Let's talk about Avalon Emerson

Beloved of ILM for years but there's no thread for her. She's done the latest DJ-Kicks, full of new material, and while I'm only half way through it is so good, exactly what I wanted an Avalon Emerson mix album to sound like.

Anyway, talk amongst yourselves.

I think this is still my favourite thing of hers I've heard. So deep -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY1XOvV29bI

The cover of Long-Forgotten Fairytale is unexpected!

Agree w/ Chap that the Octo Octa remix is up there w/ the best. Looking forward to hearing the DJ Kicks, is it out yet?

Aw, yeah, I was really hoping someone was going to start a thread for her, because she's amazing.

Second - third - her Octo Octa remix, also her Slowdive remix is one of the most swoonsome things I have ever heard!

The cover of Long-Forgotten Fairytale is unexpected!

It's really sweet, and I don't even like the Magnetic Fields.

The mix itself is a pretty good reflection of what it's like when you see her DJ, in that she goes hard from pretty early on but she isn't afraid to throw as much melody and colour and as many arpeggiated bleeping noises in as she wants. The cover has her wearing some kind of sci-fi racing helmet and it's that kind of mix. 'Poodle Power' is probably the best of the new material but apparently she's been playing it out for two years.

good article

https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/avalon-emerson/

good picture

https://i.imgur.com/xgACfio.jpg

decent producer, not really my style per se compared to, idk, springier vancouver or australian sounds or whatever

the octa octa remix for example is nice but the breaks are kinda clunky and the arpeggios kinda grinding in the way post-weatherall producers like daniel avery often are, which is a style, just not entirely my thing

Yeah I'm not crazy about the Octo Octa remix either, I prefer her when she's in widescreen mode - 'One More Fluorescent Rush', 'The Frontier', 'Natural Impasse' etc, or where she's making lazer-tunnel bangers like 'Constantly My Cure'. Daniel Avery isn't in the same league even on the rare occasions when he's good.

"poodle power" reminds me of old stuff from creme or bunker, like early legowelt or bangkok impact (it's that arpeggiated italo thing) and again while i think a lot of ppl would see that as a great compliment for me i always preferred maybe funkier, more swinging and jacking stuff with a lighter touch

ok i hadn't heard "constantly my cure" or "natural impasse", these are pretty excellent especially the former

still not convinced about the widescreen way out west italo arpeggiations but just a matter of taste i suppose

a lot of her textures remind me of Nathan Fake and that mid-00s Border Community sound, but her sense of melody and groove is a lot more muscular. I think she's really good at avoiding the trap of the four-bar loop that a lot of melodic techno falls into - her lead lines sound improvised and loose.

Her RA Art of DJing is so good,

https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3392

it's just such a good read and watch that I couldn't wait to hear her mix sets and discovered that I don't actually like them much! I do like most of her tracks though and really love 'One More Fluorescent Rush'.

'One More Fluorescent Rush', 'The Frontier'

I like both of these a lot but I don't know much else of her stuff

she had a dedicated site cybernedits (cybernetic edits) where she'd post free edit ep's from herself, Nathan Micay and a few others whose names escape me but the site seems to have gone. Her edit of Pump Up The Jam from those is great.

I put her DJ Kicks on and it had the same weakness as her Essential Mix - lots of really great music but no sense of pace. That Oklou track should be a climax, but it feels like the energy is gone straight after it's done

I felt that specific moment as well and I think it's a deliberate turning down of the heat, I dunno, having seen her live she definitely has a grasp of dancefloor dynamics.

need to listen to it again - I put it on earlier and found it really enjoyable but I was doing work and not really paying attention.

anyway, between the LFF cover and Kelly Lee Owens covering Arpeggi, it’s been a good year for women in techno improving upon indie songs I loved in college.

avalon emerson has a supernatural gift for sound design. i thought i'd already posted "Finally Some Common Ground". it's one of my all-time favorite techno tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWzzo5DWIgM

i stayed up late last night trying to reverse engineer just the first four bars of the percussion, got nowhere close. i couldn't come up with congas (sampled or synthesized) that have that kind of tone and sustain. there's also some very tricky, subtly executed automation on the reverb and slap-back delay effects. i'm gonna keep at it today cuz it's fun, but man, what i've spent hours trying to replicate is just a small piece of a track full of mind-bending sonics. how the hell does she do it, and hold a day-job as a software engineer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kutp_SR9QcU

!!!!

i think there's bullion involvement in this?

indeed:

Avalon Emerson & The Charm is an ongoing, ever-shifting collaboration.
The Charm has no fixed roster and no fixed rules; it’s a vehicle for expression and connection, with Avalon at the helm.

With ‘Sandrail Silhouette’, Avalon says:
“To me this song is about scale. Scales of time and how something that seemed so important and defining a long time ago, might not really matter that much now. And then taking a step back and feeling the smallness of your own lifetime in the shadow of a thousand year old tree. In that way it’s also about the here and now and not sleeping through the erosion of time.”

Produced by Avalon Emerson and Nathan Jenkins

SOTY

this song is absolutely perfect in every way

yes stevie! <3

Great song

Bullion might be a wizard.

https://pitchfork.com/news/avalon-emerson-announces-tour-dates-and-new-album-shares-new-song-listen/

new song! and an album!

seems like the record is going to be pretty pop-oriented? which wont be a bad thing -- the new song is great after all -- but i cant deny that i'm hoping for some bangers

This is being promoted as “Avalon Emerson & The Charm” so it’s probably going to be a “pop” side project and she’ll continue making her usual style of music without “The Charm”.

New song rules.

Not on youtube yet, but another lovely new track "Karaoke Song": https://open.spotify.com/track/5fxhtFc0h2TZ7SpezVl9SY?si=06e86dd6dc2e4a77

she talks about making a pop record here: https://mixmag.net/feature/avalon-emerson-the-charm-dream-pop-dj-interview-cover-feature

gonna be my aoty

Aoty material more people need to get on this. Every track is a winner.

Of all the albums that came out today this one sounds taylor made for me.

Pun intended?

Tailor lol

holy crap

sophistechnodream pop album of the year

this is so good

oh thanks for the heads up been meaning to jump on this

This is the good shit.

this is a great headphones album, turns out

I feel so alienated seeing how overlooked this album is. It should be as popular as idk the Caroline Polachek or Fever Ray albums because it’s as good if not better as those two.

I keep meaning to check it out

gorgeous record and agree that it deserves more love

I don't usually pay attention to lyrics but i love the little phrases that jump out at me from this - "these strangers aren't your friends", "hot dunes, an oasis"

I like those lyrics. It feels like it’s mirroring my current anxieties.

Both a song about impending global doom via global warming - which has been a major anxiety for me growing in a city with such drought that I suspect will turn into a desert in a matter of years - and growing out of the people and things that used to be fun for you. The only thing that has anchored me to my current city is friends and family and every passing year I feel like it’s not worth it anymore. But then “the world is a fuck” so it’s not like I feel there’s a better option out there.

It’s not sonically my favorite song in here - I think Dreamliner is the one I like the best atm - but the lyrics are probably the most relatable for me.

Dreamliner is my fave too <3

The song I was referring to was “astrology poisoning” btw!

aoty

love love love this album

I like this album very muchly.

i kind of saw her dj last week - she was playing at a festival thing on the beach, i didn't want to pay to get in because the rest of the line-up was horrible but there were vantage points where you could peep over the fence. feel like she definitely played a couple of things off that and then ended her set with this immortal classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FigP00sJ11g

oh hell yeah best track ever

just started the new EP, i assumed "sort of like a dream" would sample air france and it sure does

I love her so much

this is everything

i was at her marathon eight-hour nowadays set last weekend, my first time seeing her dj, and also my first time at nowadays (imo: fine club that can become a shitshow if they oversell it, which they did, making the dancefloor at one point an impenetrable mass of flesh), and it was so so so so so so mindblowingly excellent. only caught six hours before getting too tired to continue functioning, but what i heard was so worth it. specifics:

- set started in earnest with an insane edit of paul simon “can’t run but,” probably her own, i was immediately entranced even though at this point there were only 20 ppl on the floor gently swaying
- about an hour and a half in, my friend wanted to take a break and hang outside for a bit, but as we approached the doors i heard her start to play an extended edit of my favorite robyn song, “ever again,” so i ran back in
- utter peak of the set was an edit of “suspended in gaffa” that baffled everyone on the floor. clueless guy next to me asked “tori amos????” nah dawg that’s kate bush!!!
- left when she was alternating between a bunch of euphoric ethereal almost-choral house jams. felt sufficiently lifted. great night. would do it again and kinda wish i could relive it on demand

also a new song with the charm comes out tomorrow

really wish i could hear the suspended in gaffa edit, doubt it'd ever get an official release

hope everyone started waltzing

It's upbeat and rather excellent xps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCjrVAmzmLU

holy crap i love that. she's a freaking star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg7zmUBZErA

new track "jupiter & mars," from upcoming album written into changes, out 3/20

impossibly gorgeous, the sound is really full compared the previous & the charm record

What a journey from dance bangers to mid-'90s major label pop.

Feels entirely (perhaps too?) appropriate that the reference points I reach for with these new tracks are Fleetwood Mac’s “Eyes of the World, New Order’s “Regret”, Wire’s “Kidney Bongos”, Disco Inferno’s “The Last Dance”… ringing “classic” guitar pop from consummate explorers of the possibilities of sound for sound’s sake.

new song is gooooood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igdX7DodNWc

Album is A+++++

Covers so much ground - wait till you all hear “Wooden Star”. And “How Dare This Beer”. And “Country Mouse”. And “I Don’t Want To Fight”.

So many quietly great and funny lines too. Avalon has such a great knack for self-deprecation.

“Happy Birthday” sounds like a shameless disco-pop crossover attempt, except the chorus is “too young to die / too old to break through”

“Wooden Star” sounds like Curve covering Good Charlotte’s “I Don’t Wanna Be In Love”.

ready and waiting!

i like the bass playing on this album

been extremely enjoyable spinning this a couple of times this morning. Friday plus much-needed early spring weather plus neighbour's cat joining me for a listen to Jupiter and Mars - it's the perfect music and mood for it. v much looking forward to seeing them later this year.

i am in love with this album

more complete and confident than the last one (the emptiness of which was totally a feature not a flaw, but it's so nice to hear her sing over such ebullient material)

So many quietly great and funny lines too. Avalon has such a great knack for self-deprecation.

― Tim F, Thursday, March 19, 2026 4:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

she is SO funny

"god damn" is absolutely something that would appear on a 2026 scritti politti album

appropriate that the reference points I reach for with these new tracks are Fleetwood Mac’s “Eyes of the World, New Order’s “Regret”, Wire’s “Kidney Bongos”, Disco Inferno’s “The Last Dance”

thinking about these points of comparison really hard while listening to "country mouse"

Kidney Bongos is still giving me the lols

if it’s me and your kidney on bongos etc etc

this is absolutely marvelous so far, big yes re: the bass playing

this is pretty spectacular. "country mouse" and "god damn" are my favorites

Is bullion still producing? This sounds fantastic

I read a lukewarm review about it a couple of days ago. Fools. This is as good if not better than her last “& the charm” album.

bullion co-produced the whole record afaict

This is way better than ‘The Charm’.

^

I agree, I like the first one a lot, but this one has a fuller sound and a broader range of sonic ideas — which it shares with her DJ/producer work, an attunement to using sound to build textures and moods. She doesn't sell herself on hooks per se, but the melodies sink in.

This is all I've been listening to. Really enjoy her Stephin Merritt fandom continuing to bubble up, nine years or so after opening up her Printworks set with "I Shatter":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE82pShAbtE

I love how this album inhabits a kind of imaginary early-mid '90s, the indie-dance crossover era. Even a funky drummer beat on the title track. The reggae lilt on "Wooden Star." Even the backmasking at the start of "Country Mouse." It doesn't really sound like 1993, but it kind of feels like it.

ahh this album is great! and it's great *as an album*, I didn't really hear any obvious standouts, it all flowed seamlessly.

I very much agree with tipsy's post, plus "Really enjoy her Stephin Merritt fandom continuing to bubble up" -- I wasn't aware of this but there is definitely something SM about her writing + singing

my only complaint is that it's still winter here and this album radiates spring energy

I'm in Miami and the album has created spring energy.

It is in places more mild-mannered vocally than I want from an album like this but this is a Soto problem.

Yeah this landing on the literal first day of spring when the temps hit 70 here and everything's starting to bloom was seriously kind of magical.

It is in places more mild-mannered vocally than I want from an album like this but this is a Soto problem.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, March 25, 2026 2:41 PM (forty-one minutes ago)

I had a similar reaction at times, but by the end of the album I had decided it worked for this specific project — what at first seemed a little artless, by the end I was hearing it more as the correct voice for a daydream

I wasn't aware of this but there is definitely something SM about her writing + singing

― obvious old hat (rob), Wednesday, March 25, 2026 6:28 PM

Ah, if you haven't heard it, she covered "Long-Forgotten Fairytale" for her DJ-Kicks mix five or so years back!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjtzyGT7Ea8

(I think I also enjoy how her SM fandom is about the wonky synthpop side, rather than the trillion covers of "The Book of Love"/classicist mode he tends to pop up in, recently)

ah that's cool, and it was definitely Get Lost that the new album made me think of

xp looks like avalon had a grand lesbian road trip in utah five or so years back.

i've got a spare ticket for tonight's islington gig if anyone is interested. just dm me.

I hope someone took you up on this. I went to the show in Glasgow on Tuesday and it was excellent, even if it was in the worst venue and I was stoo beside the most annoying men who ever existed. The live version of Karaoke Song was astonishing and the whole thing felt so much more heavy and gothic than I was expecting, in an excellent way

that’s great to hear! in venue now and really looking forward to it. managed to offload the spare in the end.

yeah this was really excellent. as on the album (second one especially), the way avalon manages the density and textures of the music and its elements is so impressive and appealing. i don't necessarily immediately want to say 'like a dj set', but there was really good moment-to-moment structure. not as on the albums - yes! hard, sparse, gothic, dramatic, it sort of swooned from songwriting into dj-ing and out again. Karaoke Song was something else, but the way the whole gig transformed the recorded material just sent me out with a huge grin on my face.

ALSO very annoying man next to me. I don't know if he was expecting a sort of wispy indie or something, but he become increasingly agitated the more dj-ing and techno elements surfaced, folding his arms and refusing to clap, angrily expostulating to his partner, before storming out. hilarious. wanted to run after him and tell him did you know there's always been a dance element to avalon's music.

ALSO - this may be old man shouts at clouds stuff - but the amount of chatter in the crowd all the time *during the music* was something else. as i get older it does mean i can just turn round and say 'can you shut up?' while still not really wanting to have to - but it really was quite widespread. i feel it didn't always used to be like this but it something that's got noticeably worse in the last number of years. it was particularly evident last night because some of the sections were quite sparse and you could just hear people nattering away. you just want to go 'why are you here?'

BUT - one of the two older women next to me turned out to be the mother of the bassist and they loved it.

anyway, great gig - i don't know what i was expecting but it just caused an unexpected and bubbling delight throughout which hasn't quite evaporated.

yes, my most annoying men who ever existed beside me caused me to say loudly "oh my god can you shut up" and it worked for about a minute. I don't understand it at all - by the time you've bought tickets, transport in and out, and a few drinks you've easily spent £50 on your night, why not just stay home and play the album in the background if you're just interested in cahtting to your pals?