There’s More to Post-Ringtone than PC Music

The internet isn’t a competition that can be “won” or a shop that can be “shut down”, it’s just really big. Thousands of songs are uploaded to Soundcloud each day and starting now, we’re going to sort through them and present you with our favourites. This week:

We don’t really need to introduce PC Music to anyone. Like some sort of #GamerGate for people easily offended and enthralled by music, the London based collective – headed up by A.G Cook, loosely tied with SOPHIE, home to a new wave of stars who exist as virtual entities – has been debated, assessed, and plastered ad infinitum.

Some people hate them, others adore them like a pair of music-making unborn grandchildren. When XL Recordings - a label without a skidmark on their roster - put out “Hey QT”, the FACT Singles Club called it both “egregious” and the “way 90s musical nostalgia should be done”; concreting the sometimes-shunned notion that PC Music really can reduce listeners to squabbling old fools.

The last few months have been spent intellectualising the label’s output – which is totally fine, do whatever you want, look deeper into the meaning behind the most fun music released in years if you want – but in the process the whirring cogs which have continued to spur the movement have faded into the background, lost behind the glossy, brilliant blue press shot claimed by QT.

A (using official measurement terms here) buttload of artists have been creating similarly veined post-ringtone, food-coloured, whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-call it music since the beginning. I felt reminded about this when attending a night hosted by DIS Magazine – who are one of the scene's main players – at the Basement club in Central London last weekend. Like similar nights hosted in town – the Lottery, Eternals, wherever else has featured the sound – the capital’s young and fabulous turned out in dominating numbers. Listening to the music, and feeling lost in a different world, it felt resplendent of a new-wave movement; a sound catalysing a group of people who continue to face prejudice from society.

Standing there, drink in hand and attempting to formulate some sort of crush-pop shuffle, it became clear this scene is more than just PC Music, it means something to a growing number of people. The artists creating similar work have been covered in other places before, sure, but because it’s important they don’t get lost here’s some of the better releases.

"thank you for being so cool and so sweet to me". σníkα - who is marketed as some sort of video game character - captures the confusing heartbreak and butterfly rush that comes from continually marinading somewhere between the friend zone and something more.

lilangelboi came on our radio after CREAMCAKE - a Berlin based "thing" that puts on nights with the likes of Hannah Diamond and Kero Bonito Bonito - posted a comment underneath one of his songs.

Babe E. is based out in the United States and made a mix for DIS Magazine back in August.

"You're not. You're not. You're not that bad". Featuring PC Music's Girlfriend of the Year, "Not That Bad" kinda ties into that feeling when you're seeing someone mostly out of your own want to not be alone, rather than because they're actually good for you.

At times Cuushe retains the start-and-stop sound that's become intrinsic to the post-ringtone aesthetic, but it's washed in pulsating atmospherics that make the track feel smooth and resplendent.

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Manicure Records (based on the internet?) has a logo and that logo is the nail-painting emoji. Lilangelboi (featured above) is on their roster and I am convinced the above track, "One Last Time", is the closest we're going to get to a fully polished pop single.

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil