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.
Friday, February 06, 2026
Track Of Yesterday: Ollie Drummond - Thwink Tice (Brixton Row)
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.
GLOK/Timothy Clerkin - Alliance Remixed (Bytes)
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.
Thursday, February 05, 2026
Track Of Yesterday: Jani Ho - Track 8 (DJ Agitated Edit) (Dolly)
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.
Tuesday, February 03, 2026
Track Of The Day: Kevin Johnson - A.T.O.N.E.M.E.N.T. (Version I) (DNH)
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.
Monday, February 02, 2026
Track Of The Day: Synthetic Science - Sheltered Circuits (Exploding Plastic Inevitable)
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.
Sunday, February 01, 2026
Track Of The Day: Herbie Hancock - Future Shock (Columbia)
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.
Track Of Yesterday: Master H - Magic K (Soma)
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.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Friday, January 30, 2026
Sound Of The Suburbs - Jolly Good Eggs Pt. 3
Title: Jolly Good Eggs Pt. 3
Artist: Sound Of The suburbs
Label: N/A
Cat Number:
Genre: House
1: The Birds & The Beats
2: Vardy’s Door
3: Flat Note (freedom for cash)
4: Can You Rock?
The latest release on what is a comeback for Sound of the Suburbs (albeit with tracks that aren’t that recent); ‘Jolly Good Eggs Pt. 3’ is classic surf London/Croydon fin de siecle messy stuff. ‘Can You Rock’ is pacey west coast tinged house, with driving, undulating percussion highlighted by gossamer light keys and woozy synth lines. ‘Flat Note (freedom for cash)’ evokes classic Chicago house. Dark beats and a spoken word sample that sounds just that little bit out of sync. It’s an effective jack track, the strength of which is that it doesn’t go overboard. ‘Vardy’s Door’ (no relation to Jamie or Rebecca), is a piece of mid-paced, stripped-down house that has elements of filter disco in it and is a great momentum builder. And the most capacious, tribal track, ‘The Birds & The Beats’ is also probably the one with the greatest floor-filling potential. Carried by multiple rimshots and an eponymously spoken word sample, it, like the rest of this release, is probably best appreciated under some railway arches somewhere, with just a strobe or two for company.
Track Of The Day: Angine de Poitrine (Tamebsz) Live . Concert Gatineau le 11 Septembre 20...
Reminds me of Captain Beefheart, which is only a good thing.
Track Of Yesterday: Basic Channel - Q1.1/Iii (Basic Channel)
Aside from the dub techno templates, the influence of which will be felt for a long time to come, Basic Channel were also responsible for gems like ‘Q1.1ii’, the likes of which blend the aforementioned sub-genre with the strain of insect menace techno pioneered and perfected by Jeff Mills. The result is an elegant slowed-down piece of machine funk that shimmers under the wright of its own friction.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
