Each week our music editor Dave Randall picks an album (with a local connection) you need to hear …
The bad news is that lockdown is back, but the good news is that for the length of lockdown, so too is the Brixton Blog album of the week!
This week I’ve chosen a low-fi, downtempo gem called Data X Change.
It’s the debut release from South London’s Syd Nukuluk and came out in January on Slowfoot Records – which, while we’re on the subject, is an excellent Brixton-based left-field label; all of their catalogue is well worth a listen.
Data X Change is equal parts stoner trip-hop, ambient, lo-fi and folk.
Guest rapper Monika raises the pulse-rate a little, evoking comparisons with Tricky, but it’s the carefully chosen textures – sombre pianos, laconic vocals, splashy spring reverbs and finger-picked guitars – that slowly envelop the listener, creating a strange, bleak, off-beat beauty.
https://sydnukuluk.bandcamp.com/album/data-x-change
Dave Randall is a musician and author of Sound System: The Political Power of Music
