Electric Feels: Your Electronic Music Recap feat. Petit Biscuit, Huntly, Feels + more

The world's electronic music scene moves quickly. Every week, we're treated to a horde of different singles, remixes, albums and more from the genre's vast sub-genre umbrella and often, it's hard to keep up. Here's where we try to bring you up to speed, covering five of our favourite electronic releases from the week just gone. Check out Pilerats' homepage for more brilliant music and news.

Petit Biscuit - Wide Awake 

In this time since his debut album Presence arrived back in 2017, Petit Biscuit has seemingly gone from strength to strength. His two-track release Suffer / Safe showed more experimental and adventurous side of the French young-gun and between shows at Listen Out and covering Phoenix's 1901 for triple j's Like A Version, we know he's an expert at the live show too - doing things that not too many other musicians are doing within the more bass-driven realm of electronica. Now he's back once again, kicking off his 2019 with a single that marries some of Petit Biscuit's many sides as a multi-faceted producer and songwriting, whether it be the hazy, airy synth that whistles over the top some of his past work and on Wide Awake, or the single's thick underlay, which warps between styles without sounding too messy or over-done. "I wanted Wide Awake to be a track that defies genres... it encompasses an audacious blend of my world music and chill universe, that ends up completely broken up by bass music," he says on the single, noting that defying edge the single holds. "Like a relentless battle between nature and digital."

Huntly - Giving Circle 

The lead-up to Huntly's debut album Low Grade Buzz (out via Barely Dressed Records / Remote Control on March 15) has been one marked with some incredible singles, with the Melbourne trio showcasing many different sides to themselves as musicians and people as they further solidify and expand their work. Drop Gear offered soothing, R&B-infused verses with driving percussive breakdowns in the same song; Wiggle gave us a bouncy and upbeat pop bop that is amongst 2018's best singles; Low Grade Buzz offered something a little more tender and emotive; and now, there's Giving Circle, a three-minute moment of gospel that unites Elspeth soft vocal with swelling synth melodies and soft drum kicks which eventually, warp into this more funk-driven sound that deepens the track's flavour. “Giving Circle is a pop tragedy, combining rawness and intimacy with movement and energy," Elspeth explains on the track. "It’s about dread, loneliness, and how we shift and adjust to our social landscapes after the end of a relationship." Catch the trio at a pair of album launch shows in May - dates HERE.

Feels - Phia 

Perth electronic duo are seemingly going from strength to strength with every release, whether it be on their more pop-centric, radio-friendly work with names like Stella Donnelly and ZĀN or singles like Binary Bounce, which jump and leap with their percussive experimentalism that keeps you on your toes - never failing to warp or switch-up multiple times in one song. Their latest track Phia is one among the second category, taking things back to their instrumental roots for a track centred around percussive intricacy, combining layers thick with percussion hits and bubbling samples with quick-firing melodies that just become more and more complex as the single draws longer. "We had a studio looking over the ocean on the cliffs of Piha, I got to go surfing every day and I feel like I really got to capture the beach-side vibe and bubbling sounds of our time in that beautiful place – it definitely comes through in the sound design," they say on the single. "We had a lot of fun writing this track and definitely felt our relaxed surroundings gave us the freedom and time to experiment with the energetic beats and rhythms. I think the hook came so naturally because we literally woke up inspired every day, ready to write new music."

breathe. - London

One of our favourite local discoveries of last year came from Australian super-duo breathe., whose incredible debut single Are You All Good? came with a bunch of applause from some of Australia's biggest and best names ("Pure ecstasy. I’m infatuated with this song and everything about it. breathe. are the future." - Peking Duk). Composed of Sean Walker and Andrew Grant, the duo's debut single gave us a moment of stripped-back perfection, "opening with a muted, yet gradually loudening vocal that eventually, is joined by a soft synth melody and stripped-back percussion that give it this cloudy, late-night feeling that is thick with emotion" - as we said when it was released last year. Their second single, London, is just as impressive, opening with washed-away piano chords that eventually serve as the underlay for a swooning vocal and that's about it; it's a masterclass as beautiful electronic minimalism and while some acts go with a little too little, breathe. find that perfect balance - allowing us to enter a world we want to enter again and again and again.

Mild Minds - Embracer 

With his debut EP Swim late last year, Melbourne musician Mild Minds stepped forward as a quickly-growing Australian producer worth checking out. His debut EP was released through ODESZA's Foreign Family Collective - joining the likes of RÜFÜS DU SOL, Golden Features and Running Touch - and just last month he gave the label heads' own Just A Memory for a spin, reworking the Regina Spektor-featuring moment for their official remix album. Now he's back once again, returning with an absolute pearler of a single titled Embracer. Embracer is a song that deepens as it flows, with chiming melodies mixing with soft synth work and compactly-layered snare hits before eventually, a whispering vocal enters the mix, only adding to the single's hauntingly subtle - but effective - sound. It's a bit of a different sound for the producer, but it works, making us excited-as-hell for what he has planned.