Suche:dro

Simian Mobile Disco’s Jas Shaw and new talent Bas Grossfeldt present ‘Klavier’ – an album of haunted elegance, graceful poise and cerebral depth, which is centred around the Yamaha Disklavier.

Combining the prepared piano minimalism of Hauschka with Basic Channel style dub techno, the pairing is mirrored in the duo, where Shaw’s formidable dance music experience synergises with Grossfeldt’s arts-based appreciation of contemporary composition.

When people talk about Italian dance music, they tend to focus on Rome and Napoli rather than Bologna. Yet the city in Northern Italy not only played a key role in the development of “Italo-house” in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, but also boasts a vibrant contemporary scene. To prove the point, Boogie Café has put together “Bologna On The Move”, a four-track selection of sizzling hot cuts from some of the city’s latest wave of deep and soulful dance music talents.

Leading the charge is Sam Ruffillo, a producer who first appeared on Boogie Café last year following an impressive 2018 debut on Irma Dance floor. He kicks off proceedings with the infectious “U Make Me Sing”, a heavyweight slab of rolling breakbeat goodness rich in tight vocal samples, jazzy guitar licks and wonderfully warm and weighty bass.

Later in the EP Ruffilo returns to action alongside Brine, another rising star with links to legendary Italian label Irma. “Request Line” is a fine slab of chunky, U.S garage-influenced deep house that sees the duo pepper swinging drums and toasty bass with heady organ stabs, cut-up vocal samples and trippy electronics.

Fittingly, Brine gets a chance to showcase his skills as a solo producer via “Star Chaser”, a looser and jazzier house excursion that doffs a cap to the glory years of jazz-funk whilst championing rich deep house synth riffs, jaunty bass and more spaced-out vocal snippets.

You’ll hear a similar jazz-funk influence at the heart of the EP’s only contribution from Red Rooster founder and former House of Disco artist D’Arabia. The most experienced of the three artists on show, he offers up “Straight Outta Fire”, a bouncy, deep and percussive affair that wraps drowsy male vocals, sustained chords and harmonica samples around disco-influenced house beats and what may well be the squelchiest bassline ever to emerge from Bologna.


DJ Support:

Bedmo Disco, Lord leopard, Melon Bomb, Dave Harvey, Haze City, Aroop Roy, Lay Far , Danvers, Kassian, Dave Jarvis,
Jimmy The Twin & Cengiz.

Kaluki brand co-owner Lee Spence aka Pirate Copy has forged a reputation in the dance music industry only a few can boast. Hailing from Manchester, the DJ / Producer & promoter has been responsible for some of the most legendary parties ever held in the city spanning the last 15 years. As a DJ he has spun in all 4 corners of the globe and has a trophy cabinet full of killer releases on labels such as Sola, Solid Grooves, Elrow and of course his own Kaluki Muzik.

For "PCB001", Spence delivers something special, dropping the exclusive to vinyl DJ tool that he’s been spinning at every show for the past 6 months to rapturous success. Utilising Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” sample to great effect he delivers a modern-day rework of explosive proportions. Looping up that infamous guitar riff behind a stomping beat, adding hands in the air breakdowns, vocals screams and sultry strings it’s sure to ignite any dancefloor it’s put before. Coupled with the original, Spence also offers up the Dub Mix and Loop Tool to give all manner of options to unleash.

Embarking on a journey from Italy to Anatolia and from Africa to the Americas, Nelson of the East soars over imagined landscapes in his debut, motion picture- inspired album, Kybele. Plug in your headphones, drown out the world, and set
out on a mystic voyage of Earth through the lens of Kybele, the Anatolian goddess of wild nature.

With the world in flux and isolation taking its toll, musical escapism has become a much needed pastime for today’s armchair adventurers. Treating recorded sound as a vehicle of time travel, Milanese artist Nelson of the East (N.O.T.E) takes listeners on a journey through kaleidoscopic soundscapes with his debut album Kybele released on Tartelet Records.

Skillfully weaving the sounds of East and West, the nine-track LP fuses Turkish and cosmic influences with a strong electronic backbone into an otherworldly soundtrack of our time.

“The feeling that passes through the record isn’t straight. It changes, it turns, it is never predictable. Never being able to predict which landscape you arrive at next or where the music is taking you is key to enjoying the sound journey,” says Nelson. “

Named Kybele after the Anatolian goddess of nature, fertility, mountains, and wild animals, the record is a continuous saga that takes from the Berlin-based artist’s own adventurous spirit. Following his previous EP releases Night Frames and Phase Alternating Lines, Nelson explores new territories on Kybele.

The album opener, “Explorer,” is an exhilarating build up to what could be a 80s sci-fi movie, showcasing Nelson’s knack for cinematic moods. “Draw Me,” speaks to the artist’s intention of making a “snare album,” with an irregular, dominating beat untethering it from time or boundaries. “What I realize while I was writing the rhythm part is that the more you keep a beat simple the more difficult it becomes to make it interesting. So I just put down some rules to follow. For example, using swing as smoothly as possible, or using lot of syncopated sequence over the straight 2-4 groove,” says Nicolas.

Another thing Nelson achieves in this album is ambience, or the “motion picture touch” as he calls it. Tracks like the wild and obscure Culto, with its Anatolian nuances and middle eastern-sounding scales are made by layering synths to achieve an orchestral effect.

Other tracks capture the musician’s penchant for African and Brazilian grooves, like the Saudade mix of Burning Palm. On the B side, the Italo-flavored Phase Lines comes through with shimmering synth and electronic drums complete with hazy vocals delivered by DJ Rayne and Nelson himself. Yahuda dives into dark, melancholic electro with a Detroit feel not far from the sounds of the great Drexciya.

The album closes with ZETA, a track that could easily double as an obscure cinematic composition. The nine-track LP is strictly limited to 300 copies, pressed on 180g vinyl with artwork by The Emperor of Antarctica. No repress.

Stu Chapman has been one of the most well regarded producers in the old skool and hardcore breaks scene for many years, and teaming up with legendary Perth Dj Rob Fender, he drops this awesome debut EP. Three tracks loaded with a deep underground sound for the proper raves from back in the day.

GLOK is the electronic solo project from Andy Bell of shoegaze legends RIDE (formerly of Oasis/Beady Eye/Hurricane #1). His debut album under the moniker, Dissident, was originally released last year on a limited edition cassette by Bytes, an offshoot of Ransom Note Records. That sold out in 24 hours, and was followed by a vinyl pressing of 500 copies, on transparent green vinyl, sold via Bandcamp and two online shops. However, with that edition now sold out pretty much on word of mouth, due to popular demand, Dissident is being repressed and is this time being made available to a wider audience via a partnership between Bytes and Republic of Music/K7. The name GLOK is a misspelling of the German word for Bell. The German connection fits well as there is a strong Krautrock influence in the music, especially on the title track, 'Dissident', an epic clocking in just shy of the 20-minute mark, which blends synthwave, minimalism, trance, Detroit techno and John Carpenter soundtracks, with Andy even dropping in some killer John Squire-esque guitar licks.

Once more we're ready to take flight on Africa Airways, for this sixth journey we're taking you above 5280 feet and laying on the funk.

The flight opens with the punchy horns, afro rhythms & groovy bass of Eko Roosevelt's "Ndolo Embe Mulema". Keeping the tempo high we usher in fellow Cameroonians JM Tim & Foty for another punch of brass with the funky "More And More (Ye-Male)". We stay in Cameroon with Ngalle Jojo, here he lays down another funktastic bass heavy stomper with "Ngigna Loko". Jude Bondeze hails from Bangui, Central African Republic and is probably best known for his more traditional Tene Sango album... but his debut 1981 release saw him in a very funky mood indeed!

Next up, Nigerian Vicky Edimo gets his thumb out and lays down some glorious slabs of deep funk... along with a rather splendid bass solo! JK Mandengue played bass off & on for the British Afrobeat band "Osibisa", playing on the uber funky "Super Fly TNT" Motion Picture Soundtrack album.. Certainly putting him on a path to the Wahahwah'tastic "Kosa Mba" taken from his 1979 self-titled album.

Slow percussive classic raw street funk from Nigeria's Akwassa, who's line up is the same as "Heads Funk Band", are up next. Another outing for Vicky Edimo on this 1978 beauty from Mike Kounou. Also on guitar duties for Mike Kounou is Francois Amadou Corea, who's funky chops can be heard on "Ngigna Loko" & "Njonjo Mukambe".

Hi-Octane funk from Airto Fogo, percussion, rhodes & horns aplenty on this 1974 instrumental cut "Black Soul". As we prepare to start our decent Francois Misse Ngoh drops in some filth with this 1980 bass face monster "Njonjo Mukambe"... head nodding isn't essential, but it's best to brace yourself for impact.

Your next Africa Airways departure will be ready for boarding soon,
so keep your passports at the ready!

In the late 90’s, east-side LA was in the throws of a post-indie explosion; a network of stoned bands ranging from neo-psychedelia to pseudo-country overran Spaceland (our generation’s Troubadour) and the local Silverlake Lounge. I was playing freakbeat records twice a week in dive bars, half of Spacemen 3 was crashing at my house (my drop-out roomate was Sonic Boom’s tour drummer) and it was during this blur that I met Raymond Richards, a clean-cut all-American pedal steel guitarist playing in Mojave 3 (the country-tinged side project of 4AD shoegaze royalty, Slowdive). I was instantly swept off my feet, head over heals in love with Raymond's weeping tone—the most chill-inducing, emotionally responsive dialog I’d had with music since discovering Satie as a child—it was then and it is now, truly haunting. After a year of personnel trials, my roomate and I stole Raymond for our own band, and not only did he smother our songs with his enchanting steel, he was virtuosic with a variety of atypical instruments such as baritone guitar and theremin, he utilized them all. The band was short-lived—I joined Ariel Pink, Raymond fled to Portland and me subsequently to New York City—but in founding the ESP Institute years later, there was always a recurring mental note; we must make Raymond’s pedal steel album. I had managed to wrangle his blessed performance on a remix for Project Club’s El Mar Y La Luna, but it took almost a decade until I once again wore the producer hat and we began working on The Lost Art Of Wandering, a title borrowed from Sam Shepard’s Stories. Spiritually candid, expansive yet enveloping, this is the strung-out, visceral country music that simply radiates from Raymond. Each song is his set of coordinates in a vast open terrain, holding a sentimental familiarity, a truthful longing for the simple comforts that diffuse life’s complications, a place to get lost. –Lovefingers

Part inspired by the prose of his favourite author James Baldwin, South Brooklyn's Korre 's experience of being a black man in America forms an integral part of his work, even if it's largely instrumental. "I always make sure my music has elements of pain, beauty, and darkness," says Korre in his bio. That vibe is certainly felt across his stunning debut EP for Utrecht's 030303 Records. 'End of Time' is a deep, dystopian piece of club music, as much suited for the floor as it is for the introverted mind. With virtually no intro, the listener gets sucked into the intenseness of the track right away. 'Crimson' is equally dark, filled with spooky vocal snippets and washed out acid sounds. 'Don't Wanna Wait' is a heartfelt ambient spacer, not unlike the eeriest work of Burial. 'Silver Exo' then is probably the best track on the record even if it's hard to pick a favourite. Korr? slowly brings the dancefloor back with this beautifully crafted builder, again filled with abstract vocal snippets. Closing this beast of a debut record is 'St Blues', consisting of a male monologue, captivating droney melodies and acid bubbles in the background. It's the conclusion of the first chapter by this artist we will no doubt hear more of in the future.

Where does electronic music lead you? To the inside, to a calm and warm place where sound resonates with your body in quiet bliss, or to the outside where the rhythm wants you dance, even without moving? „WTMCT“ gives an answer to these questions that is complex yet extremely easy to understand in an immediate sentient and emotive way.

Menelaos music is unusual and unlikely both with respect to the structure and arrangement of tracks, and the materiality and spatiality of the sound. And yet these sounds convey an immediate sensation of familiarity and ease, of beauty and relaxation. Menelaos utilizes loudness and extreme dynamics in a thoughtful and intriguing way to accentuate strange runaway sounds while maintaining the continuity of the flow of the tracks, which is Ambient to the core. This is a rare art in our time, where hypercompressed and superoptimized glossy sounds dominate most of Ambient, drone and even deep listening music.

In this aspect the album follows and refines the subtle production skills of seminal electronic artists like Jan Jelinek or Terre Thaemlitz a.k.a. DJ Sprinkles. What is genuinly special about Menelaos music is the natural and seemingly effortless fusion of challenging experimentalism and a warm and soothing organic sound-design. This shows exemplary in the collaborative tracks with trombonist and bass trumpet player Achim Fink, a founding figure of the Cologne jazz and free improvisation scene of the eighties. Achim is uncompromisingand in times disruptive play merges perfectly into Menelaos serene soundscapes.

This way „WTMCT“ became a genuine album. It tells a story. It invites deep exploration but it does not demand it, thus transcending common notions of how Ambient or Electronica should sound. Text: Frank Eckert

The Album includes also some warm sampels (my live with the wave vol 1+ 2) from the Detroit legend Mike Huckaby to whom i very thankful.

Limited edition of 170

Repress!

Cutting edge innovators Rashad Becker and Mark Fell re-work material from Sote’s extraordinary ‘Parallel Persia’ album alongside a killer non-album track by Ata Ebtekar aka Sote himself. Highly recommended if yr into the complex tunings and arrhythmic geometry of Dariush Dolat-Shahi, Autechre, Xenakis...
Last year’s ‘Paralell Persia’ album took the trajectory of his preceding ‘Hardcore Sounds From Tehran’ (2016) and ‘Sacred Horror In Design’ (2017) to thrilling new heights for Diagonal. Turning traditional instrumental music inside-out with computers and modular synths, he arrived at a thrilling mix of sound that stood out as one of the year’s most original and striking releases.
Wrapped around the incendiary core of ‘Artificial Neutrality’ which features Pouya Damadi’s Tar and Arash Bolouri’s Santour sculpted into fiery folk futurism by Sote, the remixes by celebrated mastering engineer and improvising composer Rashad Becker and minimalist rhythmatist Mark Fell exert incredible new spins on Sote’s originals that remain faithful to the material in their inimitable styles.
Rashad Becker’s Dramatic Reenactment of ‘Pseudo Scholastic’ combs and curdles the original into 7 segmented minutes of squirming tones and melted rhythms that, through twists and turns, come to recall Korean classical court music and Florian Hecker as much as they recall the original.
Mark Fell, meanwhile, impresses with his quadruply extended 20 minute Parallel Yorkshire mutation of ‘Modality Transporter’, where he unravels its syncopated flex in endless permutations of laser-guided pulse drops, puckered strings and choral stabs that come to sound like Autechre letting off fireworks at a Dariush Dolat-Shahi show.

a 1. Pseudo Scholastic Dramatic Reenactment - Rashad Becker (06:59)

Parallel Yorkshire - Mark Fell (19:50)

Active since the late 1990s, Brussels-based Frenchman Sylvain Chauuveau is an unsung pioneer of a now burgeoning scene and was making elegant post-classical compositions years ahead of celebrated current peers like Max Richter, Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds, Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka.

Now reissued in a remastered, first-ever vinyl edition, ‘Simple’ was originally released in 2012 as a CD collection of Sylvain’s works for cinema - a set of out-of-print, rare, and unreleased tracks composed between 1998-2010 that span stark / minimal electronic drones, processed guitar explorations, chamber pieces, solo piano and two 40-piece string orchestra recordings.

Chauveau’s work here sounds as fresh and relevant today as it did back then and its author is long overdue some recognition / reappraisal of his role in helping prepare the ground for today’s scene. His music has been praised by numerous peers - Ryuichi Sakamoto listed ‘Nocturne Impalpable’ as one of his Top 5 records; Hauschka and Peter Broderick have admitted his influence and Jóhann Jóhannsson, Adam Wiltzie (A Winged Victory / Stars Of The Lid) and Fennesz have also praised his work.

“Occupies the twilit area where downbeat, muted experimental electronic music melts into downbeat, muted chamber music” - Pitchfork “One of the most brilliant minds of French Music” - Les
InRocks

For fans of Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, Johann Johannsson, Erik Satie, Arvo Pärt, Labradford, Mogwai, Peter Broderick and Hauschka.

If you’ve visited Ibiza in the last few years, there’s a fair chance you’ll have encountered DJ Pippi and Willie Graff. The experienced duo has been DJing together on the White Isle for years, finding time between sundown sets to make music together in Italian veteran Pippi’s home studio. The pair’s first collaborative EP dropped on Drumpoet Community way back in 2007, with the belated follow-up appearing a decade later on Compost Disco. Here they make their bow on Leng with the “Lunares EP”, a typically warm and woozy collection of cuts named after the Spanish word for “polka dots” (a fashionable item in Spain and the Balearic islands throughout the 1980s).

They begin with the slow-burn sunrise bliss of “Lunares”, a shuffling and glassy-eyed affair in which evocative, emotion-rich strings, heady vocal samples, echoing sitars and lilting guitars slowly rise above a thickset backing track rich in dubby bass, swelling pads, starry electronics and snappy drums. Capable of tugging at the heartstrings, it’s a sublime slab of mood-enhancing bliss perfect for both weary dancing and sofa-bound relaxation. “Saxolicious” lives up to the premise of the title, with Pippi and Willie wrapping snaking, effects-laden saxophone solos around a languid, slow motion groove bristling with hazy intent. Expect chiming electric piano chords, dreamy pads, rolling grooves and another fine bassline that will worm its way into your subconscious, spark up a spliff and stay there for days.

The EP’s final musical moment is, if anything, even more spaced-out and intoxicating. Employing extra-slow beats and a prominent jazzy bass guitar part, the pair invites us to get locked in to a chuggy rhythm. Throw in druggy synth lines, tactile electric piano stabs and some suitably cosmic effects and you have a hallucinatory treat that would no doubt have gained the approval of the late, great Andrew Weatherall.

Romaal Kultan first caught the attention of listeners with his warm and heavily syncopated contribution to Touching Bass' Afro Chronicles: Volume One compilation back in 2017. Since then, the south London based artist has gone on to remix tracks for the likes of Chicago legend Javonntte and Profusion (K15 and Emerson), as well as releasing a debut solo offering in the form of last year's Off Grid EP on YAM Records. Not allowing himself to be confined to the usual "DJ/Producer" tag, his creative output also encapsulates his endeavours as a visual artist, instrumentalist and vocalist. While his DJ sets draw heavily on fierce bottom end and diced breaks, his own compositions range from frenetic club heaters to lilting breezy lullabies.

Having already received early support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Bradley Zero and Volcov, Everlasting Romance kicks off with 'Step Inside', a driving acid march delicately accentuated with supple synth chords and a lilting digi-flute. Romaal Kultan keeps the focus on the floor with 'Why Not?', a heavily swung dusty piano house number with a fat sub and a sprinkling of vocal chops throughout. Closing out the EP is the title track, 'Everlasting Romance'. Dropping the tempo considerably, a loose dembow rhythm powers heartwarming chords and skygazing synth fills.

DJ Woody teams up with the incredible champion beatboxer Ball-Zee to drop one of the most original and useful new scratch records on the market! Box Cutter is made up of 100% original recordings with Woody utilising the phenomenal vocal dexterity of the UK’s Ball-Zee to create an arsenal of incredible new scratch sounds.

Side A (the ‘Scratch Side’) concentrates on vocal phrases, noises, sound effects and tones with 16 skip proof loops programmed at 133 bpm and 100 bpm and ends with a lock groove bass tone phrase. Side B (the ‘Drum Side’) contains a remarkable array of drum rhythms and sounds perfect for all manner of scratch drumming, beat juggling and production!

It features 11 skip-proof grooves and phrases at 66.66 bpm, 133.33 bpm, 100 bpm and 83.33 bpm as well as 3 ridiculous freestyle tracks for more intricate juggle routines. 2 copies are a must for all jugglers!

• 100% original sounds and phrases
• Perfect for scratch jams, drumming, beat juggling and production
• 27 skip-proof loops, 2 lock grooves and 3 freestyles
• Super loud and deep pressing on black vinyl

Known for releases on Apron, Misterio and Stillove4Music, Devin Dare join RNT with a 4-tracker of straight dance floor heat. The production alias of NYC’s Duane Harriott and Shawn Marquand, Devin Dare produce disco edits with a driving, almost techno-like sensibility & this 12” showcases their ability to coax every last drop of energy from a chopped and looped sample.

From the rolling thump of ‘Clash and Burn,’ to the percussive- and bass-driven ‘Stop,’ the low-slung gospel organ groove of ‘Dust,’ to the explosive & exuberant ‘KOHO2’ this record pretty much defines what a rework can, and should be. In a word, PROPER!

Russia's Nocow refuses to mourn the failed experiment of human contact on his Turbo debut EP, delivering cathartic anthems alongside giant warehouse jams you are free to call "deep" and "cavernous" with full knowledge of the risks involved. ??

On lead track "Never Leave Me," the Saint Petersburg-based creator of "Cloud Techno" runs emotive vocals through a hazmat filter and into the emo-globin contained within your fluorescent-green blood cells. Meanwhile, after-hours love-weapons "Back On," "Avalon," and "Soder" each take different routes to activating the phantom arousal mechanisms of your soul. Finally, some people have been calling closer "Starfall" a "magical ticket to Vocal Sample Heaven" and "a timeless all-inclusive ravecation from the cares of this workaday world." While we would never choose to word it that way, we concede that both descriptions are generally pretty accurate.??

In these times of social isolation and uncertainty, we remind you that it's vital your Restless Heart Syndrome not turn into Reckless Heart Syndrome. Instead of frequenting illicit "Droplet Transmission Parties," why not peep the vast network of Landline Raves we've been hearing about via our vast network of peeper-drones? Also, please try to keep in mind that all of this is simply selection pressure forcing you to evolve new and viable ways of connecting with the hottest singles in your area. So stay inside for now and stay inside our hearts forever.

After a short hiatus Maps Of Hyperspace returns with his sophomore followup to "Superspace". "Against All Ends" folds elements of drone, dubtechno, and spatial ambience, into a snug ohm meditative blanket and slow burns like an incense stick.

Disco icon D.C. LaRue and Fraternity Music Group go back to the original multitracks and rework two classics from the Pyramid Disco catalog. With DJ Spinna, Johnny Juice (Public Enemy) and Mell Starr on remix duties, LaRue’s “Face Of Love” and “Indiscreet” are revitalized and tuned up by and for DJs and dancers. Juice’s intense, ‘80s house flip of “Face Of Love” sets things off before DJ Spinna gives the song a classic white glove treatment, extending and dropping drum breaks at all the right times. Mell Starr rounds things out with straight-to-the-point mix.

The flip side sees Juice get creative with it once again, with a dubby, cut-filled version of the break beat classic “Indiscreet.” As a DJ who’s cut the original up a million times, Spinna knows exactly where to freak the beat on his version of “Indiscreet,” lacing it with monster open drums throughout. Once again, a classy Mell Starr mix closes out the side of this jam-packed 12-inch.

Heavyweight pressing and an immaculate full color jacket utilizing the original Pyramid Disco sleeve design makes this a must-have for any funky DJ.

The first collaboration between frequent Past Inside the Present contributor Slow Dancing Society (both as an artist and in-house engineer for other PITP releases) and the label's founder zake, present 'Mirrored'; a wonderful meditative exploration of glacial drones, atmospheric hum, and touches of restrained ambient techno.

Mirrored is a quietly powerful, contemplative album with a beautiful stillness at its center. Layered dronescopes are intertwined with murmuring electronic rhythms, hypnotic bass, and the occasional pneumatic beat resulting in a collection of pieces that radiates a glowing warmth.

Puzzlebox Records Classic Electro / Techno Label Returns. Label owner Keith Tucker aka K-1 is back with his own Brand of Electro Funk with infectious bass lines and unmistakable vocals from one of the genres hardest working artist and label owners.

Over the years Tucker has done it all from visuals for live shows , label art work, dj’ing all over the world to also touring as a founding member of Aux88.

His new release is “Modular World “side A is an electro banger with Tuckers amazing arpeggiator work reminiscent of his great Optic Nerve techno alias. Modular World has a hypnotizing arp and Funky bassline that hits your soul and quickly programs your mind to
dance mode. The haunting Vocal and electronic vocoder work is unmistakable K-1 at his best. Listen to the way he combines his
voices to form his own distinct sound.

Side B. “Schematix” brings this special two track ep to A thunderous boom with a more retro bass styling that shows his programming skills, K-1 is able to manipulate his mixes to showcase his intelligent techno side with the street funk of Detroit. “Schematix” dark sci-fi drone vocals kick off the k-1 mix to get any crowd to run to the dance floor.

Studio Mule drops “Anthologia”, the final chapter of a close look on the work of the Tokyo born DJ and producer Takayuki Shiraishi, a jack of all trades, that sways through Tokyo’s vast music scene since the late 70’s, a time when post punk grooves called the tune. As part of the band BGM he released in 1980 the album “Back Ground Music” on the legendary Osaka based underground label Vanity. Last October Studio Mule reissued BGM’s no wave, free funk mini-mal treasure. A few Month earlier Studio Mule already published “Missing Link”, a thrilling retrospect on Takayuki Shiraishi's unreleased material from the late 1980s, a creative period of which only a little ever saw the light of the day.

And now “Anthologia”, a record that is dedicated to his work during the years 1990 to 1996, a time span, in which Shiraishi moved on to produce house, downbeat and playful electronica. In 1995 he released the ambient/techno 12inch “Spectral Colours” on the R&S sublabel Apollo under the alias Planetoid. Two years later he manifested his techno leaning creativity under his given name on the album “Photon”, a record that helped launching Japan’s techno scene. It was followed by two more long players, that display his wide musical taste with ambient, house, breakbeat and other genre blending styles. Besides producing, Shiraishi was also a prominent figure of Tokyo’s club nightlife, DJing alongside Jeff Mills as well as Krautrock icons like Holger Czukay.

“Anthologia” features three unreleased tunes of this lapse of time, as well as highlights some work Shiraishi produced together with his friend Jun Sonohara as Musica Nova and a hidden gem he tuned in for the “Isolated Audio Players 1” compilation, published by the Tokyo based Pickin' Mushroom Recordings label in 2000.

The three unreleased tracks display his love for diversification. “Distant Thunder” is a drone driven ambient voyage, that slowly melds into a gentle rhythmic sensation driven by loose hi-hat patterns and a soft chord crescendo. On the opposite, “Lapis Lazuli” comes around as a mellow melodic downbeat trip enlarged with twisted rhythms and cosmic infiniteness. “A Voy-age” shows his love for house music with a grooving arrangement that comes close to the kinky house gems of contemporary producers like Lowtec. Also, the already known “Isolated Audio Players 1” compilation tune “Flicker” is located in the house spheres, delivering nervous jacking minimal vibes emerging from a precise produced dance of melodies, grooves and sound effects.

In comparison, the four Musica Nova tracks show again another side of Takayuki Shiraishi’s many musical talents. “Birds in Paradise” is an elegant triphop tranquilizer, while tunes like “Nocturnal Tribes” and “Green on Green” express his passion for electronic arrangements that think out of the box with airy melodies, slow-motion big beat rhythms, jazz particles and an overall cosmic sound complexion. The tune “Shifting Sand” goes the same direction, while adding esoteric reverberations and a touch of Drum and bass.

Together the eight tracks turn “Anthologia” into something more than just an anthology of Takayuki Shiraishi’s work. In association, all compositions work like an album that overwhelms with a reasoned story-arc, who slowly rises to a hypnotizing peak, from where all downswings to a calm finish, that makes you want to start all over again.

While it’s undeniable that Eric B & Rakim crafted and concocted classic after classic back in the Golden Era of the late 80’s and early 90’s, very few of their records could ever be classified as ‘dancefloor fillers’. But that’s exactly what ‘I Know You Got Soul’ was.

The duo’s third single was released at a time when their debut LP, 1987’s ‘Paid in Full’ was already being hailed as a gamechanger. Rakim’s smooth but sombre flow had introduced new phrases to the hip-hop lexicon, while the barrage of James Brown samples had declared open season on the Godfather of Soul’s back catalogue.

There were already stirrings of a backlash from the more frequently sampled artists at the time this came out, and the fact that it took not just its main hook but also its title from Bobby Byrd’s James Brown-produced 1971 single was almost like rubbing salt in the wound. The hip-hop fans and the dancefloor didn’t care – this played all summer long in 1987, elevating the group to a Soul Train performance.

Only months after this dropped, the UK collective M|A|R|R|S turned Rakim’s “Pump up the volume” line into the basis of their own hit. Pop will eat itself.

The original 7” was released in a no-frills generic sleeve – this re-release comes with a brand new cover utilising some of Dan Lish’s trademark artwork.

Curtis Electronix delivers his second release. 4 originals from one of the most remarkable and reliable artists in the game, Rotterdam dungeon master DJ Overdose. The A side drops two club ready electro tracks molded with his unique cyberfunk style, punchy analog drums, heavy dystopian basslines and gently spaced out melodies. On the flip side things turn into a murky slow tempo affair. Industrial solid drums and distorted sonic grounds will turn your captivating journey into a dark machine odyssey.

First album in 8 years from legendary Dearborn duo . Windy and Carl have been crafting inner space electric guitar and bass vistas for nearly three decades now, but their latest feels as vital and vaporous as any peak opus in their vast catalog. Written and recorded across six years, the songs swirl between shoegaze minimalism and stargaze drift, over which Windy Weber whispers veiled poetic narratives of transformation, isolation, and escape. Allegiance and Conviction is their first album since 2012's We Will Always Be. The six compositions are something of outlier in their catalog, shorter in nature than most on their previous releases. All of the tracks are saturated with Hultgren's signature guitar work, intimate constructions of murmurs, drones and his trademark layered filigree, gently amassed into alternately lighter and heavier than air atmospheres. Despite being their first full-length in more than half a decade,the album fully belongs to the bewitching galaxy of sound Windy and Carl innovated and within which they remain the sole occupants: music of thresholds and peripheries and eternities. Allegiance and Conviction is the multifaceted, contemporary take on their sound.

*More downbeat wickedness on the excellent Fasaan!*

This double A-sider is the fruit of a long gestating collaboration with fellow Malmö-based record collector/selector & producer Simon alias Rizzolo DJ (alias Moisture). Closely intertwined with the label in various ways since the start, his path to producing started with re-edits and a more wild-haired approach to deejaying, finally landing into his own groove with the 2018 album A Freak Is Born. Released as a privately pressed cassette, the album featured two tracks co-produced with Fasaan founder Prins Emanuel.

On that first album, the palette was a lo-fi reverie of minimal waves crashing into depths of goth and heights of camp. Here for the 12" format, we instead get the full onslaught of power tools gleaming in the blast of strobe lights. The weight of GAMMUT unfolds and delivers exactly what the title suggests: a complete scope of percussive barrage unleashed in tight locked grooves and smattering reverberations. In addition to that, we are treated with a spine-tingling re-imagining of the concept of a bass drop.

For ORGONE, a 1984 track by Norwegian group Fra Lippo Lippi serves as the backbone of the composition. Championed by cosmic DJ Daniele Baldelli and here pitched down to wrongspeeder tempo, Moisture uses the original song to bridge the gap between his roots in the re-edit scene as well as in the cosmic tradition. Thedry mechanical bassline is flanked by hollow percussion that eventually propels into a crystal-chimmering microcosm of orgone energy.

Ital Tek (a.k.a. Alan Myson) returns to Planet Mu with his sixth album ‘Outland‘. The album was written during a period of new beginnings following a move out of the city to a quieter space and the birth of his first child. During this time of self-imposed isolation Alan recorded a huge amount of source material and spent weeks and months sitting up at night with his newborn, listening back and making notes on how the new record should take form, focusing and developing ideas to shape this lean ten-track album.

Alan talks of the record being a collaboration between two parts of himself, something that definitely comes across as the album unfolds. Textures are something Alan excels at and on his last album, the largely beatless ‘Bodied’, it felt as if he was building a new sound-world. On ‘Outland’ he expands upon this. The album brings together the extremes of Alan's sound, contrasting roughened bass and beats with starker more detailed atmospheres and emotions.

The most beat-driven song here is ‘Deadhead’, with its gnarled bouncing bass, angular distorted melodies and cavernous textures. On tracks like ‘Bladed Terrain’ the contrasts are even more defined with buzzing drones and razor sharp drums plunging into a grainy fog, giving the track a dramatic 3D feel.

Then there are the stop-start pauses of ‘Leaving The Grid’, where the song evaporates into space before reemerging with shuddering rhythms and ghostly textures. Melodies crawl around these tracks as if they’re just waking up, as heard on the atmospheric ‘Angel In Ruin’.

The sleep-deprived fraying of the senses became Alan’s routine and one which he says gave him a renewed creative energy; half-asleep, working through the night, and then into the daytime super-focused but exhausted. Prone to audio hallucinations whilst writing the album, he aimed to capture these distortions in his perception of pitch and time, and you can hear these effects interpreted on tracks like ‘Endless’ and ‘Open Heart’ as melodies phase and slip out of time like an emotional Doppler effect.

This is also true of the soaring atonal synths at the peak of ‘Diamond Child’, which feel like the aural equivalent of eye floaters. These intuitive feelings and functions are a difficult thing to capture in sound, but Alan manages it beautifully and always makes the result feel warm and adventurous, heartfelt and epic.

The sickest French band, a trio called France, drums, bass and amplified hurdy-gurdy. They only performs live, in the middle of the audience - turned in to face each other - full on smoke machines and strobes. And they play only one ‘song’ for the duration of their hour-long set. And it’s the most transfixing live experience of intense physical and mental focus, and there is something of early rave too, the togetherness, the energy, the euphory. The distorted hurdy gurdy plugs France’s sound into the country’s history of folk music and popular festivities, of communal trance and immersive pleasure. The rhythmic basis is pretty much the same throughout the whole live. One doesn’t need to actually be tripping balls for the auditory illusions to start coming thick and fast. Those who’ve stayed for the whole duration of their performances know they’ve shared something. However disparate the phantom forms each might have discerned in the midst of the howls and groans. Gigs like this you leave feeling you’re not quite the same person who went in, even though you’d be hard-pressed to pinpoint precisely what has changed. Far Out Far West was the band’s first gig outside of their usual comfortable friendly circle and thus was perceived as a somewhat hostile environment. This was where they met the fellows of Les Potagers Nature who will later release France’s debut untitled album. One certainty remains at least, that there is still a France we can believe in. David McKenna (The Quietus). Sales Points: - New album from trio France - All previous releases now sold out and sought after - For fans of drone, rural trance, stoner, psychedelic - 131st release on Mental Groove Music, home of WRWTFWW

Repress

A triumphant return to old form after classic bangers like PROTOTYPE (KOMPAKT 92), FREQUENCY (KOMPAKT 102) or MAXIMIZE (KOMPAKT 145), but also a bold step in a new sonic direction: Kompakt ally REX THE DOG presents his latest offering SICKO - a brand new 12" packed with two incorruptible rabble-rousers that hit the floor right behind the ears, employing sharply focussed thrust and dramatic sweeps to stunning effect.

Having started out with just one synth in 2004 -

the same vintage Korg 700S that was used by Mute Records founder Daniel Miller for his legendary "Warm Leatherette" outing -, REX THE DOG knows perfectly well how to squeeze the most out of a limited set of sounds. A growing intimacy with analog gear finally lead the producer to design and build his very own array of modular synthesizer components, including a sampler fittingly called RTD-001.

Armed with this barn-storming DIY attitude, and using gear he made with his own hands, Rex pulls two strikingly muscular rabbits out of his hat: the A-side's title cut SICKO is a raw, pounding cut-up fest that builds a scary amount of tension just with a few distinct elements, while the flipside's KORGASMOTRON loads up its bleep-ridden

chassis with a succulent, sweeping vocal and some well-placed acid drops. Both tracks showcase a leaner, cleaner, but also meaner approach to dance music, making this a particularly thrilling entry in REX THE DOG's oeuvre.

"BRUK" is a new platform for fresh variations on the soundsystem ethic, in particular where high-end sound design intersects with formidable bassweight. It's an artist-focused endeavour geared towards producers with range, depth and ingenuity in their sound.

The first transmission comes from "FFT", the latest alias from accomplished producer Josh Thompson. Thompson established the Super Hexagon label with long time friends J. Wiltshire and Arthur Scott-Geddes and he's also released on heritage label R&S (as Alma Construct) and the excellent offbeat techno upstarts Power Vacuum, and more recently developed the FFT moniker via essential drops on The Trilogy Tapes as well as Super Hexagon.Thompson helps launch BRUK with a two-pronged attack that shows off the breadth of his artistic scope.

The lead 12" is a dynamic club release that pivots between razor-sharp drum programming, hyphy synth acrobatics, breakbeat science and dub-loaded atmospheres. If there's one constant that runs through all Thompson's work, it's a resounding confidence with melody, and that comes through even in the rowdy chops of "Month" – a track that exudes hope even in its gnarliest bars. From the dreadweight minimalism of "Fask" to the expansive electronica shock out of "Sacrifice (The Truth Mix)", this is a head-twisting release that feeds into the vital new energyreverberating around the 150+ axis.

Accompanying that 12" is a cassette album which provides that polar opposite side to FFT – a collection of compelling beatless ruminations under the banner of Total Self-Fulfilment. Gliding from low frequency industrial textures to expressive synth modulation, this is far from static music, even as it moves without the aid of a traditional rhythm section.

It's a strong first chapter for BRUK, with future releases lined up from artists similarly poking at the fabric of contemporary club music to find their own unique spaces for expression.

UNCAGE’s label owner Marco Faraone drops his second album on Rekids, focusing on an unrestricted, unfiltered soundscape inspired by childhood, entitled ‘No Filter’.

Since his initial appearance on Radio Slave’s esteemed imprint in 2018, Italian artist and label boss Marco Faraone has continued to enthuse techno communities across the globe, playing at the likes of Awakenings, Caprices, Tomorrowland and Kappa FuturFestival. With previous releases on Ovum, Drumcode and Be As One, the Tuscany-born artist has garnered the support of Len Faki, Rodhad, Laurent Garnier and many more.

‘Force Deep’ and ‘Iconic’ give the senses a relaxed flush of ecstasy and lofi-esque rhythm, while tracks like ‘Night Ride’, ‘Addiction’ and ‘No Filter’ lean more on a stripped back, beat focused dub techno tip. ‘Frogface’, and ‘Time Equals Eternity’ then flurry with signature drum programming, and otherworldly synth stabs. Finally, ’Trust Me’, propel forward with after dark atmospheres, giving this versatile and luscious album that mainstay place amongst any unique techno set.

Islands, volcanoes and instrumental exile stories... From Overseas is the experimental ambient project by Kevin Sery.

Originally from the tiny French overseas department and region, Reunion Island, he routinely bounces between his home island, a small port town on the east coast of the US & Continental Europe picking up fresh ideas & inspiration along the way.

With a beautiful master by Stephan Mathieu (12k, Shelter Press, ... ) From Overseas Releases his first full length album "Home" on PITP. "Home" is a journey through beautiful soundscapes where dark and light intertwine, where ambient tones give way to post-rock guitar craft, then segway to melodic drone, noise and back again.


These soothingly powerful songs evoke emotions on a full spectrum, dreamy unplanned travels and inspire us to question the nature of the place that each of us calls home. The fourth track, Maloya Tales, is a personal tribute to Sery's homeland 'Reunion Island' and gives the listener a glimpse of the mystical rhythms of traditional Reunionese Maloya music.

Dutch studio wizard Billy Ray de la Haye drops a timeless and spaced out Mini-LP on eudemonia with six tracks made between the 90’s and 2019.

Abyss once again drops a masterclass in Amen manipulation, with shattering bass and proper jungle vibes. Hitting that sweet spot between original old skool and classic styled amen trickery is a trick tried by many, but none in the current scene comes close to matching him. This EP drops HEAVY and gives the dancefloor no time to recover.

DJ Die Soon is a local legend and ongoing inspiration in the Berlin underground electronic music scene. Remaining largely unknown outside the city, with only a handful of releases and appearances to date, the man behind the mask delivers truly freakish beats built from chaos driven crushed drums and eerie horror style basslines.

KAPPA SLAP wrenches the Morphine catalog by the neck, takes it off it’s feet and slams it back unsteadily in front of the fans who loved the Container, Metasplice and Hieroglyphic Being output of the label. DJ Die Soon delivers extreme work here. The album is a mixture of instrumental pieces and vocal tracks featuring the talents of five contrasting MC's. Three Ugandan lyricists feature: there’s MC Yallah, with whom he worked during a residency for the Nyege Nyege Festival , Lord Spikeheart from the Duma hardcore pressure band, and the mighty ECKO BAZZ. Long time friend and collaborator Infinite Livez (Ninja Tunes) appears on the cosmic & eccentric Ranthworth, and finally there’s Japan’s MA, who recently dropped the incredible AMA album on the label. Incidentally, the pair (both Japanese) decided to collaborate after acclaimed performance at the Morphine Showcase Berlin’s Berghain in 2019.

KAPPA SLAP contains a lot of our favorite sounds all in one album. Stunningly, DJ Die Soon manages to paint the Morphine picture in one hard stroke.

Artwork courtesy of Lorenzo Mason Studio

Mars89 titles his first release Natural Sciences after a year already defined by bacterial outbreaks, drone assassinations and the rise of the right. Across four tracks which range from industrial quom to leftfield electronics, Mars89 supplies the goods to live the nightmare.
White label limited to 300 copies worldwide.

kniteforce head honcho and all round oddball Luna-C drops an eclectic remix EP, featuring tracks spanning his entire 3 decade career. Shoreman takes “Bomb Da Bassline” and makes it as mad as you might expect from the mastermind behind “On The Edge”. Success’n’Mistreat meanwhile is remixed back to the early 90’s sound of MARRS and that sample heavy era. The Wislov remix of “Edge Of Madness” is perhaps the standout, being a classic anthem remixed into an even more formidable style, and the EP is rounded off by KF newcomer Dj Beeno, who takes the obscure “Hurricane” and blows it away…

'Banoffee Pies Records' drop their 12th release in the original series with a solo EP from New York based Tristan Arp. With a string of intricate music on the likes of Human Pitch and a recent LP entitled "Suggested Forms", which offers a wider exploration into his work, Tristan's passion for sound design echoes in this record.

All four tracks offer an environment somewhere between a feeling &
a dancefloor with obscure influences in polyrhythmic drum patterns and a clear combination of digital and analogue processing. "Swept Thru" opens proceedings with a spiral of rhythms and heavy percussion leaping in energy throughout, before the spooked out Vox takes control on "Oblique House" with deeper movements in a haunted club tune. The B side opens with the title track "Slip" in a powerful whirlwind arrangement of sub bending sounds before the final colour is added to the palette in "Circling Music'' with emotive jingles in a more retained and patient mood.

You can hear Tristan's other work within the Asa Tone project - a trio group well worth the trip, offering a deep variety of works exploring field recordings taken and formulated in Indonesia beneath a tree canopy deep in the jungle. This same energy and mood spills into this release. Music for feeling. Much love BP x

Mastered: Optimum, Pressed: MPO & Distributed by KUDOS.

Jon Tye and Pete Fowler have been making music as Seahawks for a decade now. Given the sounds they’ve been exploring over those ten years it was a cosmic inevitability that they would be asked to contribute to the catalogue of the legendary library label KPM.

They replied with Island Visions, an exploration of sound for vision where they construct “audio micro-worlds to explore and inhabit”. A way to transport the listener away from the everyday without the bother of getting on an aeroplane. Mind travel is space travel after all, and much better for the environment.

Mostly recorded at The Centre Of Sound in Cornwall, with additional recording at Studio 34 in London, Jon and Pete’s travelling companions on this particular trip were boogie wunderkind Sven Atterton on fretless bass and keys, Nick Mackrory on percussion and the Seahawks live team of Dan Hillman and Alik Peters-Deacon.

From the grooves of Brian Bennett to the moog vibrations of Mike Vickers, the lush textures of Les Baxter to the experimental sounds of Delia Deryshire and David Vorhaus, this new music channels sounds and moods from across the KPM universe.

The spacious “Hot Sand Shuffle” opens the record with some of Seahawks’ familiar “deck-shoegaze”. The slinky digi-dub of “Sky Blue Sky” follows, gently encouraging us to lay back and relax. “Mystic Beach” is a refreshing ocean spray of a synthetic groove that clears the head, priming a pathway to receive “Crystal Forest”, a new age house groove of birds and flutes.

Dense, deep and dreamlike, “Distant Shore” is ambient rainforest house with a 90s vibe, its dense foliage clearing to let us bask in the shimmer and shine of “River Run”. Hang drum, electric gamelan, flute and loon close side A.

Side B bounces into being with “Catch A Wave”, an upbeat beach groover of synthetic guitar, effervescent synth and snappy drums. Equatorial bubbler “Paradise Bird Bath” soon glides in with marimba, crisp beats and fat synth bass. Fender rhodes, space echo and fretless bass make “Smooth Runnings” a laid-back poolside groove.

“Spirits Have Flown” conjures a hazy vibe with marimba, sax, synth funk bass and chilled beats before “Rolling Deep” serves up a light cocktail of sultry rhythms, refreshing textures, cooling sax and fretless bass. Almost-title track “Island Blues” brings the horizontal poolside feels with melodic chimes, oboe and more fretless bass for maximum vibrations. The marina drone of modular electronics, celestial trumpet and jungle ambience pay the album’s final respects to the cosmos on “Sun Salute”.

Like many KPM suites, this is a record of two distinct sides. The sunrise of side A brings a deep meditation, a journey within to renew the jaded self. Side B refreshes with cocktails by the pool and a chance to groove away the evening at some sunset beach party before dancing under the stars in the house of dreams.

Pete’s front cover for the LP is part map, part postcard: “the record has five different sections and I wanted to reference those in the worlds they created, musically and physically. From beach campfire, to poolside hanging and nighttime dancing. A kind of portal to those places and the pictures they inspired in my mind. All places we’d like to be in this turbulent year”. The track descriptions on the back help guide the way.

2020 marks 10 years since Ocean Trippin’, the first Seahawks release, and Island Visions is the perfect distillation of the sounds, sights, textures and moods that Jon and Pete have been exploring over the last decade. Sunrise to sunset condensed to two sides of an LP. The normal rules of space and time don’t apply here.

This is the first time Be With has worked with Seahawks, but individually Jon and Pete have been members of the extended Be With family since forever (Pete did those posters for our Ned Doheny tour and we worked with Jon on the vinyl version of Hatchback’s Colors Of The Sun). Of course we were going to put this out on vinyl.

Mastered by balearic engineer of choice (and Be With’s regular audio co-pilot) Simon Francis, cut by the legendary Pete Norman and pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry, the sonic frequencies of these Island Visions have been precision tuned and encoded for optimum travelling conditions. Take the trip.

Did you get the memo?

Still waters run deep.
We're pleased to introduce you to mysterious Clive From Accounts; number cruncher extraordinaire by day, totally f'ing awesome music producer by night.
No seriously, we're amped that we are able to release this EP by the self proclaimed "regional tiddlywinks champion" and "all-round beige sky thinker" Clive.
Who says office workers are drones? Loitering around the coffee machine surely has had no bad effect on his creative juices!

When we got an email from Clive with a demo called 'Bisou' we were blown away. Production quality was top notch and it really stood out from what came in our inbox.
So over the course of a year we asked him to fill out an EP next to his busy work schedule. The end result is a record with three very strong tracks, each with its own character.
'Keep Movin' is perfect for big dance floors and filthy sweaty clubs and 'The Trouble With Clive' has that beefy garage thing going on.
With a name like 'Bisou' you'd expect something kissy kissy, but it's a floaty warm, stabby breaks affair with nods to the classic deep sound.

Ahhh, we need you to go ahead and buy this stunner on limited edition wax. So um, yeah if you could do that, that'd be great. Oh, and next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.

Vinyl includes mp3 coupon. Shabazz Palaces' Black Up, the group's Sub Pop debut, was recently hailed as one of the best albums of the decade by outlets like Pitchfork, Gorilla Vs Bear, and Variety. Pitchfork summed it up thusly: "Black Up is drowned in murky instrumentals and bombastic, introspective rhymes. The sounds flirt with jazz but also root themselves in a firm understanding of silence, or the sparse magic of simplicity. The songs teem with unexpected climaxes...From great mystery exploded an album of impossible vision." That "impossible vision" has continued to confound and engage Shabazz Palaces fans over the course of four acclaimed albums and two EPs. Each release feels like an evolution, letting the music speak for itself, while slowly revealing more about its creator. With The Don of Diamond Dreams, the group's fifth album, that spirit remains, this time embracing modernism in hip-hop and rap. Featuring 10 tracks in 43 minutes, the album features the highlights "Fast Learner (ft. Purple Tape Nate)," "Chocolate Souffle," "Bad Bitch Walking (ft. Stas THEE Boss), and "Thanking The Girls." It also features contributions from singer/keyboardist Darrius Willrich, Seattle's OCnotes (who collaborated with Shabazz leader Ishmael Butler on the Knife Knights project), Los Angeles musician Carlos Overall, and bassist Evan Flory-Barnes. The Don of Diamond Dreams was recorded throughout 2019 and produced by Shabazz Palaces at Protect and Exalt: A Black Space in Seattle, mixed and engineered by Erik Blood at Studio 4 Labs in Venice, California, and mastered by Scott Sedillo at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles.

LP SKY BLUE VINYL/LOSER-EDITION

Vinyl includes mp3 coupon. Shabazz Palaces' Black Up, the group's Sub Pop debut, was recently hailed as one of the best albums of the decade by outlets like Pitchfork, Gorilla Vs Bear, and Variety. Pitchfork summed it up thusly: "Black Up is drowned in murky instrumentals and bombastic, introspective rhymes. The sounds flirt with jazz but also root themselves in a firm understanding of silence, or the sparse magic of simplicity. The songs teem with unexpected climaxes...From great mystery exploded an album of impossible vision." That "impossible vision" has continued to confound and engage Shabazz Palaces fans over the course of four acclaimed albums and two EPs. Each release feels like an evolution, letting the music speak for itself, while slowly revealing more about its creator. With The Don of Diamond Dreams, the group's fifth album, that spirit remains, this time embracing modernism in hip-hop and rap. Featuring 10 tracks in 43 minutes, the album features the highlights "Fast Learner (ft. Purple Tape Nate)," "Chocolate Souffle," "Bad Bitch Walking (ft. Stas THEE Boss), and "Thanking The Girls." It also features contributions from singer/keyboardist Darrius Willrich, Seattle's OCnotes (who collaborated with Shabazz leader Ishmael Butler on the Knife Knights project), Los Angeles musician Carlos Overall, and bassist Evan Flory-Barnes. The Don of Diamond Dreams was recorded throughout 2019 and produced by Shabazz Palaces at Protect and Exalt: A Black Space in Seattle, mixed and engineered by Erik Blood at Studio 4 Labs in Venice, California, and mastered by Scott Sedillo at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles.

Thundercat drops his new album ‘It Is What It Is’ on Brainfeeder
Records. The record, produced by Flying Lotus and Thundercat, features musical contributions from Ty Dolla $ign, Childish Gambino, Lil B, Kamasi Washington, Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington,
BADBADNOTGOOD, Louis Cole and Zack Fox.

A unique voice transcending style and genre: “This album is about
love, loss, life and the ups and downs that come with that,” says
Thundercat. Thundercat has previously worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell, N.E.R.D., Erykah Badu, Childish Gambino, Mac Miller, Anderson .Paak, Little Simz, BADBADNOTGOOD, Moses Sumney, Kamasi Washington and many more.

For fans of Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, BADBADNOTGOOD. Album photography by Eddie Alcazar. CD in softpack. Deluxe 140g picture disc LP housed in a 6mm spined gatefold sleeve with gold foil detail and OBI strip. Includes digital download code.

Deluxe 140g pink clear vinyl LP housed in a 6mm spined gatefold
sleeve with gold foil detail and OBI strip. Includes digital download
code. Red 140g vinyl LP housed in a 3mm spined sleeve with OBI strip. Includes digital download code. Thundercat will play his biggest UK shows to date in April.

2020 Split release with contributions by ELEH and NYZ.

ELEH: This side is possibly the artist's most complicated electronic composition. It navigates myriad timbral, tuning and temporal processes while winding itself to completion. It was composed/constructed over a period of months in early 2019.

NYZ: Two crunchy microtonal drone meditations in mono, using techniques of digital FM and hybrid analogue/digital modular synthesis. FM60P::fbk1#03 is from a number of sessions recorded on my very battered SY99 recorded from 2013 to 2014. As the name suggests, this particular session revolved around using feedback in the FM algorithm. EML DRNPi was recorded as part of the 2015 Plum Island Sessions where I had a host of synths on loan from John Brien at Important Records. For this recording I used the EML ElectroComp 101 and my own 4 voice digital microtonal oscillator running a Lambdoma Matrix to make a hybrid analogue/digital system.

This split release between ELEH and NYZ (David Burraston) is packaged in a heavy duty sleeve printed on both sides of the packaging and utilizing metallic inks. This is a first edition of 500 copies and a brand new full length from NYZ is being released at the same time via Important Records.

Dimi is the new solo project and label of (Dimitrios Ploumpidis) one half of techno duo, AnD.

The Dimi label will be an exploration in sound, pushing techno, rave and dance floor sounds with a raw and powerful attitude.

DIMI001 kicks off with "Time Travel". Pulsating kick drums and vocal cuts interweave, creating groove with the snappy snare and lashing hi hats. When the huge synth stab and melody drop to take us straight to a hedonistic past put looking clearly into the future.

"Bang Your Face" enters the room with a tight, hard-hitting kick and serrated rave sirens building an infectious groove before being banged in the face with the old school euphoric synth line that drops in and out of the mix creating tension and dramatic shifts in the track.

"Groove Away" a throbbing bass and kick drum drop with a sinister stab for this funky techno monster. Hard in dynamics but with a maximum amount of groove this track thumps and slams while the spaced out synth line and rave stabs help keep this funky banger grooving all the way to outer space as the alien melodies propel us for take off.

"All In" syncopated delayed synth stabs build in this track with tight rhythmic percussion and distorted kick drum. The snare enters like a punch to the face but only solidifying the swing while the main synth line opens building tension ready to destroy everything in its path. This is Dimi showcasing his direct and unique take on techno music.

The Devonns dust off the golden age of 70's Chicago Soul with their self-titled debut album on Record Kicks. Straight from the streets of Chicago, Illinois, The Devonns (pronounced "De vaughns") are the brand new soul outfit and the latest addition of the Record Kicks' family, whose self-titled debut album that drops April 03, is an assortment of influences taking us back to the heyday of soul.

Drawing influences from bands such as The Dramatics, The Isley Brothers and Leroy Hutson, yet bringing in their own unique modern twist, influenced by artists such as Jamie Lidell and Raphael Saadiq; singer Mat Ajjarapu explains how unintentionally, the rich heritage of Chicago's history with soul music influenced him.

"The city was at the epicentre of a lot of good music back in the 50's all the way to the 80's, a lot of the labels specialising in soul were based in the Chicago and we even had our own sound known as "Chicago soul". Through several years of crate digging it surprised me how many songs I loved were recorded in this city, for example one of my favourites is this great little song by The Natural Four, produced by Leroy Hutson 'Can This Be Real', and released via Curtom Records."

The band started in 2016 after multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Mathew Ajjarapu dropped out of med school and found himself unemployed and drifting. Listening to music constantly at the time, he found inspired to put a band together and create his own music. Pairing up with some of the best musicians Chicago has to offer, he founded The Devonns: the rhythm duty is entrusted to Khalyle Hagood (bass), Ari Lindo (guitar) and Khori Wilson (drums).

Originally he wanted to focus on 50s style doo-wop, similar to The Flamingos; rich in reverb and vocal harmonies, but in the first initial practise they had it was evident the band clicked on their love of soul music from the 70s, so their music took a natural turn towards that sound, with tracks such as the Wilson Pickett-esque single 'Tell Me'.

The release took almost two years to complete as Mat explains "I am a perfectionist, I had a very specific vision in my head about how it should sound and I wasn't going to rest until I achieved it."

"This is a definitely a throwback soul record, as well as being drawn to lush and intricate arrangements of Motown, I was also inspired by the more lo-fi works of smaller labels such as Chess and Capsoul, and I wanted to capture the magic they had in those recordings in our record, as everything feels too precise nowadays" clarifies Mat.

It was thanks to his engineer Mike Hagler, who introduced him to Paul Von Mertons (Mavis Staples, Paul McCartney, Elton John) who arranges and conducts for Brian Wilson's live touring show and after a 45 minute phone conversation about what Mat wasn't keen on, on the album, he realised Paul totally understood where he was coming from.

After a few months wait for Paul to get back from touring they entered the studio with "Paul's players" and as soon as they hit record, Mat explains "I was getting chills up my neck, it was one of the happiest days of my life, and finally we had nailed it!"

Tracks such as 'Come Back; which Mat wrote in ten minutes on a $300 Daneelectro Singlecut guitar initially, came to life, with Paul's rich string arrangements and features guitarist and percussionist Ken Stringfellow (R.E.M.).

It still took a few months to get the recording process finished but finally after a torturous nineteen months they album was finally finished.

The result is an album filled with lavish arrangements and catchy melodies which take us on a nostalgic musical journey inspired by chic 70s soul, yet the band don't hesitate to add their own unique and elegant contemporary stamp to the record.

Self proclaimed "DJ from the sticks in Ireland", Ceili breathes diabolical energy to unforgiving imprint, Techno Is The Devil's Music. Following his "Rough n Ready" release on Obscuur, and a heap of killer sets - many at Techno institution, Jaded - Ceili's discerning ear, honed skills and sense of self shine through in this release. TITDM02 blends hardcore club vibes with melodic, euphoric elements for a sound that's heavy-hitting, yet fresh and exciting.

TITDM002 drops March 13th, via Techno Is The Devil's Music. Frantic opener, "Stern Morning Shake", is a transcendental thumper - booting off hard with an ethereal overlay, note Ceili's tempting dancers into a trance whirlpool. "Straight Off The Plane" offers tripped out acid lines upon ominous rolling thunder. On the flip, "2000 and Ded" goes far beyond the rabbit hole. Rounding out the EP, "Time Is No More" is hard hitting, with little room for respite despite Ceili's mesmerising, robotic interludes. Strobes, dark corners, incentive to dance - TITDM02 is for the ravers.

In October 2018 DJ Rocca and Almunia member Leo Ceccanti joined forces to deliver “Rhythm Collision”, a three-track EP of jangling, sun-kissed grooves, psychedelic dub disco and Afro-Cosmic flavours on Really Swing. 18 months on, one of that set’s standout cuts has been given a new lease of life courtesy of fellow Italian producer Alessandro Pasini AKA Deep 88. Since making his debut a decade ago, Pasini has earned a reputation as one of house music’s understated heroes – an artist whose hardware driven, retro-futurist take on deep house tends towards the timeless, melodic and atmospheric. With a deep love of turn-of-the-90s dream house, Larry Heard productions and sun-baked chords, his dancefloor-focused productions have often been called Balearic.

It’s perhaps fitting then that his reworks of Rocca and Cecanti’s “Ever Changing Bubbles” are as Balearic as they come. His “Balearic Mix” sets the tone, with Pasini layering trippy, dubbed-out and ear-catching elements – Ceccanti’s eyes-closed electric guitar solos, jangling acoustic guitar chords, warm dub disco bass, echoing spoken word samples, fluttering flute solos, drowsy organ motifs and the pair’s delay-heavy vocals – atop a crunchy, head-nodding, live style beat. While it deviates from the duo’s original version, it inhabits a similar sonic space – albeit in a more dancefloor-friendly way. Pasini excels himself on the accompanying “Balearic Dub”, stripping the cut back to its raw essentials – drums, metronomic bass –while toughening up the percussion and adding delay-laden instrumental snippets. It’s warm, woozy and otherworldly, with echoing voices, tactile musical motifs and restless delay trails combining to create a suitably hazy and intoxicating mood. By the time the touchy-feely flute and acoustic guitars begin to dance across the sound space, you’ll be lost in the groove and too happy to notice.

Classic album from Italian post-rock collective port-royal pressed on vinyl the first time....180gm transparent blue 2LP w/download.

Flares was the debut album from Genoa post-rock quintet port-royal. The album was initially released in 2005 by the quality-minded UK indie label Resonant Recordings.

Flares has become a watermark of the more contemporary amalgam of ambient, electronica and post-rock. And, is considered a classic of the genre.

Spintink Music stylistically name-dropped Eno and Explosions in the Sky when describing Flares. Tiny Mix Tapes commented that Flares "reveal(s) moments of unde-niable brilliance." and Exclaim! remarked, "this music is both inherently simple while being intricately complex and deserves to be placed in your stereo." "Intoxicating," "rewarding," and "masterpiece" are just some of the adjectives used to describe Flares upon its release.

To commemorate the album's 15th anniversary, port-royal have teamed up with their current partner of ten years, the Oakland based n5MD, to bring you Flares on vinyl for the first time. Remastered and remixed explicitly for vinyl from the original stems. Flares 15th-anniversary edition will be out March 27th on double 180-gram trans-parent blue vinyl.

Ohm Resistance founder Submerged returns to pure drum & bass, bringing the most cutting edge producers in the game to the forefront on his new EP. “The Eradication of Untruth" charges at the dance floor and covers it from all angles - epic, hardcore, modern, and the punk as f*@# style that Ohm Resistance has trademarked since 1999. 'Transformation' is an epic duet with Estonia’s Ajamari, a melodic journey, with the classic Submerged reese making your eyes roll into the back of your head. 'Cell' is a serious bruiser, with hardcore 4/4 action courtesy of Hungary’s Savage. The B side places you into Surrealistic Dystopian Nightmares, with the distinctive strings of Masamune paired against the crushing weight of Submerged amens. Finally, you reach the Abyss - a punk tribute to Prodigy created with Latvia’s Molecular at the time of Keith Flint’s passing - shouted vocals over a searing halftime ending keep this record memorable to the last drop.

Two years after the drop of his latest solo effort, 'Strangers', Budapest cross-dimensional vibes trader Imre Kiss clocks in on Dalmata Daniel with the eagerly awaited followup to his widescreen, sci-fi ready sonic adventures. Here again, the Hungarian producer - who's made a name for himself through discerning blends of kosmische-infused nostalgia and uplifting emotional apexes, takes us off to a world of sense-awakening wonders and hidden alien treasures, well supported in his quest by Den Haag's legend Intergalactic Gary, up on the flip with a heat-seeking belter of a remix.

Written during a tour across Japan, the title-track 'Oimachi' breaks things in on a punchy yet immersively emotional note, flexing out the blunt Casio arpeggios and muscular bass leads for what results in a soul-whelming, wildly enjoyable trip away from the gridlocked 4/4 paradigm. The further jagged and wonky 'Whipromance' extrudes a weirdo-friendly piece of stretchin' electronics from its squelchy gangue of acid subs and straightforward drumwork, all set against a refreshingly contemplative dawn of pastel-brushed pads and ample beat-free sequences that shall leave weary dancers in a daze.

Flip sides and here comes 'Soft Obsession' - a fine-tuned assembly of organic envelopes, plurally sourced sample library and that idiosyncratic sense of otherworldliness the name of Imre Kiss has become synonymous with. Opening the sunroof onto a luxuriantly arranged and incredibly deep forest of rhythmic folds and textures, this is the very kind of track to send you off to the zone on a one-way trip. Rounding off the journey in true Moebius-esque fashion, Intergalactic Gary lets his unmatched jockey know-how do the talk through a mind-expanding finisher that'll be sure to please both the lovers of stadium-sized epics and all-night-long chock-a-block sweatbox action.
/Baptiste Girou/

The consistently innovative Catch Recordings is back with a new EP from Leipzig based producer U+00C5. As always with this label, the music is right from the cutting electronic edge and finds this stylish producer blur the boundaries between ambient, dub and techno in evocative new ways.

Cult favourite U+00C5 is focussed on new musical forms, on modern sounds and redefining the European techno sound. He consistently pushes forwards and is a master of the interplay between hypnotic repetition and otherworldly abstractionism, all while drawing on dark ambient and drone. Once again here the producer who also works as Åmethyst is in fine form across all five tracks.

Atmospheric opener 'Blutdruck' is a deep techno roller that fizzes with a sense of post-industrial dystopia. The shadowy grooves are eventually backlit by subtle chords that bring real warmth and soul. The excellent 'Empfinden' is more high tempo but just as cavernous and absorbing thanks to the rolling rubber drums, distant synth drones and sci-fi motifs that add the all important details which keep your head as engaged as your heel.

The beautiful 'Taumel' is another slice of hypnotic and tunnelling techno embellished with gorgeous ambiance from the outer edges of our galaxy. 'Nichts Ist Wahr' closes things out with suspensory pads giving you the feeling that you are floating in space before the firmly rooted drums rumble on and take you into the next dimension.

This is another fascinating EP of club ready but seriously heady sounds from Catch Recordings.

With the original UK 7” of this release now as rare as hen’s teeth, and with the group having recently ‘reformed’ for one last album together, the Mr Bongo replica re-release of this 1990 masterpiece by Gang Starr couldn’t be more timely.

The now-legendary duo of DJ Premier and Guru dropped this at the height of hip-hop’s sampling of jazz, which had led to a creative leap forward for the genre. Yet while others plundered in the dark, this instant classic wore its influences on its sleeve and paid verbal homage to the musicians they were sampling. The “melodious funk” of “Thelonious Monk” gets namechecked, while the track samples two of his records, including 1958’s Bop gem ‘Light Blue’.

While both versions presented here have common elements, the ‘Movie Mix’ – so-named for the song’s appearance on the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s mythic jazz biopic ‘Mo’ Better Blues’ – goes in a few different directions to the ‘Video Mix’. Rather than just drop in an instrumental for the B-side, DJ Premier instead shows his versatility by switching up the base track (Kool & The Gang’s 1971 ‘Dujii’) and layering in other samples. In more ways than one, his virtuosity here echoes the improvisation of a jazz musician, akin to Denzel Washington’s Bleak in the movie.

Of course, he’s not the only show in town. The late Guru’s voice is as mellifluous as an instrument itself here, his potted history of the genre and the artists of jazz delivered with his own unmistakable cadence. Without this record, would he have gone on to make his ‘Jazzmatazz’ projects.

Following up on their explosive and critically acclaimed debut album Free To Believe (2015, Do Right Music), Canada's premiere deep funk outfit The Soul Motivators are back with their sophomore album Do The Damn Thing. The 9-track album delivers a heavy dose of the band's signature funk sound, incorporating the soulful sensibilities of lead vocalist Shahi Teruko, who has been performing and touring with the band for the past two years and makes her recorded debut here.

From the high-octane 'Mindblastin' and 'All the Way to the Bank' to the moody ''Black Rhino' and the car-chase MSFBs-inspired 'Savalas' which show off the Motivators' instrumental grooves, Do The Damn Thing is guaranteed to appeal to the most discerning funk fans.

The band continues to broaden their definition of soul music from a spiritual, political and social standpoint, as evidenced by the album's most poignant and introspective moment, 'Modern Superwoman' featuring lyrics penned by Teruko. The Soul Motivators have toured tirelessly in their hometown of Toronto and all across the country. Their diverse crowd always turns out for their propulsive live show, and their mandate has always been the same: inclusivity, community, togetherness, and getting down on the dancefloor.

Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie returns to Black Truffle with Nist-Nah. Like his previous solo record on the label, the abrasive hip-hop concrète of People Pleaser 'BT027', Nist-Nah finds Guthrie branching out in a new direction, this time in a suite of six percussion pieces primarily using the metallaphones, hand drums and gongs of the Gamelan ensembles of Indonesia.

The music presented here is grounded in Guthrie’s travels in Indonesia and study of various forms of Gamelan music, from the stately suspended temporality of the courtly Javanese Gamelan Sekatan, to the delirious, thuggish repetition that accompanies the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan, to the shimmering acoustic glitch of contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat.

However, far from an exercise in exoticism, Nist-Nah develops out of Guthrie’s extensive work with metal percussion in recent years (as heard, for example, on his 2015 LP for 'IDEAL', Sacrée Obsession), where gongs, singing bowls and cymbals are used to build up walls of hovering tones and sizzling details.

Though Guthrie is broadening his palette to explore Gamelan instrumentation and pay tribute to his love of this sophisticated yet elemental percussion music, the pieces presented here are equally informed by Guthrie’s interests in free jazz, electro-acoustic music and diverse experimental music practices, exploring long tones, extended techniques, and non-metered pulse.
'Nist-Nah' presents a variety of approaches across its six pieces, from the crisp, precise rhythmic complexity of the opening title track to the droning textures of ‘Catlike’ and ‘Elders’.

On the epic closing ‘Kebogiro Glendeng’, Guthrie offers an extended, layered rendition of a Javanese piece belonging to a repertoire primarily used for warmups, beginner’s groups and children first learning Gamelan, elegantly gesturing to his own amateur status while using the piece’s insistently repeated melody as an extended exploration of the hypnotic effects of repetition, falling in and out of time with himself to create woozy, narcotic effects until the piece eventually dissolves into a wavering fog.

Kicking off 2020 – Great Circles takes a step away from the dance floor with the release of the monolithic new work from Philadelphia-based artist Radere, ‘I Do Not Want What I Have.’ This long-in-gestation set of slow burning electronics and shadowy drones is part of the label’s growing selection of releases dedicated to deep listening, following on from the 2017 Prefix Moniker LP.

Radere is the ongoing project of Carl Ritger, who has worked under the nom de plume since 2009 and has deep ties to the Great Circles family. He played some of his earliest shows at Inciting HQ, the recently shuttered, label-affiliated venue, and invited Justin Gibbon AKA Westov Temple and Great Circles label founder to contribute to some of his earlier recordings. While he started out as a more straightforward ambient guitarist, Ritger’s work developed into more experimental textures as he explored modular synthesis and processed found sounds.

Ritger’s releases from his time spent living in Denver, CO c. 2011-2018 are marked by a particular strain of east coast nihilism and an angular aesthetic that keeps the listener off balance. Now back in his native Philadelphia, the two long-form pieces that comprise ‘I Do Not Want What I Have’ represent a perhaps more nuanced meditation on pain and loss. “Spitty Kisses,” the 15-minute album opener, takes aim at the listener with a brutal salvo. It is almost sadistic in its sonic intentions – acerbic modular sound and abrupt stuttering in the material leave a listener personally affected. “You’ve Been A Ghost Your Whole Life,” on the flip, delivers a salve for the A-side’s wounds and resolves its masochistic tones.

Written through a period of intense personal trauma as a means to seek comfort and solace through creative action, it’s clear that the puerile humor of nihilism is gone and grown out of in Ritger’s work.

FFO: taking long walks off of short piers, the legend of the monk Kelpius living among the trees of the Wissahickon, traditional creation and destruction stories in polytheistic faiths, and John Coltrane.

The record is accompanied by a digital-only series of remixes by friends of the artist and regular collaborators, including new works from Borne and Shivers, as well as Great Circles alums Westov Temple, Chaperone, and WOLF DEM.

4TRK-029 sees label head Dj Hyperactive team up with Jason Patrick for the Inflexion EP. The release kicks off with, “Shadows Of The Underground” a stripped down acid Techno track that builds in a mutating fashion with it’s 808 cymbals, filtering shakers, and pitch bent synth stabs Mississippi Mud Hound gets underway with a growling bassline that morphs throughout alongside additional synth elements and percussion bits. On side b, “Harrier Env” provides a jacking feel that manages to also have stutter step bass groove in conjunction with 909 percussion, a spacey drone, and a mysterious melody. Closing out the release is “Bandaid On A Bullet Wound” an atmospheric stripped down track with powerful bass, sci-fi bleeps, and a lead synth riff that pushes and pulls in intensity throughout the track.

Kywald & Farrer drop 4 on Constant Sound for there 20th release.

12". LP pressed on 140g Vinyl.
Stealth Mission returns for it's fourth drop with four tracks of red-raw cuts from Postbhuman, Naked Eye People, HVL pres. Kiyadama and Do the Du. Also fearturing a Ben Sims edit, this is essential dancefloor weaponry.

(180g LP) On his debut album Travesseiro Feliz (Happy Pillow) Rio de Janeiro based dreamer and new Far Out Recordings signing Ricardo Richaid melds his tropical heritage with his love for psychedelic music, jazz and rock.He also takes inspiration from the many Brazilian greats - Caetano Veloso, Arthur Verocai, Hermeto Pascoal, and Azymuth (to name a few) - who he has worked with as an engineer, assistant and producer, in Rio's former RCA studio, Cia dos Tecnicos.

Lucindo signs the 6th release on Nexe Records with a 6 tracks EP which includes also a superb Umwelt remix. In this release, the Italo-Brazilian Berlin based artist explores two sides of his exquisite multiface production capabilities range. The first side consists of unconcealed thumpy techno, and the second one, leaning towards high class electro.
“Act_99” is a beat-less intro track to begin with an intense noisy drone which act as prelude of “Act_2000”, a mental, straight and driving tune. “Act_186” is closing the A side, an epic and melancholic broken techno, delicious for advanced dance-floors.
B side continues with a fascinating, melodic, electro track named “AG6”, which is the track remixed by Umwelt who developes his magic and elevates the original to a new highs. The punk “AG4” is the last track of this release, delivering a faster beat, providing a dark, refined electro touch. Definitely a marvelous piece of art ought to be on the bag of any precious vinyl collector.

Demon come, demon go.

It’s a 3fer with New Orleans Sonic Terror partners dropping down south dark hop, nem0 with the abstract downtempo, and a piece of filthy sludge from German noise terrorists appended for shock value.

GoGo Penguin present Ocean in a Drop (music for film), a 5 track EP drawing from music originally written for their original live score to Godfrey Reggio’s cult film Koyaanisqatsi. Expect music that moves from fragile beauty to powerful themes that offer both a stand-alone snapshot of the trio’s world and echoes of the images that inspired the music.

Soma welcome the debut album from the ever-growing roster of youthful talent as Lewis Fautzi drops The Gare Album, named in homage to The Gare Club, Porto, where Lewis made his discovery of Techno. A bold 4 track single debut gave rise to the album process midway through 2013 and under the careful supervision of Soma, Lewis has provided a definitive peak in his sound cultivated on the back of years of studio work. A collection of deep, dark and twisted techno awaits.

A definite maturity in production shines through on this fantastic LP from Fautzi as he creates a cold and calculating output, clearly focused on the future. The Gare Album has allowed Fautzi to express himself fully through electronic music, a task that he has taken to whole-heartedly.
The Gare Album will be released on limited double LP.

Limited edition 180g 12″ record featuring 5 bangers. Comes with high-quality gloss sleeve featuring Gobsmacked skull artwork.

Taking influences from underground spaces and dark clubs, the GOBSMACKED! 12” series kicks off with a bang, dropping a five track vinyl from Diarmaid O Meara. The Irish producer describes himself as “trying to push the boundaries of electronic noise” and he couldn’t be more right. It’s just 30 minutes long and hugely pulsing, but packs more punch than a gym full of heavyweight boxers. “While working on new tracks in the studio, I’m always trying to create my own personal rave, and when I find myself in the middle of a dark and twisted sound, then I know I’m on to something,” he says of the creative process in his Berlin bunker studio.

The 12” includes a number of previously released digital singles by Diarmaid O Meara, which have been his chart topping and most widely played tracks, that have not yet made it onto black gold until this point. Featured as multiple Beatport number ones, peak time festival big room sounds, countless Boiler Room recordings, the 12” is a collection of club belters, tried and tested over countless sound systems and DJs.

At Diarmaid O Meara’s touch in the studio, the technotic sounds released from his control become alive, while dark vibes take a stormy ride through intense rhythms. Track titles like ‘Selfish Bass’ convey the vibe of music that chews up and spits out razor-sharp techno and rave fusions that race to tempos upwards of 140BPM. There are playful techno tracks like ‘In Your Head’ next to euphoric rave ups like ‘Live In The Night’ and bass contortions like ‘Ripcord’ that are masterfully concise but utterly devastating. Not to mention the ever hypnotic, chugging sounds meets massive crescendo of ‘Improbable Strip’.

“Whenever something crazy emerges through a rig, enough for you to you hear people screaming in ecstasy, and you know the production has delivered”, he says. And it is exactly this momentum that GOBSMACKED! wants to deliver – it sounds loud and obnoxious but also fun that draws on real appreciation for dancefloor destruction as well as countless hours of studio work. Therefore, it is no surprise that the artwork for the series also features the style of the well known Gobsmacked bunker parties run in Berlin venues like the infamous Griessmuehle, where said music has probably been overplayed to crowds with goldfish length memories. .

The Devonns dust off the golden age of Chicago Soul.
Straight from the streets of Chicago, Illinois, The Devonns (pronounced "De vaughns") are the brand new soul outfit and the latest addition of the Record Kicks' family, whose self-titled debut album that drops April 06, is an assortment of influences taking us back to the heyday of soul. "Tell Me" is the 1st single from their anticipated full length and sees the lights on limited edition 45 on March 06 and digital. Drawing influences from bands such as The Dramatics, The Isley Brothers and Leroy Hutson, yet bringing in their own unique modern twist, influenced by artists such as Jamie Lidell and Raphael Saadiq; singer Mat Ajjarapu explains how unintentionally, the rich heritage of Chicago's history with soul music influenced him. "The city was at the epicentre of a lot of good music back in the 50's all the way to the 80's, a lot of the labels specialising in soul were based in the Chicago and we even had our own sound known as "Chicago soul". Through several years of crate digging it surprised me how many songs I loved were recorded in this city, for example one of my favourites is this great little song by The Natural Four, produced by Leroy Hutson 'Can This Be Real', and released via Curtom Records." The band started in 2016 after multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Mathew Ajjarapu dropped out of med school and found himself unemployed and drifting. Listening to music constantly at the time, he found inspired to put a band together and create his own music. Pairing up with some of the best musicians Chicago has to offer, he founded The Devonns: the rhythm duty is entrusted to Khalyle Hagood (bass), Ari Lindo (guitar) and Khori Wilson (drums).
Originally he wanted to focus on 50s style doo-wop, similar to The Flamingos; rich in reverb and vocal harmonies, but in the first initial practise they had it was evident the band clicked on their love of soul music from the 70s, so their music took a natural turn towards that sound, with tracks such as the Wilson Pickett-esque single 'Tell Me'.
The release took almost two years to complete as Mat explains "I am a perfectionist, I had a very specific vision in my head about how it should sound and I wasn't going to rest until I achieved it." "This is a definitely a throwback soul record, as well as being drawn to lush and intricate arrangements of Motown, I was also inspired by the more lo-fi works of smaller labels such as Chess and Capsoul, and I wanted to capture the magic they had in those recordings in our record, as everything feels too precise nowadays" clarifies Mat. It was thanks to his engineer Mike Hagler, who introduced him to Paul Von Mertons (Mavis Staples, Paul McCartney, Elton John) who arranges and conducts for Brian Wilson's live touring show and after a 45 minute phone conversation about what Mat wasn't keen on, on the album, he realised Paul totally understood where he was coming from. After a few months wait for Paul to get back from touring they entered the studio with "Paul's players" and as soon as they hit record, Mat explains "I was getting chills up my neck, it was one of the happiest days of my life, and finally we had nailed it!"

Another win for the Glowing Pin as Müller & Wandt drop a fresh new age groover on a killer club dub tip. Elsewhere Phazer Boys, Suzanne Kraft, Philipp Otterbach and River Yarra remix the pscht out of their favourite tracks from ‘Instrumentalmusik..’. Expect Goan hits, cosmic trips, loved up rave and chilled out wave on this flawless five tracker.

Growing Bin becomes Glowing Pin for the most anticipated rematch of the century. Back at the beginning of 2018, Wolf Müller and Niklas Wandt went head to head for a box office smash, throwing a high school percussion tray, wall of hardware and voodoo skull into the ring for the tribal trip of ‘Instrumentalmusik Von Der Mitte Der World’. Now the multi-instrumental duo face off once again, but this time it’s a royal rumble with Phazer Boys, Suzanne Kraft, Phillip Otterbach and River Yarra all bringing the noise to the Glowing Pin.

Müller and Wandt dominate the action on the A1, playing loose with sampler vox, serene pads and future primitive rhythms on the unreleased ‘Fun Dub’ of the also unreleased ‘Dub Dub’. Imagine Ferris Bueller’s trampoline tumble trading Chicago to the Weissenhof and you’ll sense the mood of this New Age groove. Germany’s number one party dudes, those freaky Phazer Boys take a break from dropping killer Candomblé cuts to reach for the lasers on the A2, taking ‘Ahu’ to another dimension. Dripping in neon body paint and armed with fire poi, the Düsseldorf duo power up progressive house sequences, didgeridoo bass and thumping tribal house percussion for a wall-shaking, speaker-breaking remix.

The B1 belongs to synth whiz Suzanne Kraft who revels in glistening, gliding glory on an expansive remix of ‘Auflösung’. Sleek, serene and futuristic, the track shimmers like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, free from inequality and rendered with the 5D(ub?) majesty of a DMT breakthrough.
B2 hears Salon associate and serious talent Philipp Otterbach take over on a stripped back and psychedelic post punk dub of ‘Expedition’. Angular bass by Süne Große and a stuttering rhythm underpin astral flourishes and the hazy vocals of Lucas Croon before the African elements begin to move to the forefront.
Last man standing is Australian outlier River Yarra, who leads us into the Krautback with a chugging dub of ‘Weltraumsandalen’. Lent a lysergic sparkle by a percolating one-note bassline, this slow motion stunner masters perpetual motion amid the eerie echoes of the bush, organic percussion and electronic animal cries fading into the night. Let the pins glow again.

Patrick Ryder

Comprising producer-engineer Joel Krozer ((Clark (Warp), Smerz (XL Recordings), When Saints Go Machine (Escho)) and Brian Della Valle (singer-songwriter of Of The Valley) the Copenhagen based duo got together when Joel heard Brian recording in the studio below his. Their encounter led to a series of late-night recording sessions, together with collaborator Søren Holme, that quickly became the cornerstone of their partnership and the formation of Fluqx. Monolith is the exceptional debut album of Fluqx and offers state of the art production and highly creative Electronica tracks with that special something. The sound of Fluqx is distinct - a merging of deeply warped synthesizers, swirling textures and Brian’s affecting vocals. There is a versatile range of sounds and atmospheres across these twelve tracks - from the delicate arpeggios of ‘Carvings’ and ‘Ephemeral Objects’, to the massive drum sounds and cutting synth leads of ‘Monolith’ and ‘Hanami’. Della Valle’s warm falsetto navigates through this dynamic landscape with ease and hooks the listener in on tracks like ‘Feather’ and ‘Staring At The Sun’, whilst providing space to breathe on tracks like ‘Here‘ and ‘Golden Hour‘. Elsewhere, ambient, droney textures are at the forefront on ‘Mojave Booth’ and ‘Diamond Dust’, maintaining the dreamy, otherworldly nature of the Fluqx sound

The journey continues for Nuage as the Russian beat smith proudly unveils his superb debut EP on the coveted Microfunk Music. A sophisticated bouquet of audible delight from across the electronic spectrum, the "Romantic OD" EP is a 5-piece wonder showcasing Nuage at his very best. Featuring the Microfunk commander-in-chief Bop, expect a world of ambient-jungle crossed with lo-fi electronica with sprinklings of everything in-between.

It has been a LONG time since Bushwacka! released any music on his original label, Plank Records. Its apt that the label started 25 years ago, and now, for its 25th 12 inch release Bushwacka! has delivered a killer 4 track EP, pushing boundaries of time signatures and paying homage to his rave breakbeat days as well as turning up the heat with the electro cuts.

A1. All Night in Heaven actually started out as a rave house track, with the killer breakbeat drop in the middle, but Bushwacka! changed the arrangement specifically to play the track at the Return To Rage event at Heaven, where he first went raving every Thursday from 1988 to 1992. The track sounded so massive on the dance floor that he decided to keep the breakbeat vibe throughout the track and release it on his Plank Imprint.

A2. It’s The Five O is a piece of music that defies gravity. Its a fusion of percussive assault, tribal chanting frenzy, and a bassline from the depths of Hell… but the magic of the track is its 5/4 time signature. Incredibly challenging to mix in and out of, yet so unique in its rhythm that people bust shapes they didn’t know their bodies were capable of.

B1. Feng Shui is a piece of filthy Electro Breaks that pulls you inside out and upside down. Bushwacka! has his signature Plank sound all over this, with raw rhythms and deep melodies and twisted warped sounds.

B2. Whiplash was written three years ago in Bushwacka’s Ibiza Studio. Its a cross between Electro and 4/4 dance music, with a beat so powerful the floors feel like an earthquake has hit them. This is the most pure of the tracks in its direct line to the early 80s Electro sounds, yet sounds like it was made yesterday. It has been destroying the clubs in his sets since 2017 and now needs to be shared.

Plank Records has had a devoted cult following and second hand the tracks have been changing hands for big bucks, and many vinyl labels have been re releasing some of the cuts. It’s so exciting that the label is launching again for 2020, with a sound often imitated, yet never replicated.

Tripeo collaborates with fellow Dutch artist Cadans on his self-titled imprint with three original cuts entitled ‘Non Perfect Drone Replication’.

Over the years, Darko Esser aka Tripeo has become a truly respected figure within the techno world. Widely known for helming his acclaimed Wolfskuil Records, BALANS and self-titled label where he’s released an array of his own impressive productions, Darko continues to edge out a corner of the techno sphere through a regular gig and release schedule that’s been of consistent quality for over 20 years. ‘Non Perfect Drone Replication’ marks Tripeo’s first release of the new decade seeing him link up with Dutch producer Cadans who has releases on Clone, Neighbourhood and Hardgroove (when not producing drum and bass as Icicle).

‘Drone’ begins with tense atmospheres and haunting leads underneath the humming percussion and oscillating synths that surge as the track progresses before ‘Non PC’ employs energetic rhythms underneath wavering modulations and spectral tones that keeps this peak-time cut enticing through till the end. To finish, ‘Perfect Replication’ offers up an electro cut that’s peppered with a nostalgic yet modern feel through breaky grooves, alleviating pads and stabbing tones.

10” clear vinyl) Five years on since their last joint outing in Stroboscopic Artefacts Monad series, Speedy J and Lucy team up again as Zeitgeber on 'Seventeen Zero Four', a new three-tracker descending deep into the filthy, tenebrous outskirts of club music.

Five years on since their last joint outing in Stroboscopic Artefacts Monad series, Speedy J and Lucy team up again as Zeitgeber on 'Seventeen Zero Four', a new three-tracker descending deep into the filthy, tenebrous outskirts of club music. Torchbearers of techno as a life-affirming vehicle for human expression, as can be experienced through their multi-dimensional back catalogue of solo records and shared live performances at some of the finest clubs and events including Concrete, Goa Club and London’s E1, it's safe to say Jochem and Luca share a certain taste for taking things off the beaten path and into new perspectives. True to their bold approach towards production, 'Seventeen Zero Four' proudly continues the pair's tradition of chiselled floor-focused shifts and divagations outside the ringfenced domain of no-nonsense 4/4 mechanics initiated on their self-titled debut album in 2013.

Drawing first blood, the title-track 'Seventeen Zero Four' submerges us in a state of amniotic solitude as hell's all set to break loose around. Sonar bleeps drip and dissolve across invisible plateaux as thunder rumbles and roars in the distance, mirroring and shattering all linearity between the bars. 'One Zero Five' then implements a further straightforward groove, sequenced hats and kicks carving out a more familiar scenario for the dancers to appropriate, whilst maintaining that oddball, slightly off kind of minimal, dubbed-out blur. Rounding off the package, 'Twenty Zero Two' throws further jazz into the mix, letting its sine curves hula hoop into the upper layers of the outer-audio-space as a shrewdly engineered industrial swing drops the hammer for an epic last stretch.

The Boogie Twins aka Ashley Beedle and Ray Mang have reworked and edited one of Paul 'Trouble' Anderson's biggest signature tracks.

A message from Ashley Beedle:
"My Electric Ballroom crew, that were later to become the infamous Shock Sound System, was myself, Stan Zepherin, Dean Zepherin, Paul Denton, Cecil Peters and Ricardo Da Force (R.I.P.)
We loved going to the Electric Ballroom to see the legendary Paul 'Trouble' Anderson who was killing it in there with Boogie, Electro, Hip Hop and Disco - he was such a huge musical influencer.
When he dropped 'Heaven and Earth' in the mid 80's, the joint went ballistic.

That tune ruled London and became not only a rare groove classic but remains a much loved staple of today's club scene - all because of Paul's exceptional ear for music.

Max D's latest LP is the first full length album on 1432 R. It's a milestone from the Future Times boss, who's been holding it down in his creative corner of electronic music for over a decade. The album opens fast and fierce with I Think Our Souls Are Other People, a storm of live percussion and widescreen drone. And then from track to track, it strips itself down, mellows itself out, and rides on hypnotic loops. Many Any Dolo Brush is something of a cameo from Max’s Dolo Percussion moniker, giving way to the first of three field recording miniatures that glue the album together and provide a sort of romantic center. Fly Around The Room is a true half-time float, with a melody that sits in your ear while drums zip past. Shoutout Seefeel, a 130 mind cleanser, is full of the namesake shoe gaze and thick hovering techno drums. Lullabiological features the keyboards of 1432 R's own Dawit Eklund, wandering off the deep end like some dream that can't be shaken. Cuz It's The Way rounds out the work with a groove made for the dance floor. Max D and 1432 R: we are always on some hopeful shit.