'Producer and multi-instrumentalist FRNT BZNZZ returns with the second installment in a six-part series of 45s from the Aloha State.
Just like the rst 45, the A-side 'Separation Anxiety' takes to the same raw electro boogie feel, this time with more layers. The 4-minute ride into the artist's complex, often haunting production is up before you know it.
The B-side opens new doors in the series with vocals - angsty, yearning, a little somber. 'Always Wanted' is a slow burner for those looking to alleviate heavy doses of straight-laced modern funk. Something about Aiea High School prom circa 1990s, and a feeling of being left out.'
Suche:d lay
Detroit's resident producer, Appian, joins ANMA with three originals that twist and grind through break and straight 4/4 beat grooves. A lot of the sound presented sets ground in the rough and rugged but minimalist feel with focus on rhythms that are sometimes complex and sometimes more reliant on the heavier dance floor cuts while simultaneously meshing new ideas with references to electronica classics that paved the way for today.
The alternative take on the flip is provided by Italian producer Sofa Talk, no stranger to the label seeing his own release debut EP hitting the shops in 2017, with more focus on 4/4 beat with layers upon layers of improvised synth and atmospheric licks.
After a brief wander 'round the garden, Chilean-born Ricardo Tobar returns to the ESP Institute bearing earthly delights. With 2017's Liturgia, he introduced his creative point-of-view—instantly substantiating a sense of rhythm that was deliberately complex yet slightly rough around the edges, while touching upon his musical origins from the guitar-driven corners of psychedelia— however with his debut 2xLP Continuidad, he leaves us gobsmacked and seeking shelter as he leaps from dancefloor comforts and descends into absolute chaos (in more ways than one). Emotionally, the artist has crossed all previously self-imposed and subconscious thresholds, putting his true imagination on display and exposing an unwavering attraction to all things loud, orgasmic and transcendent. He's not subtly hinting at a fetish, but opening his arms wide with conviction, abandoning genre taboos and personally inviting everyone to join his enchanted caravan. Sonically, his appetite for intensity is clear throughout—epic chord changes, ascending peaks in arrangement, accumulating layers of grit that build into impenetrable blankets of distortion and feedback—a kind of aural hedonism that translates visually into the potent video abstractions our Mario Hugo has summoned for the album's packaging. This follow-up single surrounding the Continuidad album boasts the dirty little secret Bailemix of album track Recife—we wont go as far as uttering the 'T' word, but this is unbridled merciless tops-off festival gear for the massive. The flipside is another exclusive non-album cut Cuatro Meses De Verano, a rhythmic build-up that breaks into a low-slung funky stomper, Tobar's idea of a warm-up weapon.
Although Itta (Vocals, Harmonium) and Marqido (Analog Synthesizers) have been regular fixtures in Seoul's experimental music community for years, the vinyl release of Spiritual reflects the growing international recognition of their singular sound, described by The Wire as 'meditative synthesized vistas.' Spiritual certainly embodies the meditative element of their music, layering hypnotic modular synth with Indian harmonium drone and Itta's transcendental vocals. This is more than functional music for the metaphysically curious, however. Perhaps more than any of their previous releases, Spiritual offers an open accessibility, owing at least partly to the channeling of krautrock-influenced rhythms. Tracks like 'Luft' and 'Morgen Tempel' wouldn't sound out of place in any DJ set with kraut or psychedelic leanings, while 'Barabonda' and 'Dodeuri' dig deep into a more meditative place, serving as perfect expressions of the album's title and intent. Fans of Neu!, Kraftwerk, Laraaji or Klaus Schulze might find themselves in a comfortable yet unexplored place.
Spiritual was originally released in 2017 as a limited-edition cassette of 250 copies, produced in collaboration with Seendosi, an arts enterprise in Seoul Euljiro district, the city's heart of printing, packaging and electronics manufacturing. The cassette sold out within a year of its production, prompting Extra Noir, who had previously released Tengger's 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' on their Extra Noir Vol. 1 compilation, to propose reissuing Spiritual on vinyl. Working with Seendosi once again, the result is a beautifully produced piece of work. Closely attentive to the band's vision, the gatefold sleeve features rich landscape motifs that evoke Tengger's commitment to earthly travel and the less accessible places beyond. Pressed onto clear vinyl, the design of Spiritual has been carefully constructed to reflect the entirely unique music within: heavy ephemerality, dense transcendence and grounded wanderlust.
Lavascar is a sound and music project by creative instigator and provocateur Michèle Lamy, multi-disciplinary artist Nico Vascellari and Lamy's daughter, the artist Scarlett Rouge.
Following the release of their debut album A Dream Deferred in 2017 - which was inspired by Langston Hughes' poem Montage Of A Dream Deferred, the trio will release new album Garden Of Memory through The Vinyl Factory label.
Drawing on the work of Lebanese-American poet, journalist and artist Etel Adnan, Garden Of Memory explores the tension between the organic and industrial, layering both Rouge and Lamy's idiosyncratic delivery over Vascellari's ambient and EBM-influenced electronics. After Vascellari described the debut LP as 'an evocation of Michèle Lamy sitting in a cave, surrounded by wild beasts ready to devour her', Lamy says the new record has loftier concerns: 'So far it seems like we are more in the cosmos... We are coming out of the hole!' Lamy continues: 'I like poetry, I don't like when there is sentence that tells you everything, I like suggestion.' It was for this reason that Lamy was drawn to the 93-year-old Adnan - 'a woman explaining what's going on in life. We can say everything is political, this is especially important.' It's a sentiment that Scarlett Rouge echoes: 'She wrote political poetry, and she is a journalist, so that's why I think when Michèle discovered her there was an immediate sense that this is now what needs to be felt and said.'
Bukez Finezt VIP's his already incredible Headache into a bonafied skanker that's just begging for a reload everywhere it'll drop. He gives the Headache rhythm such a treatment. Adding layers and layers of dubwise sounds only to switch back into that originial flow we all know and love. One of Bukez Finezt's most anticipated tracks of the moment.
Next Level is literally the next level after Subway Recordings quit doing releases.
Next up on LOVEiT is head honcho JK himself, presenting a fine Reminiscence to 90s french house on the A1. With his remix, italian Jo Pariota transforms the title track into a veritable detroit house groover by adding warm pads and driving hats. JKs B1 is a moody deephouse affair including jazzy keys and a thought provoking spoken word sample by a certain saturn-visiting cosmic poet. The Rare Sun Recall Mix by .WS takes you places: riding out on an uptempo tribal beat, it slowly starts to fall apart before vanishing into ambient bliss. - morri313 Early Feedback: Lay Far (Atjazz Record Company / Local Talk / 4 Lux) Congrats on the release! Loving the 'Being Neglected As An Artist
- 1: Beat It
- 2: High Score Zed
- 3: United Banana
- 4: Pay Off
- 5: Bs Dropout
- 6: Light Fantastic
- 7: Blazin
- 8: Falo
On March 29, Eric Copeland delivers Trogg Modal Vol. 2, the counterpart to last October's Vol. 1. The former Black Dice member's 'Freakbeat 4/4' agenda gets further refined here - Vol. 2 is more laid-back than the first, but still highly danceable. Self-described as 'late Night Flight proto tekno,' the tracks pulse with thick layers of percussion, melodic fever dreams, and riffs wrung through a taffy puller. Eric's textured, off-the-cuff approach to dance music adds a refreshing element of spontaneity and 'jamming' to a climate of uncanny smoothness and polish.
Where Vol. 1 was composed of 'rippers,' Vol. 2 travels at its own pace, continuing to showcase Eric's ability to recontextualize 4/4 tracks as psychedelic contortions, from the squelchy vibrations of 'BS Dropout' to the blithe, video arcade soundtrack 'High Score Zed.' Taken together, the two volumes of Trogg Modal showcase the versatility of one of the most continuously exciting experimental artists of the past twenty years - arriving in 2019 with his mischievous sense of adventure firmly intact.
hand-painted / signed / numbered / ltd. to 99 copies
Polyarrythmics is an EP by Mark Spn, a music producer and sound engineer who lives in London. While this is his debut EP under this moniker, he has recorded under various other aliases, one favourite being Holdie Gawn on Sylphe Records.
This release slows things down a notch from Mark's other output. He presents a densely layered work that conjures Herbie Hancock's sextant & Kirk Degiorgio's arps, J. Majik's mermaids & Underdog's attic tapes. It is cerebral and cohesive, made to be consumed as a sum of its parts: found sounds and urban field recordings, hushed Hammond grooves and modulated keys, muffled beats and unsyncopated rhythms, flickering electronics and hovering pianos.
Artist John Tsombikos has been commissioned to provide one-off artwork for the limited edition physical product, to be released in mid March. Hand painted, signed and numbered, limited edition of 99.
Recorded Between The Release Of Sand (1977) And Lost Secrets(1981), Symphonic Songs Is A Formerly Unreleased Work That Chronicles The Dynamic Shift And Development In Experimental Swedish Composer Ragnar Grippe's Canon.
Following His Seminal Release Sandin 1977, Swedish Experimental Composer Ragnar Grippe Worked On Various Art And Performance Commissions, Often Returning To Stockholm During The Summer Months To Focus His Efforts On His Compositional Practice. It Was There At The Famed Ems Studioswhere He Began Employing The Buchla Synthesizer And The Facilities Multi-tracking Capabilities As New Instruments To Map His Mining Of Sound And Movement.
During The Late 1970's, Grippe Formed A Creative Collaboration With Choreographer Susan Buirge, Specifically Writing Compositions For Her Works restes And tamis, Thus Pushing Grippe To Start Working In A More Intricate Studio Environment. These Passages Inspired Grippe Into A More Complex Layering Process That Focused More On Placement And Structure, Rather Than The Aural Floods And Flourishes Of His Previous Sand Album, Eventually Germinating In His First Full 24-track Composition Entitled orchestra.
After Debuting orchestra In 1980 At The Electronic Music Festival In Stockholm, Grippe Holed Up At Ems Studios With Those Lessons And The Fussy Buchla Synthesizer, In Which Grippe Affectionately Recalls needed To Be Tuned And Calibrated Every 20-30 Minutes. He Emerged With A New Commission For Susan Buirge Later Formally Titled Symphonic Songs And Used In Her Avant-garde Theater Piece ci-déla Which Debuted In Paris In 1981.symphonic Songsshowcased Grippe's Sound Au Courant, Pushing Dense Against Sparse, Calm Into Cacophonous, Using Each Track As Its Own Intersecting Plane. Using The Machinations Of Studio And Structure To Drive Symphonic Songs' Voice, Grippe Culled A Haunting, Often Cinematic Electronic Work That Dots And Darts Into Unexpected Corners With Curious Aplomb.
Listen To The Words, Both Terms Have Their Root In Classical Music, But Not In Its Form But Because Now I Had So Many More Stems Or Voices That Could Be Played Simultaneously Compared To My Earlier Pieces. Coming From A Classical Background, But With Big Nostrils For Pop And Jazz Music, I Can Now See A Thread In Which Classical Got A New Costume, Dressed Up In Buchla Synthesizer And Real Bass Sounds Grippe Says. Since Its Live Theater Debut Over 37 Years Ago, Dais Records Releases For The First Time Symphonic Songs, One Of Grippe's Most Ambitious Compositions, As A Deluxe Double Vinyl Lp (with Limited Edition Color Variants) And On Digital Formats. Artwork Packaging By Artist J.s. Aurelius (ascetic House) With Reflective Linear Notes By Ragnar Grippe.
After a brief wander 'round the garden, Chilean-born Ricardo Tobar returns to the ESP Institute bearing earthly delights. With 2017's Liturgia, he introduced his creative point-of-view—instantly substantiating a sense of rhythm that was deliberately complex yet slightly rough around the edges, while touching upon his musical origins from the guitar-driven corners of psychedelia— however with his debut 2xLP Continuidad, he leaves us gobsmacked and seeking shelter as he leaps from dancefloor comforts and descends into absolute chaos (in more ways than one). Emotionally, the artist has crossed all previously self-imposed and subconscious thresholds, putting his true imagination on display and exposing an unwavering attraction to all things loud, orgasmic and transcendent. He's not subtly hinting at a fetish, but opening his arms wide with conviction, abandoning genre taboos and personally inviting everyone to join his enchanted caravan. Sonically, his appetite for intensity is clear throughout—epic chord changes, ascending peaks in arrangement, accumulating layers of grit that build into impenetrable blankets of distortion and feedback—a kind of aural hedonism that translates visually into the potent video abstractions our Mario Hugo has summoned for the album's packaging. This might all sound like a warning for Hurricane Ricardo, but fear not, listeners will still find some security in the album's rhythmic underpinnings, and although this foray into primitive, ritualistic bang-the-drum percussion is significantly more dangerous than his previous programming, its the imperfection in his passionate studio performances that imbue Continuidad with something remarkably human.
Claremont 56's latest release is very much a family affair. It sees Idjut Boy Conrad McDonnell - a regular remixer of Claremont 56 releases since the label's inception - serve up two spaced-out, dub-wise revisions of a little known cut by Bison, the imprint's very own 'super-group'. The 12' has extra emotional resonance for Bison's Paul 'Mudd' Murphy and Ben Smith, as it marks the band's first release since the passing of fellow founder members Holger Czukay and Ursula Kloss.
Clutching his cherished space echo and tape delay units, McDonnell has delivered two tasty new dubs of 'Salmon Spungcake', a spacey, gently throbbing Bison cut that he co-wrote, produced and mixed for Claremont 56's 10th Anniversary box-set in 2017.
While the original version shied away from the dancefloor in favour of creating a hazy, horizontal mood, McDonnell's 'Zip It Shrimpy Mix' re-invents the cut as a hypnotic dub disco shaker rich in weighty bass, layered hand percussion, locked-in kick drums and spaced-out vocal snippets. In true dub fashion, flashes of the band's original instrumentation - effects-laden guitars, hazy electronics and meandering, deep space chords - float in and out of the mix at irregular intervals. It's the kind of remix you want to get lost in while wearily shuffling at 5am in a dark, sweaty basement.
The glassy-eyed, head-in-the-clouds fun continues on the 'I Think I've Got Gout Mix', an even more spaced-out affair that recalls some of the other inspired dancefloor dubs McDonnell has produced alongside Idjut Boys partner Dan Tyler. Stripped back, heavy, percussive and driven forward by sturdy kick-drums and the track's rich, warm bassline, this is a deep space dub disco tailor-made for space cadets and intoxicated sunrise dancers.
On March 15th Erased Tapes presents the invigorating and powerful debut solo album Lines of Sight by Australian-born, Liverpool-based composer, saxophonist and founder of Immix Ensemble, Daniel Thorne. Deeply moving, full of otherworldly beauty and rapture, the album is alive, throbbing like a circulatory system, colourful and glowing. It literally dazzles - effectively capturing what the birth (or death) of a planet might sound like.
In Daniel's own words, 'Thematically, this music was inspired by birds-eye aerial images and the idea of perspective - how something incredibly complex like a river or the surface of the ocean is reduced to a simple line or shape when viewed from the heavens. The line between natural and man-made becomes increasingly blurred.'
Every strand is fresh, vital and purposeful. The description 'seamless' might suggest a smooth, bland fusion, but here elements overlap in intermittent, undulating layers of mesh. Avant-garde, noise, electronics, ecclesiastical, classical, a touch of jazz and traces of Wyatt-style contemporary folk come together, each occupying their own space while acquiescing with the whole.
'Several compositions are derived from ratios and processes, and are highly calculated, while others evolved in a much more organic way. I wanted to create music that blurred lines between acoustic and electronic, organic and synthetic, composition and improvisation.
I've long been a fan of studio-based composition, but have always found the infinite possibilities on offer daunting and, often, a stumbling block. To get around this I set myself a challenge of limiting myself to the physical instruments in my possession - a few different saxophones and a bass synth, with no more than four tracks to record them,' he adds.
Lines of Sight follows Thorne's work as artistic director of the acclaimed, collaboration-focussed group Immix Ensemble. Together with experimental electronic artist Vessel, he co-wrote Transition released on Erased Tapes in 2016, described by BBC Radio 6's Mary Anne Hobbs as 'a remarkable new piece of music'. More recently, he worked with acclaimed modular synth wizard Luke Abbott, to create a four-part suite, which was premiered live in June 2017. Immix Ensemble have also performed special live commissions with Kelly Lee Owens, Dialect, Jane Weaver and Bill Ryder-Jones, among others.
Prior to leaving Australia, Daniel was fortunate to work with some of the country's leading new music ensembles as both a composer and performer, receiving commissions from the TURA New Music Festival and the Australia Council, as well as being appointed as Composer in Residence at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In the UK he was the recipient of the prestigious Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition, and also undertook a residency at Metal Liverpool, which provided him with the time and space to create Immix.
As the first track under Thorne's own name, 'Iroise' was recorded for the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary release 1+1=X, alongside works by Nils Frahm, Penguin Cafe, A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Rival Consoles. He also recently remixed Manu Delago, known as the live percussionist for Björk and Ólafur Arnalds. After a first solo performance at Sea Change Festival 2018, the new year will see Daniel tour across Europe, promoting the forthcoming release of Lines of Sight.
The long awaited new LP from Hunter Complex features 10 tracks of supreme synth goodness that are at the same time retro and yet totally futuristic. It's musically rich in ideas; melodies intertwine with soaring synths and '80s style drum machines, but it never once feels like pastiche or a carbon copy of a bygone era. The hooks on this record are incredible; it's mix of warm analog and bright digital synths feature a layer of complexity that most records in this genre can't hope to achieve.
A third of Italian production act Agents Of Time, Sharp Felon loops out of the trio's orbit to land his debut solo EP on Maceo Plex's Lone Romantic, 'Let The Game Begin' - featuring three stunt-driving cosmonautical bangers that aim to abolish all sense of gravity in the club and beyond. Breaking in at fierce speed, 'Devil Trail' attacks pedal to the metal and leaves prismatic wisps of vapor in its wake. A proper electro-magnetic dasher, the track alternates steady shooting sequences of 303-marinated bass with eloquent kosmische-indebted synth maneuvers and laser-precise breaks, all joining forces to have your feet shuffling and mind drifting up into higher spheres of consciousness in one potent backhanded caress.
A more straightforward affair, B-side opener 'Telework Titan' lifts its listener off to a further compelling state of meditative balance through a nonetheless muscular groove and epic-sized sub-bass moves. Cruising in the upper layers of the stratosphere, Sharp Felon's stamps on the accelerator of his shark-mouthed spaceship and hedgehops across craggy alien reliefs with personal hands-on skills. Intergalactic transmissions announce an imminent extra-terrestrial invasion, it's time to tune out and enter the melee. Laser guns blazing and acid stabs smoking, 'Cyber Fex' nose-dives in an enemy-occupied territory and washes over the ground brawl like a hi-tech tsunami. Purebred Donald-ian face-melter in sheer Dopplereffekt meets Arpanet fashion, this one lacks no oomph.
Right here, right now ADF are the most important band in Britain. NME 1997
Rafis Revenge originally peaked at number 20 on the UK Albums Chart and was shortlisted for the 1998 Mercury Music Prize, with Bobby Gillespie hailing them at the time as the best live act in Britain. This 21 year anniversary reissue includes a limited edition, coloured 2xLP plus expanded digital & CD editions with bonus tracks selected by Adrian Sherwood. To celebrate the release the band are playing at Rich Mix, London on 28th March.
By the time they recorded Rafis Revenge in 1998, Asian Dub Foundation were primed to explode. Having initially emerged from East Londons grassroots Community Music project as a largely studio-based collective, the band had galvanised themselves into a riotously exciting touring machine by the late Nineties. Their extraordinary live shows around this period were electrifying to witness, kinetic and dynamic, incendiary and euphoric, confrontational yet celebratory. For sheer roof-raising energy, they were unrivalled. ADF have evolved enormously over the last two decades, of course, but their breakthrough album remains a fascinating chapter in the real, complex, unwritten history of Britpop. Expanded and enlarged for this anniversary edition, these multi-layered musical treasures still dazzle and delight with their grandiose ambition and riotous energ
hvmble is a newly-formed Berlin-based collective engaged in house music production and label work. Merging ideas in a fresh way is the intent of our approach and sound.
Exchange in a diverse community is key to our spirit. hvmble aims at staying versatile. hvmble"s debut-EP series "Textures" features an eclectic practice where diverse elements
of dance music are teamed playfully. Hypnotizing groove structures, vibrant Hi-Hats and a sublty-formed Bottom-End unite and stimulate the bodymind. Textures invites the listener/dancer to float through skillfully meshed patterns and dreamy layers, to
experience promising new spaces.
The sounds appearance and cover-artwork was created by visual artist Peter Aurisch. Textures is a collective creation.
- A1: Laurel Halo - Public Art
- A2: Parris - Puro Rosaceaes
- A3: Rrose - Cricoid Pressure
- B1: Machinewoman - Just Made Some Jazz Music
- B2: Fit Siegel - Penny Rut
- B3: Siete Catorce - Canto
- C1: Ikonika - Bodied (Og Mix)
- C2: Panda Lassow - Lachowa
- C3: Nick Leon - Pelican Dub
- D1: Stefan Ringer - Lust
- D2: Laurel Halo - Sweetie (Dj-Kicks)
- D3: Group A - Ketabali
The 68th edition of the DJ-Kicks mix series is another landmark one, withexperimental producer Laurel Halo taking the reins. The American's adventurous28 track trip features seven exclusives, including two of her own plus thosefrom Rrose, Machinewoman, FIT Siegel, Nick LeoIün and Ikonika. An electronic outlier, Halo hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan, but has been basedin Berlin for a number of years. Landing on labels like Hyperdub, Honest Jon'sand Latency, Halo has released a body of work ranging in style, yet cohered byproduction and compositional tendencies that sound distinctly her own. Herstudio work tends to be a multi-layered mix of the electronic and theacoustic, the organic and the synthetic. As a DJ, meanwhile, she lays downmore floor focussed mixes of techno, bass and worldly drum rhythms, and herlive sets are similarly visceral and direct. Halo's DJ-kicks packs a lot in to just 60 minutes. It kicks off with the firstof two of her own exclusives, 'Public Art', a tactile piano loop that sets themelodic tone of the mix in focus. Crunchy drums soon take over and begin whatis a blistering ride through electro, trippy minimalism and textures thatrange from icy and dubby to steel plated and sharp from the likes of Red Axes,Parris and an exclusive from Rrose. Another exclusive, rough and ready cut from Machinewoman follows, before themid section twists and turns on surging drum patterns, frantic industrialtextures and spaced out gqom sounds from the likes of Griffit Vigo, DarioZenker and Final Cut. This is a mix forever on the move: one minute itstightly coiled and kinetic, the next it's loose and joyful before switchinginto more cerebral and insular passages that keep you intrigued. Fusing together so many disparate sounds and textures is no mean feat, butlike everything Halo does, here they all add up to something as thrilling andedgy as it is unpredictable and compelling.
Developer is back on Juxta Position's Failsafe imprint once more with 4 fresh cuts of techno, displaying a deeper side to his unique take on the style. 'Get this' is most reminiscent of the sound he is most known and loved for, with it's booming drums and strange wavetable voices, but 'Ethnic Identity' breaks away from more his usual template with it's organic sounding loops and dramatic strings. Likewise, mood setter 'Over Nepal', lays down an intense vibe whilst ep closer 'Zebra' pairs up a memorable melodic pattern with his more usual driving percussion. Developer once again displays his broad influences and unique production style, whilst pushing the sound of contemporary techno forward. PLAY LOUD!
SC-164 is a new label based out of Brooklyn, NY, run by Greg Schappert aka Donor.
The Channel series is set to include a run of electro and experimental EPs under his SC-164 alias. For the second installment, he presents inventive, rough-edged future music with no signs of human life, and it's utterly thrilling.
The first track is a blizzard of frosty, serrated synths and hard drums that are designed for dance floor destruction. 002-002 continues this way, an intergalactic face-off, with laser synths firing across the face of jittery, punch drum programming. Textured and raw, it's pure and powerful machine music. Next up, 003 layers up ghoulish white noise and synth bleeps that are brilliantly bleak and dystopian. The closer is a roaming electro cut, with menacing bass and groaning synths taking you to the heart of a stone-lit frenzy.




















