Another one culled from Sean Johnson’s most recent ESB. This one comes in a couple before the EL EF OH edit and is a percolating, teutonic monster. The very essence of next level hell. If Hieronymous Bosch set his paintings to music, then this is one possible soundtrack. It’s midnight creeper, a dystopian heavy breather. Lovely out-of-body chug from Germany.
Listening to this brings back all sorts of memories. Mainly those of a vast relationship, the other half of which was a big JC fan. The name comes from a character from Graham Greene’s ‘Brighton Rock’ which was in turn inspired by an English playwright. The track itself is a multi-layered piece of folk-tinged rock in which Cope portrays himself as some sort of renaissance everyman transcending normal life experiences in the process of revealing his innermost desires. Aside from the pretentious claptrap I’ve just felt compelled to write though, it’s a hypnotic excursion.
This is great, as heard on Sean Johnston’s most recent ALFOS ‘EBS’ Mix. LFO goes chug thanks to one of a series of versions by TELL EDITS. Nothing more to say really, except that it does the business.
What I like about this is its pervasive seediness. On the surface it’s a shuffling groover, but there’s an undertow of friction and filth. I don’t know much about Ollie Drummond. However, on the strength of this, which was released at the end of last year, he’s definitely got his finger on that warehouse groove pulse and is one to watch. The chasmic sonic background is also a big plus. There’s. Nothing like getting down in a messy environment with the unsettling sound of low end sirens going off all around you.
Title: Alliance Remixed
Artist: GLOK/Timothy Clerkin
Label: Bytes
Cat Number: BYTES33
Genre: Cosmic
01: Empyrean (FROID DUB Remix)
02: AmigA (bdrmm Remix)
03: Nothing Ever (Tom Sharkett Remix)
04: Scattered (Yu Su’s Scattering Cross-Section)
05: The Witching Hour (Richard Sen Remix)
06: E-Theme (Legowelt Rave Filter Remix)
07: Nothing Ever Reprise (Xylitol Remix)
08: AmigA (Timothy Clerkin Jungle Mix)
09: The Empyrean Hour (Timothy Clerkin Mix)
Well worth the wait this. An album full of reinterpretations of 2024’s ‘Alliance’ which, while excellent, was always crying out to move in tangential directions. The FROID DUB remix of ‘Empyrean’ sounds like something the Lost ones would soundtrack their cylindrical wanderings to (Beckett innit). Magnificent 303 squelches like popping, muddy geysers. I’m taking the two ‘AmigA’ mixes together, obviously because they’re drum and bass, or are they jungle? (Paging Amol Rajan). Timothy Clerkin seems to think so. It’s much harsher than the drum and bass from bdrmm, and has a bit more vim and vigour. Both keep the chiming overlay motif, with Clerkin amplifying the chorals and bdrmm taking the sub bass to the bridge. Both great and sufficiently distinct. Tom Sharkett utilises break beats and a singular synth to support the bittersweet vocals of ‘Nothing Ever’. While the ‘Xylitol Remix’ of the same track once more dips the listener in the sheep dip of drum and bass, or is it jungle? I’m guessing somewhere on the genre’s asteroid belt. Richard Sen’s version of ‘The Witching Hour’ is the most chug-friendly track on this release so far. And I’ve definitely heard this before at some of the right places. Brilliant logo funk cauterised by hubby overtones straight from the krautrock firmament. ‘’E-Theme (Legowelt Rave Filter Remix)’ delves into Detroit for its template and while it’s at it, overlays itself with enough woozy auditory embellishments to induce a sonic hangover. There’s more than an ambient, disembodied whiff of being caught inside an hallucinatory lost frontier while listening to ‘Scattered (Yu Su’s Scattering Cross-Section)’. It’s impressionism perfectly evoking the parts other drugs cannot reach. And everything seems to coalesce perfectly at the last during Timothy Clekin’s remix of ‘The Empyrean Hour’. A wonderfully dissonant romp through a myriad of the best bits of ‘The Empyrean’ and ‘The Witching Hour’, which combine to create some sort of chugtastic offspring. Lovely stuff.
A piece of hard, rigid techno for you here. I heard this the other evening, running in the pouring rain and listening to Steffi’s Dekmantel Selectors Mix. This track comes from her label, Dolly’s 15th anniversary compilation and, although I have yet to listen to the other tracks, this one sounded splendid and took my mind off the soaking that I was getting. Dolly has always been a label I’ve leapt my eye on, and the size of that compilation can only mean that there must be a few more decent tunes on it. The last two sets I’ve listened to by Steffi have pointed in a hard direction, which is fine as long as its well-programmed. Fortunately she doesn’t; disappoint.
Deep house coupled with preachy spoken word overlays can often come across as cliched. Not this though. ‘ A.T.O.N.E.M.E.N.T.’ comes in two versions. Version 2 is a bouncier, more uptempo mix, but I prefer this one. It’s more stripped down and more dissonant which seems to have made every element denser and more defined. The spoken word is used very sparingly and lends drama when it emerges. Super deep for dayz.
This comes from the ‘A Soul For A Soul’ EP on David Holmes’ EPI, named after Andy Warhol’s & Paul Morrisey’s pre-psychedelic rave precursor happenings which featured The Velvet Underground. It’s a piece of characteristically emotive idm, the best examples of its type being produced in The UK in the early to mid nineties. Anything with that sunrise vibe tempered by fizzing break beats and synaptic sizzles is always a sure fire winner in the analogue warmth department. I was about to put this for sale on Discogs, but have since changed my mind.
Something mellow and funky for your Sunday afternoon. Herbie Hancock electrifies Curtis Mayfield’s classic. And, while not necessarily improving in the original, takes it in a slightly different direction by tweaking its giblets and even throwing a self-indulgent guitar solo in that doesn’t feel at all out of place. Loose and languid.
A great mixing track, and a deceptively complex one as well. It’s Geiger counter - like synth stabs overlaid by all manner of transcendental sonic embellishments. It’s value will almost certainly climb on Discogs due to the fact that it features in Jane Fitz’s 2025 Houghton set as one of the stand out tracks. It evokes other memories for me however. It was released in 2000, so was already 8 years old when I was last in Barcelona for the off-Sonar parties and spent the Saturday might of that weekend at The Macarena, a small club off Las Ramblas, at an all-nighter with Master H and Funk d’Void playing. The night was distinctive for me wandering off early, well at around 4am, and getting mugged shortly after. This happened, in spite of all the warnings and me seeing the muggers well in advance. I literally walked into it. More pick-pocketed than mugged, as there was no violence. And I have to applaud the perpetrators. They saw me coming a mile off and were very professional. Anyway, this track is elegant in its simplicity and a relic of that night, well the bit within the club’s walls.
