Sunday, July 31, 2022
Saturday, July 30, 2022
Friday, July 29, 2022
Thursday, July 28, 2022
In The Shadows - Controlled Weirdness (Cultivated Electronics Ltd)
Title: In The Shadows
Artist: Controlled Weirdness
Label: Cultivated Electronics Ltd
Cat Number: CELTD010
Genre: Electro
A1: Inside Agitators
A2: Bleeker St
AA1: In The Shadows
AA2: Corona Acid
Controlled Weirdness, aka Neil Keating, is a new name to me. However, reading about his exploits on the press release he sounds like the proverbial underground electro hero. And that’s one of the great things about this music, the constant unearthing of gems with great backstories which are remarkable in themselves, all the more so because their participants aren’t better known. So, even though he’s appeared on a variety of labels, let’s hope that this propels him to some more rarified recognition. The first thing that one of my son’s said on hearing a snatch of ‘Bleeker St.’ was that it sound like Mario, and indeed, the video game influence is very strong in this one. It could be a bit overwhelming in the correct set of circumstances. ‘Inside Agitators’ is a spacier, more sanguinly propelled affair and has the wind under its electro wings. ‘In The Shadows’ sounds like it’s got a cyborg Thelonious Monk on keys as it muscles its way through the funky undergrowth, and ‘Corona Acid’ rounds things off nicely with the 303 feeling like it could run for days on its own kinetic flanging. This is great music to listen to during a heatwave, and is as diverse and inventive within the template as you could want.
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Surrender - Das Special (Spezial)
Title: Surrender
Artist: Das Special
Label: SPEZIAL
Cat Number:SPZL011
Genre: Evil
1: Sophia
2: Nahid
3: Shayar
4: Sophia (Matrixxman ‘Medusa’ Mix)
5: Sophia (Matrixxman ‘’Cyborg’ Mix)
6: Nahid (Live Version)
You’ve got to love music as uncompromisingly grinding and dark as this. There’s much darker and uncompromising for sure, but this manages to retain an outside chance of being played down your local fleshpot instead of being consigned to the mind rave. All original versions feel like they were being recorded through a treacle filter, yet still manage to retain a semblance of clarity. The bpms are relatively low, but that only intensifies the experience. ‘Nahid’ sounds like it incorporates a piano being played by Les Dawson on Crack, as well as a slowed down sax from hell. ‘Shayer’ must have been recorded in the bombed out church at the top of Renshaw St with the stars shining over the roof. ‘Sophia’ is a track on a mission to wipe all human life from the face of the Earth. And both Matrixxman remixes of Sophia speed the groove up, the ‘Medusa’ mix being particularly useful and having a nice ALFOS vibe for late in the set. The ‘Cyborg’ mix is great, but too quick of the mark for my feet at least. Lovely stuff!
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Voyager - Tjade (Bordello A Parigi)
Title: Voyager
Artist: Tjade
Label: Bordello A Parigi
Cat Number: BAP170
Genre: Italo
A1: Voyager
A2: In Contact
B1: Shut Out
B2: Voyager (Marlon Hoffstadt aka DJ Daddy Trance Remix)
Bordello A Parigi really is a label I should indulge more, as every time I hear something on it I’m transported. And Tjade has come correct with the synthetic, melodic meanderings as only an italo observer can. The title track relies on a throbbing synth line around which to adorn its dramatic splashes of discotek-embellished drama. Simple, and devilishly effective. I’m not feeling the remix though. Duracell bunny bleep test vibes and the worse of eurotrance. ‘In Contact’ traipses down the same path as ‘Voyager’, with some kind of weird pied piper underlay. The euphoric undulation is there, as is the feeling of having been up all night on a Rimini dancefloor circa 1983 once it finishes. ‘Shut Out’ updates the sound by virtue of break beats. There’s been a lot of it about over the last few years, and this dramatic rendering adds necessary edge.
Monday, July 25, 2022
Laser Mode - Cygnus (Biosoft)
Title: Laser Mode
Artist: Cygnus
Label: Biosoft
Cat Number:
Genre: Electro
1: Superneutral
2: Activating Laser Mode
3: Very Super Natural
4: Ishii’s Innerelemental Boutique
5: Naomi’s Laser Paradise
6: Rise Of The Robots (Making Of A Cyborg)
7: The Laser Lounge
8: Que Viva Vangelos
9: Marlon Gladstone’s Science Workshop (Creation Of The Robot Cult)
10: Utopian Skies
11: Y Que Viva Vangelos
12: The Biosoft Wellness Shoppe
13: Deactivating Laser Mode
The prolific and extremely talented Cygnus seems to have a boundless imagination. Conceptually, ‘Laser Mode’ comes correct, painting a vivid electronic picture of an intergalactic future where all senses are radically enhanced and the imagination is unfettered. Cygnus, aka Philip Washington, comes on like a latter day electro Prince, playing and saying everything on this wonderful, encyclopaedic collection. I wish that I could do justice to this album with words, but I doubt it. And although normally pigeonholed as electro, this is so much more. ‘Very Super Natural’ is one of the best and smoothest pieces of house I’ve heard in a long time; ‘Rise Of The Robots (Making Of A Cyborg)’ is a beat less ambient piece that could soundtrack ‘Metropolis’’ ‘Maschinenmensch’ scene in a parallel universe. ‘Marlon Gladstone’s Science Workshop (Creation Of The Robot Cult)’ is a great piece of off-kilter machine funk that insidiously burns its bottom-heavy beats into your brain by way of sinister syncopation; and ‘The Biosoft Wellness Shoppe’ is a paean to dislocated futurist hippies everywhere. Nothing crystallises the feeling of living in a fug of funk better than the first two tracks though. ‘Superneutral’ and ‘Activating Laser Mode’ are stunning soundtrack facets to fictional low riding within the subtropical suburbs of a reimagined afrofuturist hinterland.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Friday, July 22, 2022
Thursday, July 21, 2022
Dream States & Absurdities ll - DKAPZ (DKAPZ)
Title: Dream States & Absurdities ll
Artist: DKAPZ
Label: DKAPZ
Cat Number: Kycker-3031
Genre: Hardcore Beat Abstraction Vignettes
1: Truth Is A Ruin
2: Marvin
3: Half Life
4: As If The Oceans Weren’t Fucking Terrifying Enough Already
5: Fuck Undercover Cops
6: Marvin (Alt Mix)
Just for the record this is an EP that conceptually wrestles with the overriding feeling that everything is ridiculous. I’ve long had the feeling that we’re living in a world that is getting exponentially more difficult to control which is currently going through a significant phase of its development, or rather its redevelopment. The tracks on this release try their best to illustrate some form of vague decomposItion, akin to a collapsing in on itself type of ambience. Each piece stands alone, and defines itself in doing so. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a sonic symbiosis between them, but there is also a simultaneous feeling of decay and dissonance. ‘Fuck Undercover Cops’ is perhaps the most conventional tune on this release, its beats providing shape and familiar texture, until they fade away half way through. This release’s strength is in its shapelessness though, which emphasises its unpredictability.
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Tuesday, July 19, 2022
In Love EP - Vertical Cat (Achingly Responsive)
Title: In Love EP
Artist: Vertical Cat
Label: Achingly Responsive
Cat Number: achy003
Genre: Deep House
1: In Love
2: Snow Creatures
3: Moss
4: You Shocker
A very diverse EP this. Starting off with a rerelease of the title track, which first appeared on Smallfish Records almost twenty years ago, this EP comes hot on the heels of the ‘Parole & Papaver EP’, and suggests that Vertical Cat may be making up for lost time. Better late than never on the basis of this imaginative release. ‘In Love’ uses a loping bassline as a foundation for some airy but punchy synths to create a track which veers all over the place but still manages to retain its shape. ‘Snow Creatures’ feels like a jazz jam put through a hauntological filter and ‘Moss’ is a very effective rendition of soaring deep tech. ‘You Shocker’ uses an eponymous spoken word sample in order to wrap muscular, synthetic percussion around it, finishing off this EP of fluctuating frequencies in style.
Monday, July 18, 2022
Title: Someones Lifetime
Artist: Peza
Label: Self-Released
Cat Number:
Genre: Disco Alchemy
I first heard this track on the Sean Johnston ‘A Love From Outer Space, Golden Lion, Todmorden, 18.06.22’ mix, and again on the Sean Johnston/Duncan Gray ‘Uptown Thing June 11th 2022 Pt 2’ and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. A match made in heaven between Talking Heads’ ‘Once In A LIfetime’ and ‘Someone Great’ by LCD Soundsystem; ‘Someone’s Lifetime’ straddles a grey area between disco, funk, electro, acid and house and embellishes it with huge colourful brushstrokes. I had been unaware of Peza’s existence until this track (well, you can’t keep up with everything). However, after having subscribed to his Bandcamp in order to get it, I’ve gone through the rest of his output like a disco sabre and am looking forward to posting more about him in the future. This has it all though: intrigue, drama, dislocation and imagination. Hard to think of it being bettered actually.
Title: Wixel plays Sonic Youth - Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
Artist: Sonic Youth/Wixel/The Long Champs
Label: Self Released
Cat Number:
Genre: Adding Another
I came across this track as a free download on Tici Taci alumni The Long Champs Bandcamp page, and it’s a stunner. The original is by Sonic Youth. However, it was reworked on an edits album by Wixel so, this is the result of said composotion going twice through the editing mangel. The original is a seven minute epic of what I would describe as percussion wrapped around guitar, the flowering of which results in a sort of ambient wall of sound that fades and dissipates toward the end, but the tapering off is almost the most interesting part. Wixel’s version extracts the holographic white noise and turns it into an uplifiting chasm of beatless joy, while The Long Champs quite literally putshis own stamp on the tune by adding the proverbial bonus beats. Something that the rework had been crying out for and, fortunately was given in the most perfect of circumstances. Sunrise or set ender on a plate.
Theme From Monkfish - Duncan Gray (Tici Taci)
Title: Theme From Monkfish
Artist: Duncan Gray
Label: Tici Taci
Cat Number: ttbc023
Genre: Chug Funk
Not a new track, but one from a recording session a couple of years ago pushed into the spotlight now, because of COVUD. ‘Theme From Monkfish’ may, or may not be named eponymously named after ‘The Fast Show’s’ inspector; but whatever the motive, it’s a piece of slickly produced seventies-inspired funk jammin’ that, like its namesake, takes no nonsense, expects multiple cups of tea to be brewed and probably wreaks of Old Spice or Brut 33: (something Faberge, but not an egg). Tici Taci overlord Mr Gray shows that the crumbs that fall from his table are indeed morsels to be savoured and that his production and arrangement skills, along with his funky insights, are second to none.
Sunday, July 17, 2022
Friday, July 15, 2022
Thursday, July 14, 2022
GRIT - Luke Vibert (Hypercolour)
Title: GRIT
Artist: Luke Vibert
Label: Hypercolour
Cat Number: HYPELP021
Genre: Whimsical 303 Rave Riddimz
1: Surrounded By Neighbours
2: Decay Hole
3: Partron
4: Gas Logs
5: Grit
6: Swingeing Cuts
7: Weed Killah
8: Disco Derriere
9: Afterning
10: Mornoon
11: Xanalog
12: Screwfix Typeface
Another year, another Luke Vibert magnum opus. After his 2020 trilogy for Hypercolour he’s back to show that his sense of mischief is still one of his most defining characteristics. ‘Disco Derriere’ contains so much of Pepe Bradock’s ‘Deep Burnt’ that it may as well be an edit. However, it’s a 303 line which layers the track to perfection, and this is the most pervasive aspect of this album. Vibert knows the limits and complexities of the 303 better than anyone and is constantly inventive on this record. He sidesteps expectation in the most delicate of ways on ‘Gas Logs’, which sounds like the type of track Cygnus would make if electro hadn’t been invented, and evokes claustrophobia on ‘Surrounded By Neighbours’ with some imaginative squelching. Similarly, ‘Swingeing Cuts’ fluctuates in intensity, aided by some classic rave piano and an interlude that puts me in mind of an abstract recorder. ‘Weed Killah’ makes use of a slightly dissonant synth wash to couch some noodly acid, and ‘Xanalog’ occasionally threatens to run away with itself on the off beat. I feel it’s at it’s best on tracks like ‘Afterning’ and ‘Decay Hole’ which as well as the prevalent 303, also feel dreamy and slightly off kilter, reminding me slightly of the production pioneered by artists such as Ford & Lopatin (Games). The beginning of the title track and ‘Partron’ is another example of this. Small, nostalgic whiffs insistently deployed for your evocative pleasure.
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Monday, July 11, 2022
Dexaphonic EP - Zoid (Metamorphic)
Title: Dexaphonic EP
Artist: Zoid
Label: Metamorphic
Cat Number: MET039
Genre: Techno
A1: Space Station Dexaphonic
A2: Space Station Dexaphonic (John Tejada Remix)
B1: 9713Poochy
B2: 9713Poochy (Dan Curtin Remix)
Metamorphic releases have always been a byword for deep, emotive house/techno and this latest release from Dublin’s Zoid feeds into the pervasive narrative with two tunes that operate on a level previously only known to those with a predilection for the finer things in life; such as fine wines, Belgian chocolates and chicken in a basket. ‘Space Station Dexaphonic’ is a gloriously horizontal piece of space jazz, the type of stuff that should have been heard in the Mos Eisley Cantina. The synth swirls and depth adding drama and gravitas. ‘9713Poochy’ uses similar fragments but is much tougher and confrontational. If it weren’t for its constant kick it would fall apart, which is why it feels like an occasionally jerky journey to the centre of the Earth. The two remixes are great as well, with Dan Curtin’s remix sounding like Herbie Hancock on acid and John Tejada’s not departing too much from the original, save to make it more Balearic than it already is, and give it some swing.
Sunday, July 10, 2022
Saturday, July 09, 2022
Friday, July 08, 2022
Thursday, July 07, 2022
SNKR036 - Filter Dread (Sneaker Social Club)
Title: SNKR036
Artist: Filter Dread
Label: Sneaker Social Club
Cat Number: SNKR036
Genre: Hardcore
A1: Talk All Low
A2: Underwave
A3: Space Beams
B1: Asid 888
B2: Ghost Square
B3: Data Temple
Something that I never tire of thinking to myself is that hardcore really isn’t my genre of choice. I’m house through and through, particularly techno with a house slant. Tech house before it became a dirty (compound) word. Give me a low slung bass underneath a long, drawn-out groove and I’m happy. However, the imagination on show within the hardcore musical firmament is boundless which makes it one of the most interesting home listens around right now. I don’t dance much to this stuff, rather have it as the soundtrack to my weekend coffee and pain au choc. Sneaker Social Club have been nice enough to furnish me with my dystopian break beat fix for a while now and Filter Dread is right at the top of the pile as far as the transmission of surreptitious sonic hieroglyphics is concerned. The six tracks here all feel redolent of a secret cipher. An update of the coded messages that are given over radio during times of living under occupation in order to inform the resistance of the potential danger they were in, and secret meetings. Machines will someday be developed to decipher these transient, incognito wavelengths and render them into a concrete semantic order. Until that happens though, we’re all just catching up.
Wednesday, July 06, 2022
Tuesday, July 05, 2022
General Maintenance - Ben Pest (No Static/Automatic)
Title: General Maintenance
Artist: Ben Pest
Label: No Static/Automatic
Cat Number: NSA004
Genre: Electro
A1: Direkt Slaps
A2: Greta Recognise
B1: General Maintenance
B2: 87 Game
Tonally electro, but with edges sharp enough to draw blood. That’s how I would generally describe the sound of Ben Pest on this release for Ara-U’s carefully evolving label. This is nowhere more apparent than on the onomatopaeic ‘Direkt Slaps’, which is the sound of breaking glass struggling to shed its machine funk skin. New and fascinating geometric forms are rendered in ‘Greta Recognise’, with pain-inflicting percussion reinforcing a rigid regime of aural submission. The beat is slightly off in parts of ‘General Maintenance’, dancing to which feels like it must have felt on the dance floor in ‘The Poseidon Adventure’. While ‘87 Game’ uses the space between the chaos to evoke electro paranoia.
Monday, July 04, 2022
Sunday, July 03, 2022
Saturday, July 02, 2022
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