Mueran Humanos - "El Círculo"

Industrial music is too often perceived as intimidating when it should be embraced as one of the few genres that show awareness of the real, constantly tensed world we live in. If you find warmth in Mueran Humanos’ latest piece “El Círculo,” it doesn’t mean you’re a threat to society, on the contrary, it probably means you’re mindful and putting the mantra into context. Released as a 12’’ vinyl through UK’s Vanity Case, Mueran Humanos (Carmen Burguess and Tomás Nochteff) are quick to establish a menace: “no nos importa nada, creo que pronto vas a entenderlo.” The Argentine act is not implementing elite margins to its audience; that build up of techno progressions make it really obvious they want you to gear up and join them on a passage that will lead to the re-positioning of a socio-political hierarchy (“nacimos para caminar descalzos sobre las cabezas de los reyes.”) Side B of the maxi-single is a 20-minute survey (titled “La Langosta”) of deep textures and dulcet strolls that will reward those searching for a true spacious symphony.

Empress Of - "Hat Trick"

As Empress Of (Brooklyn-based "project of sight + sound" by Lorely Rodriguez) continues to seep through various spots around the blogosphere and starts to gain attention from even the most revered of zines, it’s hard for us not to feel bad about not covering her until now, considering the musical output she’s been laying out these past few months has been both riveting and atypical. Her "colorminutes" project of fifteen one-minute-long songs playing in front of a uniquely colored background on YouTube is an unsettling experience of short-attention-span pop music, and makes us think about just how little the one-minute song format has been exploited (or at least popularized) outside the form of three-chord guitar jams - whether it’s through the viscerality of punk rock’s various branches, or the hook centricity of Guided by Voices-style lo-fi.

Rodriguez, though, has claimed these small tracks are only snippets of forthcoming full ones, which just confirms the fact that, as captivating as some of these color minutes can be, most of them do have a sense of incompletion to them. Which is why she developed a couple of these snippets into full 3-minute tracks. Her previous single “Champagne” is an intriguing slice of pop (or watermelon) indulgence, whose unabashed beauty via erratic songcraft delineates very well her self-declared fandom of Cocteau Twins and Deerhoof. On her latest track “Hat Trick,” she appears to gracefully settle on a more traditional approach to song structure and pacing. Featuring a Laura Palmer-esque cover photo that could be a subtle nod to Julee Cruise-style dream pop. Most recent comparisons tend to gravitate towards other contemporaries (St. Vincent) who, like Empress Of, have elegantly conflated the gap between pop and experimentalism.

Her forthcoming bilingual EP Systems is out on Terrible and Double Denim next month.