Work Money Death
Work Money Death, Discovery Zone, K Wata, Nia Archives, Suss, Doel Festival, DJ John “Jammin” Collins, new Terminal Optimism summer playlist.
Hello all. This one’s got a jazz record about grief that isn’t sad, Nia Archives making a jungle pop album, seven tracks written for a planetarium dome in Berlin, dub techno and ambient country from opposite ends of New York, and 30 new songs lined up for the summer on the new edition of my Terminal Optimism playlist.
♩WORK MONEY DEATH: (Spiritual Jazz, Modal Jazz) — A Portal To Here · 2026 //
A slow churn for the dead, sorrowful in a cosmic way but never sad.
Saxophonist Tony Burkill is an interesting figure for today’s attention-cravers. Nearly three decades as a fixture of the Leeds scene and he never once chased a national profile. Work Money Death was actually the name of his 2017 debut, and the players he pulled from The Sorcerers and Nat Birchall’s band, stuck around and became the band.
After the passing of their guitarist Chris “Earl” Dawkins in early 2025, A Portal to Here is four long-form pieces about death, grief and remembrance, with titles like “Pain Becomes Prayer And Prayer Becomes A Song” and “Sometimes It’s Death” and of course “Brother Earl”. But don’t fret, this is not sad music. It’s touching, meditative, sorrowful in a cosmic way, but never sad.
The opener, “Pain becomes Prayer” is slow and cinematic, Alice Roberts’s harp pulling it toward the Alice Coltrane end of spiritual jazz. That slow churn makes it indispensable for fans of slower and heavy jazz.
Listen to “A Dance for The Spirits” below, and you’ll feel the Holy Spirit awaken in you. Maybe you can escape the Work Money Death cycle if you really listen with your heart.
RIYL: Bohren & der Club of Gore, Fire! Orchestra, Black Motor.
♩NIA ARCHIVES: (Jungle, Alt-Pop, Breakbeat) — Emotional Junglist · 2026
Dehaney Hunt aka Nia Archives wrote Emotional Junglist, her second album after 2024’s Mercury-nominated Silence is Loud, across 2025; a year she spent falling in and out of love. She’d already sealed her place in my head when I caught her DJing at Primavera a few years back, but the singles this year put her on a pedestal and I’ve been craving the album since.
I can hear the purists filing a complaint about the jungle content here because anyone arriving for the amen breaks will notice how much room they’ve given up for her voice. At this point it’s a jungle-inspired pop album. “Vertical” and “Tender” would survive an acoustic guitar, and the first single “Danger” is the ultimate summer hit. Two songs feature UK heavyweights, Jorja Smith and Sampha (who also shares production duty). It’s x10 better than the lousy pop you hear these days.
NME‘s Alex Rigotti went four and a half and called it her most fully realised thing, Fantano gave it an 8. I’m hooked on this album, and can’t stop listening, what else do you need?
RIYL: For fans of Burial‘s ache more than his rhythms, old farts who remember Kosheen.
♩DISCOVERY ZONE: (Art Pop, Ambient Pop, Electronic) — Library Copy (Do Not Remove) · 2026 // Written for a Berlin planetarium dome and 49 speakers. Listen if you prefer to trip with the DMT elves to the Sims soundtrack.
What is a Mondo Times edition, without some weird little project, right? JJ Weihl aka Discovery Zone’s solo album on RVNG Intl., is exactly that. This was conceived with World Brain as an in-situ immersive sound art piece written for the Zeiss-Großplanetarium Dome in Berlin, mixed in Ambisonics and played through 49 speakers, and the album is the stereo document of that event.
Thematically, it’s seven tracks built around a “circular library” an eternally expanding information network containing everything that ever was or will be. 🤯 Kinda like the Akashic records, if you believe that mumbo jumbo. Or as one funny friend said, Borges with synthesizers.
If you prefer to trip with the DMT elves to the Sims soundtrack, or James Ferraro’s 2011 album “Far Side Virtual” you’re in for a treat. Just don’t get stuck in a Microsoft Encarta CD.
RIYL: James Ferraro, OPN, Steve Hauschildt
♩K WATA: (Dub Techno, Ambient Dub) — Give U Space · 2026
I got hipped to New York producer Kenzo Perron’s first album under the K Wata name through a Futurism Restated post, and boy, it’s an album to make Mark Ernestus proud. Dub plus techno has birthed a multiplicity of derivative and boring music since its inception: for every Luomo and Pole there are fifty you’ve already forgotten. But the first few chords of “Looking Glass” will tell you this is something else. Gothic atmospheric minimal dub? I don’t know, I just made that up.
This should have been the soundtrack to Backrooms as the cover art clearly aspires to and the Pitchfork reviewer just put his finger on the most important bit, the clinical attention to detail:
RIYL: Ghost Dubs, Vocalcity era Luomo, Basic Channel.
♩SUSS: (Ambient Country, Pedal Steel, Minimalism) — Counting Sunsets · 2026
The reason I can quite easily label this music Ambient Country without asking what the hell Ambient Country is first, is that the music conjures exactly what it means and it’s such a fitting name. Serene mornings in the Appalachian mountains, bonfires and camping with a pedal steel guitar playing, slow motion rides through an empty country. It seems Bob Holmes of the band was the one who actually coined the term, so who are we to object to that!.
Ten different ways of watching the same one go down. Lots of pedal steel, synthesizers, acoustic guitars and a gentle bass underneath it all.
RIYL: Chuck Johnson, Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas score, Raymond Richards.
Very nice write-up by British writer Roger Robinson about how the Soundsystem culture shapes the youth, and the people.
Over time, respect altered your position. From carrying boxes to carrying vinyl. From coiling cables to wiring them yourself. Eventually, Dana spoke to me directly. Invited me to meetings. Stood beside me at events rather than nodding and moving on. I began to understand that a soundsystem was not merely machinery through which music passes. It was a system of people, of roles, of discipline. A place where you learned how to be seen without demanding to be seen.
👀 The Rise of the Corporate Rave
None of us need another reason to hate brands at festivals. Business techno, and the sponsor arch are but some of the reasons we complain every year but we keep buying tickets and make the suits at Live Nation richer. Pitchfork just ran a piece on how far the word “rave” has drifted: sauna raves, Shrek raves, Labubu raves, sober sunrise parties with a logo on them. McSweeney’s simultaneously published “You Are Hereby Sentenced to Attend a Music Festival”
Also, one night when you’re standing so far back from the stage that you won’t even know who is playing, the temperature will dive to 40 degrees, and you’ll be forced to buy a $125 sweatshirt from the merch stand.
Then there are magicians like the team behind Doel Festival, who built a festival in an abandoned village in Flanders, Belgium. The only problem is that their success might be the reason that the village is now being revitalised under a Flemish Government masterplan, one that already foresees a Doel with no festival in it.
Same script every time. The weirdos make the place worth visiting, then the plan arrives.
👀 Watch this 25+ minutes aftermovie for a treatise in how to do a festival and how to shoot one.
👀 Also Kino Library for 80’s raves video archives.
👀 New Commute has a primer on a new generation of Lounge, Exotica artists drawing equally from library music, exotica, and OSTs, which as you know is a favourite of me and my radio shows. Artists featured include Moon Mullins, Domenique Dumont, Maston, Molly Lewis and Monster Rally, among others.
👀 I don’t like listening to talking heads on Instagram yet I’ve belatedly discovered ear vortex, a contributor to Pitchfork and The Wire among others. I caught his rant about Baile Funk being labeled as experimental music by Non-Brazilians, but I especially loved his latest harsh critiques of 2026 albums, which dare I say -finally- includes BoC.
🪦 RIP DJ John “Jammin” Collins
Detroit techno legend DJ John “Jammin” Collins has died.
Collins is known for his decades-long affiliation with Underground Resistance, and co-founder Mike Banks’ imprint, Submerge Recordings. He has a short interview here on DJ Mag’s “Exploring the queer roots of Detroit techno” feature, itself a very good read.
I started playing straight clubs before transitioning into gay clubs, and I felt comfortable at both. For me it was about the music, and how you could make the crowd move. It’s interesting to look back at those days now. It was somehow simpler. I was just happy to be earning my $45 a night, a little gay DJ doing his thing.”
♩ THE PLAYLIST — 30 new songs
I’ve updated the flagship playlist with 30 new songs, put together as a summer soundtrack. Don’t worry, no cheesy Ibiza house.
Trip-hop and jazz from Tara Clerkin Trio and Momoko Gill, and the new single from the upcoming Avalanches album. Neo-soul from Aja Monet, Isaiah Sharkey and GENA. Jazz and jazz-adjacent stuff from Joe Armon-Jones of Ezra Collective, Flea and Lakecia Benjamin.
Afrobeat and soulful world dance from Leon Bridges (the only artist here twice, couldn’t pick one), Owelu Dreamhouse and The Womack Sisters. Summery indie pop from Grace Ives and Shabason & Krgovich, and it ends on house and D&B, closing with Nia Archives and a Vybz Kartel & Shy FX anthem. Check it, in order please. This has been one of the most focused and smooth-flowing playlists in recent times. Hope you like it!
You can also stream it on Apple Music
And that’s all folks! If one of these five landed for you, forward it to one person you know who’d actually play it. That’s the only way this thing has grown since 2005. And if somebody forwarded this to you, the subscribe button is right here. X