Cerca:dj void dimensions

‘Absurd Matter’ is a labyrinthine sonic conundrum that spirals around the two poles of extreme noise and hiphop. It's Berlin-based Italian producer Shapednoise's first album in four years and confidently advances his narrative into the next chapter, building on the groundwork of his prior abstractions to emerge with a coherent genre-warped fusion of urgent rap, crushing bass weight and idiosyncratic sound design. After spending years scrupulously deconstructing club music, Nino Pedone has rebuilt it brick by brick in his image.

The album is the first release on Pedone's brand new imprint WEIGHT LOOMING, a multidisciplinary label platform that's set to explore the depths of bass music, textured noise and abrasive transcendence. It follows a slew of acclaimed releases for Numbers,
Opal Tapes, Type and his own Cosmo Rhythmatic label, and forward thinking collaborations with Kenyan beat alchemist Slikback and Hyperdub-signed Angolan producer Nazar. Pedone's most ambitious project to date, ‘Absurd Matter’ taps into kinetic energy from a hand-picked selection of collaborators, including New York rap duo Armand
Hammer, French DJ/producer Brodinski, Bruiser Brigade's ZelooperZ and vanguard Philly poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother.


On ‘Family’, Billy Woods and Elucid weave a dismal, apocalyptic landscape with their razor-sharp anecdotes. The duo’s macabre imagery is given artificial life by Pedone's industrial scrapes and rattles that curl around their worlds like thick smoke. It's still rap, just about, but lodges itself in the back room of a factory, machines running themselves to an early death. Pairing with techno-rap trailblazer Brodinski, Pedone edges further towards the sound system, spatializing rhythms in four dimensions around Detroit rapper
ZelooperZ's playful expressions. This is the Italian producer's sci-fi tinged liquefaction of radio echoes, a way to fire familiarity into the void and sublime the human voice into weightless mist. When Moor Mother arrives shouting "me me me" on the aptly-titled 'Poetry', it sounds as if all of Pedone's loose threads are being tightened into a knot. His misshapen neo-grime beats sound like a broken jet engine, but smartly cede power to Moor Mother's resonant rhymes. "You can't cancel me" she assures. ‘Absurd Matter’ is a defining personal development for Pedone that not only appraises his career so far, but diverts its logic into frighteningly new sonic territory. From great loss, the producer has determined his work's cardinal themes, and sounds more strident and far heavier than ever before.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6… the countdown to blastoff has started! Paris-based band Setenta is preparing for their upcoming 20th anniversary by releasing their sixth album, Apollo Solar Drive. The record is poised to be their best yet and is the culmination of an odyssey of artistic discovery. Setenta has been constantly striving for illumination through the years, yet also exploring the dark side of the human condition along the way. As the band describes it, this record is an Afro-Latin retro-futurist tribute to the sun. If their previous album, Materia Negra, launched the Setenta space shuttle crew into the void of “dark” matter and black holes, they now change course and valiantly approach the sun at full warp speed, taking us from darkness into the light. Miraculously, Setenta manage to bring some of the rhythmic and harmonic material they’ve explored on Earth with them, yet boldly dare to go where no one has gone before, challenging themselves to take their music, and their audience, to uncharted dimensions and new realms of existence.

In keeping with the themes of Materia Negra, FIP (Radio France) selection in 2020, Setenta’s sixth mission to explore “the great beyond” of “inner space” is aptly titled Apollo Solar Drive, emphasizing the band’s turning to the life-giving light of the sun for inspiration while playfully echoing the title of Eddie Palmieri’s Latin funk and social commentary masterpiece, Harlem River Drive. The overall vibe is warm and positive, propelled by the dual energy thrusters of funky, fierce beats and deceptively complex arrangements, yet going down smooth in the best sense of the word, like your favorite tropical cocktail or classic jazz dance fusion record of the 1970s. Of course this delicious treat is served with a special Setenta flavor all its own.

This time around, Apollo Solar Drive celebrates the trajectory of the band’s unique interstellar journey by deploying a resolutely jazzy, “funkadelic” angle to their beloved Afro-Latin music. Setenta’s band members tell their truths as a collective, with an emphasis on instrumental sections, focusing on the interweaving of multiple keyboards and guitars, while condensing the vocals to group choruses, as opposed to the solo voices of the past. The overall approach is more futuristic in its conception and realization, from the arrangements to the sonic engineering, although the rhythmic base still remains rooted in Afro-Cuban traditions as well as those of other Caribbean nations.

Pablo E. Yglesias (DJ Bongohead) of Peace & Rhythm (USA)

In the centre of deep space we tune in to the radio broadcasts from an old Class T interstellar spaceship. The emissions endlessly resonate the frequencies of the seventeenth release on the label HC Records by one of the titans of the Valencian scene, The Lost Boys, new pseudonym of the DJ and producer Raszia.

With releases on labels such as Bass Agenda, Subsist or Hxagrm Records, the artist mesmerises our senses with the Exiles of Mars Ep, available in both double vinyl and digital.

Syncopated rhythms are the protagonists across four original tracks together
with remixes by four electro legends: Boris Divider, Estrato Aurora, Dark Vektor, and Filmmaker.

The EP’s first cut is a remix of "Wall Of Bricks" by the legendary Boris Divider, which gives the track an air of crystalline, synthetic and cosmic sound, very much in line with his latest works on the Generative Operations series. Next, we find the original version, where the kick drums are heavier, the synths and basses more colourful and the acid sequences take centre stage in an odyssey of sidereal intensity.

On the record’s flip side, a feeling of overwhelming melancholy takes root in our soul. Valencian Estrato Aurora mentally transports us to the mysterious red sand of Mars in a precise exercise in symphonic minimalism with his remix of "Exiles of Mars", which mutates the original idea with velvety pads, synths and a slow and rapturous hypnotism that sinks us to unfathomable depths.
The Lost Boys' original concept on B2 is a combination of Miami Bass-style breaks and a demonic mantra-like main synth line, backed by what seems like an infinity of pearly effects and secondary melodies, pushing the track towards a crescendo punctuated by a dry and sharp snare.

The second disc’s opener "Bust My Moves" is a masterclass in deconstruction and reconstruction by Dark Vektor with his "Electro Escuadrón Remix”. The genius from Terrassa provides powerful lyrics loaded with a message about the modern rise of the 808 movement. We return to the original Lost Boys version on C2, a futuristic martial discourse takes shape with combating breaks combined with rave chords and brief episodes of respite, almost dreamlike, in the middle and end of the track’s exciting development.

On the D side, rough frequencies verging on distortion materialise through our ship's speakers as we pick up the Colombian Filmmaker’s remix of "Data Recovery For Brains". A psychotronic final appetiser that combines harshness and elegance in the use of the rolling kick drums and saturation of the sound, it is without a doubt the ideal soundtrack to narrate the collision of two galaxies. The closing of the EP features the original track, in which The Lost Boys show us his most mental and lysergic side as the track progresses along a slow and comforting broken rhythm, made dynamic by clever use of diverse acid sequences and clairvoyant stellar melodies.

The complete artistic experience is enhanced in all dimensions with accompanying artwork by
Daniel Requeni and videos elaborated by Frank-F.

Mastering as usual by Steve Voidloss at Black Monolith Studios in London (UK).

The Story Itself

On the 12th of April 1961, Yuri Gagarin was launched into orbit for the first and - so they tell us - the last time. Upon returning to Earth, Yuri became a global hero, travelling the world to tell of his adventure.

Secretly, he was plagued by strange hallucinations and a persistent glow around his vision; a cornucopia of colour in a constant corona. In 1964 - following a silent coup by Leonid Brezhnev - Yuri was banned from embarking on further manned missions into space. At first fearing madness, the cosmonaut came to see these apparitions as a signal, an invitation, a welcoming beacon from a distant lighthouse blinking across the cosmic void.

On the 27th of March 1968, aided by trusted friends within the space program, Yuri Gagarin swapped places with another cosmonaut on a secret test flight and was once more blasted into outer space. Knocked unconscious by the extreme velocity of his experimental craft, Yuri awoke a mere 15 minutes later in view not of the rapidly shrinking Earth, but an entirely alien vista; he was elsewhere...

About Tony Neptune

Tony Neptune is a multi-media persona created by the Leeds-based artist and producer Sam Jefferies who, inspired by the narrative and musical legacies of early Detroit techno culture, aims to tell a complete story for the senses through a combination of image, sound and text. Asa member of the DimensionsDJ Directory three years running, some know Jefferies for his notorious DJ sets—whether he’s playing new wave or booty bass; as Tony Neptune or Yuri; solo or alongside Mark ‘Turbo’ Turner in another peak time marathon b2b, it doesn’t take long for crowds to catch on to his deep knowledge of all things riddled with Hi-Tech Funk and Soul. But this isn’t the only storm he’s cooking up: in his visual work, Jefferies uses oil paint to unveil the surreal and celestial adventures of the original cosmonaut and space pioneer, Yuri Gagarin, capturing every aspect of their dream-like surroundings with an eye devoted to detail and depth. This painting lies at the heart of his debut EP, Reflections on a Daring