Eastern Haze: July

We shall commence our monthly explorations of Eastern beats, bass and other sonic ephemera from the fringes of the musical spectrum with the aptly-titled RSS Boys, a perfect nerdy evocation of sizzling summer settings. Taking cues from afro-beat, the members of the project claim they met while travelling in Africa. Brushing off tired house, their new record W DONT BLV N HYP (out on the recently resurrected Polish label Mik Musik) is a proclamation of their defiance. At the same time, their music doesn’t distance itself from contemporary sonic topographies.

Makunouchi Bento, the idiosyncratic duo of musicians based in western Romania, make music for imaginary movies— a rich tapestry of sounds interwoven into a magic flying carpet. Their latest offering is a batch of remixes made for their friends, including Ben Mono and Romanian colleagues Norzeatic & Khidja. The resulting recontextualizations are imbued with MB’s trademark fairytale-like atmospheres, and are free to download here.

Prague-based Ond?ej Holý, working under the nom de plume dné, has developed his sounds from folksy to chill, and now resurfaces with a little taste of his eagerly-awaited album. ‘The music is all mine. I used the acapella from ‘Touch the Sky’ because I wanted to try some rap and don’t know any good rappers,’ he explains on his Soundcloud profile. ‘I want to find some and then release it properly. (Kanye’s verse didn’t fit to the music so I cut him, sorry Yeezy)’.

Let us bid a sonic farewell for now with some soft, crackling, ’90s-influenced deepness, rich with echoes of rave, techno, jungle and dubby inflections. This comes courtesy of Piotr Dabrowski, aka ptr1. His new EP Carte Blanche is out now.

For more news, head to the Easterndaze blog.

Published July 27, 2012.