its landscape of gritty rap beats, blown out bass, and ambient washes all rattling with grief. The PAN artist made the album between London, New York, and their native Lagos in Nigeria, crafting something truly ambitious from modest beginnings (Honour used a trial version of Ableton throughout). Àlàáfíàis deeply referential, with nods to Sun Ra, DJ Screw, and bell hooks on a track like “When Angels Speak of Love,” and artists as wide-ranging as DMX and Kelly Rowland in their lyrics elsewhere. One song (“Pistol Poem (Lead Belly)”) features Honour rapping briefly before a sample from a Richard Pryor stand-up set spins the whole thing around. Experimental music and work created from a place of mourning can make for understandably somber listening but Àlàáfíà uses loss as a skeleton key to open new musical boundaries, breathing fresh air into their collage of loving memories. — David Renshaw

It’s the casual intensity that courses through NOVA ONE’s 2023 album, create myself, that endears it to any cast of daydreamers, window-gazing contemplators, and over-thinkers. Fuzzed-out indie choruses and airy vocal stacks chariot the album’s mediation over messy relationships and self-identity arcs. At times honestly accusatory, at times relishing in the world’s flaws, NOVA ONE leaves behind an irresistible capsule of delicate soprano, wandering guitar, and everything reverbed. With lyrics that speak to a kaleidoscope of suffering, from heartbreak to mental, NOVA ONE makes listeners feel seen, as if inviting us to sit and rot for a while in the soft gray shoe-gazey fog of create myself. — Lila Dubois