Eliza Lomas (FMA Admin)

With the past couple of year's music blogs cramming their tags with genres like 'experimental hip-hop', 'chillwave' and the slightly confusing 'post-dubstep', eager readers such as myself were beginning to lose track of the ever-evolving strands of sounds and accumulating artists. As often happens, there comes a point when buzz-words become a tad stale. This is especially relevant when trying to define the eclectic and miscellaneous sounds coming out of the Brainfeeder, Werkdiscs and Hotflush labels, for example.

As your senses are bombarded with myraid sounds of harmonious paranoia and ambiguous samples, it is often fruitless to try and compulsively classify what you are hearing.

Despite this, it is still possible to pin down one aspect of the scene. We can still trace the abstract sound of a city, and in this torpeeding branch of genres, there is no denying that L.A and London have been steadily weaving the inventive chaos in their distinct but important ways.

To pay homage to the cities, here are two young artists - Bare Girls (LDN) and Snorlax (L.A) from each that have grown up immersed in an entirely different upbringing of sound, and yet subtely overlap in this year's cross-boundried, post-everything, solid gold sound.

It is a well-documented fact that Detroit gave birth to techno in the glorious 80s. Fast forward thirty years, and although trailblazing techno producers such as Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Carl Craig were all born and are still living in the Motor City, if you wanted to actually hear them you would have to hope they were out of town. Save for the ever-faithful Underground Resistance record shop, today’s Detroit has little left to offer for techno.

Despite this dearth of a scene, legends still emerge from Detroit’s depths with a sound as prominent and exciting as if the sound was still alive and evolving, with young acts like Jimmy Edgar pummelling seductive techno so thrilling as to be snapped up by Warp whilst still in his teens. For the FMA, INQ Magazine has offered a track showing another side of him, as One Twenty Detail V3 1 is swooning deep house of the highest calibre.

The clubbing sounds of Michigan have been driven right through to Europe, and specifically to the deliriously vibrant deserted corners of East Berlin warehouses.

Berghain/Panorama Bar is perhaps the most renowned place of the warehouse culture. Described as a cathedral for techno, DJs have been reduced to tears at ungodly hours on a Sunday afternoon, as the passion of the crowd is omnipotent and their energy nothing short of miraculous.  Jimmy Edgar has often strutted his sets here, as well as Berlin natives AGF/Delay, who are partners Antye Greie (AGF) and Finland's Vladislav Delay (aka Sasu Ripatti / Luomo). As AFG/Delay they are lucky enough to belong to electronic goddess Ellen Allien’s BPitch Control label, and as individuals, Ripatti is a world-renowned electronic experimentalist and Greie is a sound artist and poet. Their offering here is laid-back trip-hop, recommended on the journey home from Berghain.

For more of Greie's free music, go to Poem Producer. 

The Wave Pictures are a perfect personification of youthful English mentality: self-deprecating, wittily ironic and in lust with America. With song titles like 'Now You Are Pregnant' and 'Dressing Up Like Snowmen', you can expect the lyrical content to waiver between tongue-in-cheek and downright crude. Their musical production may be classed as lo-fi, but with the addition of quirky trumpets and catchy chorus', you cannot help but fall in love with this three-piece.

Their digital 7" addition to the archive comes as a series from the Ampeater Music label, with tons of other great bands on, and even more on their way.

I'll suggest one reasonable explanation for why this band call themselves the "Superhumanoids".

It was founded by those kind of abnormally talented people who contribute to so many exceptional projects that they should probably have a more elated title, like "superhumanoids", which sets them apart from the rest of us plain "humans".

Up on the FMA they have kindly offered their self-produced debut EP 'Urgency'- a work of glistening, astronomical electro-pop talent that is gaining momentum as a metorite, ready to make its earthly impact any day.

Cameron Parkins formed the band in his spare time, which suggests his invicible human nature, as he also acts as Creative Commons Curator on the FMA, a digital activist, a designer, a photographer and co-founder of Hit City record label. With other band member Sarah Chernoff, they also squeeze in some garage-punk in on the side as The Franks. If Superhumanoids carry on in this direction they will have conquered the world in no time.

Highly recommended: Their debut album and recent remixes for the Meanest Man Contest and Xiu Xiu (check the rest out on their Soundcloud).

Brooklyn based Don Trust makes collage style electronica which is alluringly unnerving and achingly satisfying. 

Chopped up coversations, blues vocals and dulcet female tones are overlayed with electronic loops and intensely strummed guitars, laying out a fragmented yard of visual-audio mayhem.

His style in these tracks is reminiscent of one of FMA's all time top tracks- Mercy by Lucky Dragons, due to the climatic effect of the pasted layers of vocals and sounds. 

It wouldn't surprise anyone to hear he also works as a visual artist. If you like the sounds, you will like the sights too.

Stanton Moore is best known for being a founding member of legendary New Orleans funk band Galactic. Away from this, he has a solo career which spotlights him as all-round inspiring musician, innovator and teacher. His dedication to funk drumming is surpassed only by the love of his home, New Orleans, where jazz was created and where people like him are investing their time and talents to keep it as vibrant as ever.

In April this year he released the book 'Groove Alchemy', an essential investigation into the original elements of funk and groove drumming. He gives invaluable insight into how his drumming is turned to gold: combining masterful, experienced rhythms with the characteristic laid-back lilt of New Orleans.

The release of this book reflects the type of musician Moore is. From providing masterclasses in the Big Easy drumming style, to introducing his own titanium snare drum, to setting up a scholarship for young aspiring musicians post-Katrina, Moore's heart and soul are truely backing every beat he makes.

"Error" is the glitch that interferes with crept over mainstream hip-hop. "Broadcast" refers to Chuck D's idea of rap as an alternative social organ. Together, it's golden age independent hip-hop.

This is the mantra behind the record and net-label Error-Broadcast, who release off-kilter electronica blended with experimental hip-hop. Run by Flip and Swift, they have picked prodcucers from all shores to represent their sound of the future. The FMA holds a selection of their output from 2009, and the following comes highly recommended.

Added by Phlow Magazine, LA's shlohmo creates breezy hip-hop with familiar West Coast Low End Theory vibes. He infuses his beats with abstract echos of night-time backyards- unfamiliar yet wholly endearing. Perhaps the best way to describe his musical creations would be what he named his album- "shlo-fi". 

Face up raw and infected, face down soulful and majestic, Kenlo Craqnuques has left in FMA's hands two astonishing albums. His most recent being the dub heavy, Madlib inspired Brun is an epic 17 track chaotically charged killer.

For more of an overview of Error-Broadcast, listen to Pixelord pt. 2 - The Remixes, a compilation which features a variety of their artists such as Russia's RBMA graduate DZA, Demokracy and AshTreJinkins.

Read more at Error-Broadcast.

Around this time last year, FMA featured the stella Hungarian net label Budabeats. The excitement around the label largely swarmed around the Sympaty Modul album from Suhov- a nu-jazz feel super-good download with flutters of Bollywood and mambo.

This year, M.W.D have been added to their collection. Keeping up the labels leading reputation. Singing Forest is a shudderingly good down-tempo jazz record with hiphop inflections and danceable rhythms.

If the lyric from Fol Chen's single 'In Ruins' doesn't grab your attention, as everything about this band does, then you must have been away from the blogosphere for the past few months. Worthily hyped as refreshingly skewed pop and melodramatic electro, this single embodies their deceptive playfulness that turns you giddy.

Equally worth noting is the remix by Baths, a fellow LA musician with an upbringing of experimental hiphop beats and sun-drenched hazy vocals, turning polite summer pop into an acid rain thunderstorm.

For a complete immersion, check out the dublab Fol Chen live "sprout session."

There is no doubt that we all appreciate the importance in supporting local and national music scenes. The difficulty more often lies in keeping on top of scenes elsewhere that aren't given enough limelight.

In the case of Romania's burgeoning electronic music scene, proximity to the country may be an issue for most us in the rest of the world. Luckily for us, the Romanian net label Local Records is rectifying this issue by distributing some of their best artists' tracks for download on the FMA.

Showering us with new genres and interesting sounds, this label is propelling artists on the top of their game. Anything you may have heard about Romanian scene will be attached to this label (think Cosmin TRG and The Model). We will all be wishing they were a little more local.

From the selection, listen to Minus- a Red Bull Music Academy graduate who creates wistful Dub, improvises groovy bass and masters heavenly synth-pop.

For an introduction to Balaeric Dub, listen to the transcendental Bogdan, who has provided us with an hour long live mix of sandy beach smooth and crystal water cool.

To get an overview of it all, do the easy thing and download the Local Records Buzz!Ro 2010 compilation.

Find out more: Local Records website