quête:connective zone

The fifth Planet Tapes projects us into a completely efficient mechanism that propagates rapidly and causes spectacular consequences.

A1 written by Graham Sims and Simon Button better known as Connective Zone. After releasing music in the 90s and early 2000s, one of their old works is about to see the light of day, almost 20 years after their last appearance on vinyl.

A2 created by R.E.S.S, a South American boy part of the "Orbe" collective and passionate about parties with small groups of people. Official debut on vinyl but his first solo EP won't be long in coming.

B1 composed by the bond of two childhood friends (Existencia Pasajera & Dismal) who followed separate musical paths and reunited years later in the Valdivia electronic music scene.

B2 belongs to Yu, an emerging Italian artist who already boasts numerous releases, all starting in 2023. His sudden rise is in the eyes but above all, in the ears of everyone.

Bristol label-turned-blog Innate launches a new sub-label, Innate Editions, which it says is dedicated to timeless UK techno, IDM, electro and ambient music, and it will all come on heavyweight vinyl. The first release revives Connective Zone's Palm Palm, a millennium-era cult classic and Ben UFO favourite that first came out on Mark Broom and Dave Hill's Unexplored Beats in 2001. Now, this long-out-of-print, expensive and hard to find gem has been remastered by Jamie Anderson and so sounds superb with many lavish electronic layers, richly emotive melodies and dynamic drums that lean on UK techno, IDM, and deep electro. Sounds as good now as it ever did.

DJ Feedback

Dan Curtin (Metamorphic):
"This sounds fantastic. I don't think I ever got it back when it came out but I'm glad I do now, it's really nice. Every track is the standout track!"

Dj Harri (Sub Club):
"Lovely stuff here, will be playing and supporting."

Laurent Garnier (COD3QR):
"Awesome 4 tracker, thanks a million times for this. Beautiful way to start a new label."

Midland:
"Thanks for sending this over. Really in to it, Function especially."

Mr Scruff (Ninja Tune):
"Thanks for this! Didn’t know this release. Function is great. Quite like Returned too."

Featuring rare- and first-on-vinyl tracks from beloved producers such as 2000 And One, Stasis, and CiM. Remastered by DMX Krew and with an accompanying online essay by Oli Warwick.

Across eight carefully selected slices of starry-eyed machine soul, Cold Blow presents an exquisite tour through backroom techno and downtempo electro. With a focus on thematic flow and an immersive listening experience, the London-based label explores works from leading lights of the 1990s and previously unreleased cuts that celebrate the human heart that can be discovered in synthetic sound practices. The development of techno in the 1990s saw the music evolve in different directions across the world. From the expressive blueprint laid out by the Detroit pioneers, a wide range of tempos and energies emerged. Techno's evocative synthesis and intricate drum machine programming was especially potent for deeper explorations away from the dancefloor. Documents Of A Different Reality casts back to when technology was steering quantum leaps in communication and creativity and the future was shot through with naive optimism. It was also a time when the media and industry hadn't caught up with the music to box it into distinct categories. As such, there's a sense of creative freedom that informs the older tracks on the album, from 2000 And One and Sandy Huner's sparkling example of early Dutch techno to London-based LA Synthesis' detailed take on braindance and the majestic night sky vision of cult legend Stasis. There's also space for rare, late 90s machine funk from Icelandic outlier Thor alongside Connective Zone's charmingly fractured bleep dream and a more contemporary offering from Barcelona-based duo Permutation. Meanwhile Mind Control and CiM both capture the spirit of stylistic fusion with twitchier rhythms that take influence from hardcore and jungle as much as techno. With an atmospheric through-line of melancholic pads and harmonious leads, this small but perfectly formed collection naturally follows on from previous, equally thought-out compilations on Cold Blow, and adds a distinct perspective on the history and continuing legacy of pioneering early ambient techno.

j.o.y.s. is both the moniker of and the debut self-titled LP by the Los Angeles based artist Ramon Narvaez. j.o.y.s. is an acronym for “jump out of your skin”. While the phrase can conjure moments of shock and surprise, Narvaez, however uses the phrase as a foot lamp illuminating a path towards momentary transcendence through creating beautifully conjured ambient music that recalls work by Daniel Lanois, suss, Dean Hurley and Tim Hecker. While the pedal steel is prominent, j.o.y.s., as a project, is more in conversation with shoegaze and noise than what has recently been deemed ambient country. Heavy brutalist slabs of noise, swirling feedback create the sound bed of these songs. Collaborator Justin Gaynor’s pedal steel on this album operates as important connective tissue as both the road and the traveler between the light and shadow zones. Drones are wrapped in distortion, processed just below the threshold where we’d throw the word “harsh” around. Rather, there is a delicate dance between Gaynor’s top-rope pedal steel lines - always sweet and always just a bit mournful - with Narvaez’s ringing bass notes and noise chatter. j.o.y.s. revels in intransigence. Nothing can last. As Matt Colquhoun puts in the introduction to Mark Fisher’s heartbreaking Ghosts of My Life - our identity and relationship to the past are “portals in perpetual collapse”. Depression, friendship, longing are all briefly satiated while in the peak experience of creating something as a response to them. But even that is impermanent. These sounds - improvised, exploratory, ecstatic - are eventually edited, whittled down and pressed to wax - not tombs but portals to the past.