"Sounds Over Seas" is the new label bringing banging beats straight from the depths of the heart. Spearheaded by label head and DJ/Producer Julian Bainbridge, "Sounds Over Seas“ intention is to deliver groovy and dreamy vibes by new and established artists, whilst remaining genuine to its true nature; music not just for the dancefloor.
SOS001 brings all this together, delivering rhythmic and jacking beats on the A-Side and a more dreamy and spacious vibe on the reverse side.
FUSE resident Seb Zito returns to home turf to close October as he delivers his ‘Trying To Start’ EP. A key member of FUSE since its inception ten years ago, London-based DJ and producer Seb Zito has remained at the heart of the city’s scene featuring as a core resident for the brand across their homes of Village Underground, 93 Feet East and beyond, whilst also serving as the A&R of sister imprint Infuse. Following a busy summer that welcomed outings and remixes on the likes of Four Thirty Two, Play It Say It, ORIGINS RCRDS and Moxy Muzik, plus material via his own Seven Dials Records and two collaborations as part of Enzo Siragusa’s ‘A Decade Of Rave Volume 2’, Zito now returns to FUSE to deliver his second solo EP of the year on the label as he unveils four new cuts in the form of his ‘Trying To Start’ EP. Title cut ‘Trying To Start’ opens proceedings with authority as bright vocals meet skipping percussion, bubbling sub bass and slick hats, whilst ‘Arped Edge’ harnesses a slightly more stripped back aesthetic, introducing infectious vocal snippets amongst hazy pads, sci-fi electronics and menacing low-ends. Next, ’10AM Fuse’ takes cues from its title as snaking bass patterns go to work alongside sharp drum licks to reveal a cut primed for some huge early morning moments, before rounding out the package with ‘Geo Theory’, a lively peak-time production armed with shuffling drums and a signature driving bassline at its core.
Modularz is back once again with a stellar release this time from seasoned producer Paul Ritch. The French native is here to deliver five tracks of pulsating techno
breed for the club and another project that adheres to the flagship. The Modularz sound has become so distinct and this EP showcases those rhythmic bouncing basslines and deep riding kick drums. Nuit Blanche is four tracks of punchy dancefloor driving kick drums that are coupled with eccentric modulations and synths. Expect underground crevice hidden chords deep textured and dripping sounds. Some cuts deliver sci-fi alien beeps and stabs that would make any martian jealous. The hi-hats are icy and the snares hype inducing: no matter the pace each cut is a weapon.
2 artists, 2 tracks, 2 remixers. I am very proud to present this DUAL release from artists A_GIM and Alex Mine who both deliver some hard hitting peak time stompers for the dance-floors around the globe. And I am equally proud to have the 2 remixers I admire Yan Cook and Moteka onboard for the more underground remixes of the tracks. I honestly love all versions. The involved artists really delievered some special treats for Noir Music and I am so happy with the end results for this release. People who have attended my gigs the past 5-6 months have heard these tracks out loud. Now its time to unleash the goodness to the world. Dual is here.
"We Can Do Anything We Want Because They Say We Can't Afford The Police"
Talking Heads lost in Ancoats. Prince in a Berghaus. The Compass Point All-Stars meet the Piccadilly Gardens Spiceheads.
Welcome to the world of SEE THRU HANDS.
Here to bring salvation to a Broken Brexit Britain, See Thru Hands is a fresh band from Manchester with hooks for days and a SERIOUS live vibe. Their debut EP on Manchester legend RUF DUG's label RUF KUTZ - "The Hot City EP" - brings you two new songs backed with remixes tested on the world's best dance floors.
Opener HOT CITY's energetic punk/funk conveys a dark story of British city life outside the London bubble.
Our councils are fucked, our public services neutered and all anyone cares about is when Deliveroo is gonna be available in their neighbourhood. Throw away your post-apocalyptic fantasies because it's already like that - the only option is to dance. It's grim up north.
After dancing ur arse off and simultaneously coming to the realisation that we're all fucked pls don't worry - See Thru Hands are here to pick up your pieces with NOTHING TO LOSE, a whimsical modern pop banger with shades of New British House that will instil in you a sense of freedom and ease all your worries.
Yes we are all going to hell in a handcart but with See Thru Hands as our companions, I think it's all gonna be just fine.
The package comes backed with a pair of deadly remixes - boss man RUF DUG strips back Hot City to the bare bones, rigs up a couple of jazzy neon lights and a DMX drum machine and brings you his 'Metrolink Vibes In The Area' version, while young upstart METRODOME completes the all-Mancunian lineup on this record with a twisted Marmite 2-step interpretation that is either gonna make you buzz or spew. It's not for everyone.
Warehouse Find!
Flight Mode makes a welcome return to Delusions, this time joining forces with Joel Brittain to come up with another killer release in the form of Burn This. Those who caught his last one It’s So Nice last year will know the drill…. epic, rolling, dubbed-out loopy uptempo house based around a classic disco bassline which patiently builds, increasing in intensity Wild Pitch style. Burn This treads similar waters with subtle arpeggios floating around an incessant groove whilst layers of vocal pads build to a crescendo over a beautiful ten minute ride. Completely flipping the script we’ve got the man like Medlar stepping up for remix duties and delivering just the kind of bonkers reworking we were hoping for. Keeping the trippy vibe of the original in place but opting for a more drum machine-programmed groove Medlar’s remix turns the shuffle factor up to ten and adds a rude bassline and intense synths which make it a real ear worm. Finally, Flight Mode gives us his own Tricky Dub of Burn This which adds a straighter 4/4 vibe and goes heavier on the FX creating a perfectly bubbling track which seems to simmer without ever boiling over.
TAU welcomes an enigmatic, esoteric entity to the fold with this stunning release from the one and only Rico Puestel. Rico’s artisan musings and wild outlook on life has resulted in the production of a stunning back catalogue, full of unique, emotionally-charged electronica. His music has found favour with industry heavyweight Sven Väth and his Cocoon imprint, so it’s a pleasure to have three new classy cuts from this in-demand producer.
The Chicanery EP begins with ‘Plentone’, a chugging atmospheric cut with a deep pulsating low end. Bright angelic twinkles impose a contrasting layer of emotion against the dour bassline. The mood is solemn, yet optimistic, punctuated by a scintillating breakdown. After the drop, ‘Plentone’ keeps pumping along as the expertly-crafted elements combine to create a mesmerising composition.
Next up is the title track, ‘Chicanery’. This one is a little more upbeat and strident, emitting a contagious charge of energy. A symphony of sparkling melodies dance above a groovy bassline. Rico demonstrates his virtuosity with this wonderfully whimsical cut. His playful use of layered melody gives the track depth, utilising his skills to really tantalise the listener.
Track three is ‘Whether’, a bluesy, eyes-down cut with a brooding exterior. A range of organic sounding instrumentation gives this track a very natural tone and appeal. Rico carefully increases the tension, teasing the energy levels up and up and up like a form of audio foreplay, leading us into an orgasmic breakdown. After that track continues its sultry jaunt, hypnotising you with its sensual allure.
Lastly, Theus Mago delivers a simmering remix of ‘Whether’. The Mexican maestro creates a whole new piece of music, with a driving rhythm, an urgent riff and a constant flow of new sounds. Theus’s reinterpretation is dramatic, compelling and deadly. Watch the dance floors explode to this one.
The second edition of Dekmantel’s foray into the era-defining, trans-Atlantic, cult techno label that is Djax-Up-Beats, comes another re-issue of classic 90s cuts.
The label say "The Dutch label was responsible for releasing some of underground’s most foundational dance music, mixing together Chicago and European artists alike, and acting as the launchpad for some of today’s biggest producers. Featuring offerings from luminaries such as Felix Da Housecat, and Glenn Underground, alongside veterans such as Steve Poindexter, and DJ Skull, this second EP highlights the classic label’s old-school’s sound, while showcasing its diverse range, from dubbier, ambient moments, to wall-thumping, body crushing house force. Timeless music, repressed, and re-released for a new generation of DJs who covet the classic machine music.
The second re-issue EPs, offer a more introspective look at the label’s earlier releases. Leading Volume 2 is Terrace’s 'Bewitched', to which DJ Richard has described as being the defining track of the label’s beginnings with its "dreamy, Detroit-style techno mixed with the harder rave elements of Northern Europe”. Glenn Underground’s bass-roller 'Real Space' weaves together soulful passion and Chicago prime beats, while Felix Da Housecat’s Temptation — originally from 1993 — gets a well earned re-release, reminding us of the soulful, deep and lustful energy the producer once had. China White, whose name doesn’t get banded around as much as it should nowadays, see their ethereal hit 'Theme from the Underground' get another opportunity to bliss out the more upbeat rave community.
The energy turns darker with Frank de Groodt’s The Operator, breaking the outer-most barriers of electro-techno, with 'The Mind Strike'. Chicago and Dance Mania’s Steve Poindexter turns out rolling, dance-energy bomb 'Body Jam', while Mike Dearborn’s deliverance of unreal, dry techno in 'Deviant Behaviour' runs aplomb with classic drum-machine pulses, claps, and uncomfortable, yet punishing melodies. DJ Skull’s 'Don’t stop the beat' rides the EP with gushings of hand claps, and gentle, early 90s warm techno color, that transport you back to a time of more informed, and conscious electronic musings, a feeling that embodies Djax’s heyday.
Founded in Eindhoven at the turn of the 90s, Djax-Up-Beats quickly earned an international reputation for being a key source of Chicago house, acid techno, and floor-filling, heavy-hitting, straight up underground 12”s. It’s a sound that spawned the sonic aesthetics of today, and can be heard in the left field techno productions of the likes of Bjarki, Salon des Amateurs and other erstwhile analog junkies."
Repress
Continuing the pursuit of making KAOS and essential label for the contemporary disc-jockey I opened the spectrum a little more with some newcomers on the label and a pioneering veteran.
Mighty D.Dan provides the direct Techno drive. I issue one of the biggest hits of Milimetric which never came on vinyl (I'm really looking forward to play this). On the Flip Copenhagen's prodigal son and already well known for being trained to the floor by the KAOS followers, Schacke, delivers one of the freakiest tunes I've ever come across with. Hadone closes with his standard signature 140 rolling extatic melancholia.
4 songs that could definitely fit in an story-telling kind of set or in the most chaotic. A lot of chaos, I know.
Nina Simone was multi-faceted, both as an artist and on a personal level, and she spent her whole career
drawing from such a wide variety of influences that it was always impossible to pigeon-hole her. She drew
from the classical music world, from folk roots, from blues, from jazz and from the writers of the Great
American Songbook, and delivered all of her material in her own unique style. This collection of songs is
drawn from the early years of her releases and very much reflects her diversity of musical choices. Her work
is amongst the very best and this album is a taster of her immense talent
The word masterpiece gets bandied about a lot. Not least by us. But here is a release that truly befits such a lofty title.
In 1980, Randy Muller’s Skyy dropped the monumental “Here’s To You”, comfortably one of the greatest dance singles of all time. Released on Salsoul, “Here’s To You” is now exceptionally hard to find in its original form. On this special Be With double-header, we present the sought-after 12" mix and back it up with the strutting “You Got Me Up”, which has never been on a 12" before.
Naturally, both are cut loud and bumping for devastating dance floor power.
A sure-fire classic of the NYC club scene and a true block party rocker, “Here’s To You” beautifully combines sweeping synth-strings, loose cymbal hits and swaggering lyrics delivered with enviable style. But the real hero is *that* bassline. Oh, wait, no, actually, it’s *that* synth refrain halfway through. Harnessing the Oberheim Matrix 12 to emulate a horn section has provided goosebumps on discerning dance floors ever since.
As Muller expressed in his 2007 Red Bull Music Academy lecture, “It’s a very special record, it’s positive and has that spontaneous, life-giving spirit in the groove. Everything locks, just pure chemistry.”
Like we said, it’s a masterpiece.
If that wasn’t enough, over on the B-side is “You Got Me Up”, a real hidden gem from Skyy’s Skyway LP. Also released in 1980, the track is a wonderful showcase of the group’s airtight rhythm section and Muller’s uncanny ear for a groove and a melody.
For the inauguration of the label, Disconnekt brings you a fine selection of artists that have played in the event series based in Berlin. Trying to catch a specific moment of those nights, each one of them from a different artist, each one of them with a different sound, this VA compilation features well-established techno producers Wrong Assessment, Rommek, Fabrizio Lapiana and Deepbass.
The A-side represents the darker and harder side of the Disconnekt nights, with Wrong Assessment delivering an up-front dance floor killer, and Rommek evoking the feeling of self-immersion inside an evolving, but aggressive synth-line driven by a hard hitting groove.
The B-side, on the other hand, brings a more melodic and hypnotic side. Fabrizio Lapiana and Deepbass both bring to the record their signature sound, with their own characteristic voice.
Endless Revisions- Chloé's first LP in over six years - saw the musician turn a new leaf in her creative journey. Not content with pushing the boundaries of her creative output with this wider palette of an album, Chloé released Endless Revisions Live, which saw the producer graft the new material and inspiration that came out while playing live on stage back onto the album's compositions. Following The Dawn and Recall, it was time to deliver other versions of the album's tracks. Enter this four-remix EP, imprinted with the almost-opposite horizons of top-shelf producers.
Infinity is the new release by Melbourne-based Leo James, and the second Patience production. Leo scratches a longstanding itch and delivers two sidelong excursions that inhabit a similar sonic space but spin off in opposite directions on the continuum.
Desert Nightflower hums with vitality in a seemingly lifeless landscape. Impressionistically tracing the lifecycle of a flower’s bloom in the desert night – from the searing afternoon sun through dusk’s chill, the midnight blossoming and symbiotic relationship with travelling bats, through the blue hour comedown to first light – Leo employs vibrant, buzzing electronics, plaintive strings and levitating clarinet to illustrate beauty’s brief conquest of nature’s harshest environment, with vividly evocative and deftly moving results.
After Desert Nighflower floats completely off the grid, an ever-present kickdrum drives Infinity’s near 20-minute trip into timelessness. Sharing Side A’s subliminal synthesised hum and free-form clarinet, Infinity moves fast and firm down a dub techno dirt road towards the end of time. As elements drop in and out of the mix, Infinity builds momentum to a pulsing, cathartic peak of poignant piano, ethereal keys and lucid clarinet expressions.
As an avid nature enthusiast, spatial awareness looms large in Leo’s work. His solo releases on Berceuse Heroique, Neubau and his own label Body Language have been inspired incarnations of techno, EBM, industrial and wave.
Patience is a new outlet for exploring further beyond the break than usual. Inspired by the music perpetually on rotation at HQ – with E2-E4 representing the format’s high tide mark – each release will be one artist’s deep dive down one inspirational wormhole spread across two sides of vinyl, or two side-long sojourns making full use of a round 12” piece of plastic. Set and forget, zone out to tune in.
Copenhagen’s Echocord welcomes YWF onto its roster this June with the ‘Replaced’ EP, backed with remixes from Berlin’s Freund Der Familie. YWF is a Copenhagen based Techno producer and DJ, most notably known for his output on the Freund Der Familie imprint, the founders of which step in to remix his work here, and Baum Records, the label run by Resoe, a good friend of Echocord label boss Kenneth Christiansen and with whom he forms the group Pattern Repeat. It seems it was only a matter of time before YWF became a part of the family. Title-cut ‘Replaced’ opens the package via a sturdy rhythmic foundation, wandering synth licks and winding modulations before ‘All Is Temporary’ embraces a cinematic aesthetic, edging in elongated sub drones, emotive strings and delayed percussive hits. Freund Der Familie take control on the latter half of the package, delivering two interpreations of ‘Cutoff’, first up is ‘Fdf’s Reshape’, employing an airy asmtopheric feel amongst fluttering low-end and dustry drums while the ‘Days Of Doom Remix’, as the name would suggest takes a darker approach, laying focus on menacing bass, expansive delays and menacing voices alongside heartbeat like pulses of low-end drums.
There is a certain type of weird effect that is generated by strange, repetitive loops. Ultrastation, the new project of Utrecht veterans Cosmic Force and Nuno Dos Santos, know this well.
The two have teamed up to deliver '4723 EP' and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have them on board, joining our Discos Atónicos family.
Expect four slabs of intergalactic pounding, cosmic modulations, deep resonances, repetitive bleeps and strange atmospheres: a kind of 'technoide soundtrack from outer space'.
Let's dance outside the laws of gravity.
The sixth and final part of Eel Behaviour is here. Opening up with the pacy, acid-tinged power of Panmella Calix's "Tip", you could be forgiven for thinking that this dancefloor destroyer out of Scandinavia was made in the mid-nineties (and you could be right!). Suneel Shark's "Blunt But Fair" got lost in the Irish Sea many times before we finally reeled in the DAT on a fishing trip close to Portmarnock. The Arctic Ocean resident sprung out of the water on this one, in naturally fast and slippery style.
On the flip, French techno supremo Zadig delivers an acid-rave-breakbeat combo on "Red Eye", recalling the early era of labels like UR, Missile and Synewave, and creating a massive bomb in the process. That then brings us to Jon Hussey, who wraps up the record with an expert slice of bubbling, trippy acid. "Engine Brood" and its hypnotic properties transport us to another dimension, and the end stop on our Eel Behaviour journey. As ever, artwork is from Adult Art Club's Jonny Costello, with this one coming on clear vinyl.
Kastil and I-Real have been releasing joint efforts since 2014. The occasional duo have perfected the boisterous techno they hold dear, and showcase their new approach on the gloomy 'Black Birds All Over' and the audacious sounding 'Skandha'.
'Black Birds All Over' is a lurid sounding effort that revolves around a monotonous roar and skillfully places drums and fx sounds that cut across the spectrum like daggers. Canadian duo Orphx delivers an enigmatic version of 'Black Birds All Over' that uses far-away pads to generate a more uncanny mood.
'Skandha' is a piece of nonconformist techno that uses broken drum patterns and eerie fx screams throughout. Order & Devotion owner Kwartz reworks 'Skandha' to a recognizable and powerful dark dancefloor version.
Techno's most influential label hits 200 releases with two powerful Amelie Lens interpretations of an Adam Beyer classic.
Over the course of its lifespan, Drumcode's vision has remained resolute, crafting techno that's both functional and forward-thinking. It's a philosophy that extends to the stable of artists who release on the label and play its showcases, with Adam Beyer's eyes and ears always focused on the future.
One artist in his viewpoint in recent years is Amelie Lens. Supporting her early productions on Lyase and Second State, a kinship naturally developed between the two artists, with Beyer asking her to contribute to 2017's A-Sides Vol.6 compilation.
Her blistering acid cut 'In Silence' blew the collective techno world out of the water.
Eighteen months on and now a regular on Drumcode showcase line-ups, Beyer has sought the Lenske Records boss to apply her energetic take on techno and remix 'Teach Me', his deep, Detroit-influenced cut from 2014.
The Main Mix highlighted the Swede's Drumcode Halloween set in London and is an exhilarating peak-team weapon driven by a grinding bassline that undulates with intensity, while Lens has made smart work of the vocal, teasing out the sample to harmonic perfection.
The Acid Mix sees the Belgian deliver a stripped back 303-led affair, utilising the looped vocal to build energy in the first half of the track, before rapid-fire percussion and squelchy stabs take control and push the atmosphere into darker and more ominous realms
