Software Records x Northside Festival present: Thug Entrancer // Co La // GABI

A summation of varied approaches to electronic music, Thug Entrancer draws influence from pioneering electronic and experimental composers.


Co La is the primary project of musician and producer Matt Papich, whose explorations of sample-based electronic music have culminated in Moody Coup.

The emotional palette of Moody Coup, Papich's second album and first for Software Recording Co., is more complex than its exuberant predecessor Daydream Repeater (NNA Tapes 2011). Where that record's relentlessly bucolic tone drew from the saccharine core of reggae, exotica, and 60s girl groups, the bedrock of Moody Coup is elusive and abstract.

The various genre coinages that have been tagged to Co La's music before – new exotica, Avant-luxury, furniture music, etc. – fail to accommodate the brainier obsessions behind Moody Coup's genesis. A new brand of alchemy occurs in the album, where cryptic sources are enhanced and embellished to a point of transcendence. This departure is the brilliant process of Co La's unpredictable electronic music.

Highlights of Moody Coup include "Remarkable Features", which consolidates the prior seismic scope of Daydream Repeater into a dance floor standout. "Deaf Christian" transforms a Neil Sedaka doo-wopper into a mesmerizingly dark House cut, complete with synth chasms and haunting voice chants (supplied here and throughout the record by Angel Deradoorian). The meticulously crafted "Suspicious" ventures into more calming pastures — an extra dimensional, dubbed-out take on the Psychic TV gem by the same name.

At the outset of Moody Coup, "Sukiyaki (To Die For)" melodically alludes to the Kyu Sakamoto song "Sukiyaki." The original was penned as a mournful assessment of post-war Japan's relationship to the US, albeit dressed by Sakamoto as a love song. Ironically, "Sukiyaki" became a hit oversees in the US and was later covered by A Taste of Honey. Rather than translating the lyrics, A Taste of Honey set new words to the original melody. (Stranger still, the word "Sukiyaki" itself refers to a Japanese hot dish.)

It's important to note that the wide range of reference sources does not serve Moody Coup as a superficial demonstration of Papich's eclectic taste. Instead, all of the micro pieces function mosaically, creating an impression at a macro level that is extremely potent as music as well as concept. Co La's intellectual obsessions are rooted in questions about how music is dilated by the cultures who created it and the power structures that shape those cultures (see "Sukiyaki"), while his musical obsessions are always rooted in the sensual, the beautiful and the immediate.

Papich describes the working Co La method on Moody Coup as "employing the hegemony of delete." He likes to be interrupted, and is fond of working in places where domestic concerns are on equal terms with studio practice. Much of Moody Coup was made in the kitchen of Papich's Baltimore home — a place where he describes having the "best interruptions." Assistant to Papich's production was friend Joe Williams, who programmed and performed all synths. Tracks were additionally consolidated from field recordings, samples and composed in Ableton Live and mixed in Brooklyn at Gary's Electric Studio, located at the Software HQ.


GABI (neé Gabrielle Herbst) joined the Dan Lopatin's Software Recording Co. family in 2014. Formally trained at an early age in Balinese dance, gamelan, the clarinet and piano, Herbst continued studied voice and composition under the tutelage of Joan Tower, Zeena Parkins and Marina Rosenfeld at Bard College. Her work has already been showcased at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, as well as Roulette, who earlier in 2014 commissioned and premiered her first opera Bodiless.

Herbst's experience writing for chamber orchestra and mixed instrumentation inspired her to develop a repertoire of short-form, vocal-centric compositions under the name GABI. These were driven by solitary explorations in early 2013 with a dual-track loop pedal.

"Koo Koo", her debut recording single released in September 2014 by Software, marks GABI's studio immersion to further develop these vocal compositions. She is joined by her band Matthew O'Koren (percussion), Rick Quantz (viola), Josh Henderson (violin), and Aaron Roche (electric guitar / trombone).

More recordings will surface in 2015.