Ju ne, 2017THE FUTURE IS NOW
44 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.comSOUNDS LIKE:Ambient music
for hyper-digital hyper-realities
FOR FANS OF: Oneohtrix Point
Never, Ryuichi Sakamoto, 2814
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTEN-
TION: Nico Niquo is getting the
rare vinyl release from Orange
Milk Records, the taste-making
cassette label existing at the
Tron-bike parallels of vaporwave,
experimental electronic music
and cutting-edge graphic design.
The Melbourne-based 23-year-
old born Nico Callaghan creates
drifts that nostalgically soothe like
some synthetic Windows 3.0–era
New Age record, but also yearn
with the melancholy only time
can provide. His second album, In
a Silent Way, has the textures of
dance music (he’s a fan of elec-
tronic experimentalists like Jam
City and Huerco S.), but instead
of throbbing, it swirls in a beat-
less cloud cluster. “Making music
inspired by dance music, grid-like
structures and Futurism is reallyfun because you can let your
imagination run kind of wild,” says
Callaghan, “but I wanted to give
myself a really odd constraint to
drive me to make something a bit
more unusual, so no beats. A beat
implies something very distinct,
but I think it’s possible to make
more evocative music in
a slightly askew and odd sonic
environment.”
HE SAYS: “There are only a hand-
ful of ‘instruments’ on the album- some clarinet, saxophone and
mallet percussion that friends
and I recorded. Apart from that,
everything else is kind of like a
cheap, plastic impression of an
instrument or something divorced
from reality altogether. But the
main instrumental sound I built
everything else around is the ‘eski’
grime synth that Wiley brought
to real prominence about 15 years
ago. To me, that synth sound is
the most futuristic, evocative
sound ever.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF: The title
track to In a Silent Way is a cin-
ematic cluster of arpeggios that
recall an anime rendering of Philip
Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi.
CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN
Nico
Niquo
SOUNDS LIKE: Feeling sad on a sunny
day
FOR FANS OF: Bright Eyes, Elliott Smith,
Beach House
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION:
“I want to pour really deep-seated,
weird, twisted secrets into a sugary pop
song,” says frontman of Brisbane duo
Mid Ayr, Hugh Middleton. Amid dulcet
tones that wash over jangly guitars
and bright bass riff s, Mid Ayr bind the
intricacies of everyday melancholy with
a broader sadness that echoes through
their sophomore EP, Elm Way. Middleton
remembers the fi rst song he ever wrote:
“I was into super morbid depressing
stuff for a 13 year old. I think it was
called something pretentious like ‘Half
Awake’ [laughs].” Elm Way feels like the
perfect distillation of the music that in-
spired him then; a prog-rock-meets-Enya
sound that Middleton aptly describes as
ethereal-grunge.
THEY SAY: Middleton says of Elm Way:
“It’s focused on questions that don’t re-
ally have answers, but that I’m trying to
vent out and make meaning of. It’s like a
journal – you let it out and then you feel
better about it because it’s done.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF: “Pocket Her
Eyes” is hooky and wonderful; “Look-
ing For the Way Out” feels quiet and
meditative. LUCY SHANAHAN JOSEPH BUCHAN (NICO NIQUO)Mid Ayr