It's been 3 years since the last Basic Soul Unit EP on Lab.our and the label co-head is back to top form! Loose, melodic and funky, the Toronto producer stretches his legs across 4 tracks in this kaleidoscopic gem of an EP.
On A1 is 'Behavoural Issue', a frenetic, crunchy and off-kilter number that will have you contorted in distortion with all arms and legs on the dancefloor.
'Rising Over The East' marches in next, a deep jacking head trip to the Orient opium den with its endless arpeggiators. On the B-side, the heavy broken club banger 'Propulses' harkens back to the glory rave days without mimicry. A Basic Soul Unit interpretation with his undeniable footprint in the mix.
'My Heart Skips' turns the dial down several notches into deeper house terrain. The soulful ride begins as an easy cruise before deftly lurching into an odd rhythmic fractal workout that the producer has become known for.
Sealing an untouchable reputation in the world of broken soulful lo-fi techno, Basic Soul Unit casts an even wider net to captivate audiences with this must-have EP.
quête:g unit
Alek Stark is responsible for some of the finest boutique vinyl releases available. His 808 boxes, DMX drum machine replica and plexi-glass sleeves for Fundamental Records are legendary in the electro fraternity.
Stark's attention to detail in everything he does is particularly apparent in his music - his tracks are all first class analogue electro. He pulls no punches on this E.P. with heavy 808 percussion alongside a myriad of modular noise and synth workouts.
Cold, robotic and reminiscent of early Psyche / BFC with deep chorused pads creating an off-world dystopian theme that runs throughout this release.
After a bit of a hiatus, Expansion Unit is finally back with another slice of moody and brooding electro trickery. Courtesy of Berlin-based Pascal Hetzel, the two tracks Extra Terra' and Fermi Paradox' showcase raw and rugged machine funk with a strong wide-eyed escapist undercurrent. The future is now.
Miskotom is a project from Mik and Andra.Originally hailing from Russia but now both residents of Vilnius Lithuania. Both have a long history of music making going back as far as childhood.Andra was involved in 2Muchahos an ambient project which came out on Beko recordings. Mik came up through the indie scene playing in bands before finally settling in the dj booth and then as a producer....Miskotom's music has a magical dreamy quality, sometimes lovely Balearic or melodic pop sounding like long lost tracks form Wally Baderou, but also sounding like sleazy mid 80s chicago basement jams....Analog synths jam along with guitars ,voca land ,handmade percussion mixed down and recorded onto tape. Sometimes 4/4 sometimes no beat at all.....to round off this EP we have an excellant remix from Kito Jempere, who over the last few years has notched up a steady stream of releases over many labels , most recently a killer edits ep for the mysterious Bahnsteig label.
LAB.OUR 06 features offbeat, dancefloor techno from Hermans. Hermans (Jerry Riggs 'Dick Diamonds' & Maxwell Church) already have releases out on labels such as Run Out Run, Klasse Recordings, Zodiac44 & Extended Play, among others.
A1 is Sweat Box Rock, an epic stormer that sounds like a techno jam session with alternating beat patterns and dirty keys.
B1, Dustin Tombtones, is an uptempo acid workout destined to move dancefloors. B2 is a remix of Sweat Box Rock by Lab.our Music bosses Basic Soul Unit and J-UL.
Phase 2: Expansion Unit returns with another three tracker of bass-heavy electro robotics, lush techno variations and beautifully tweaked Pro One madness.
A side bringa a long 130 bpm Unit Moebius Live excerpts, and shorty XP tunel. B sides stand a 160 BPM Yukai tune and his acid mental style techno tribe and a second little track of acid anaolik sound. A superb record, like the others Ceaseless : well produced with a wicked selecta of tunes ! Respect !
Having already released music on respected labels such as Dolly, Philpot, Mathematics, Mule Electronic, Versatile, Ostgut Ton, New Kanada, Creme Organization, Nonplus+, and Still Music, - Basic Soul Unit delivers 3 tracks on the inaugural release of Lab.our Music, the label he has started with long time friend and dj partner Jason Ulrich.
LAB.OUR 01 sets the tone for the new label nicely with three slices of deep & raw techno. Frack marries a frantic and bottom heavy beat to a delicate melody while Innershell & Earwerm are both raw, jacking dancefloor workouts.
- A1: Tanz Der Lemminge 2
- A2: (That's You) On The Floor .. Feat. Sketch
- B1: Eldorado Feat Twila Too
- B2: Eat U Like Candy Feat Nik Frost
- B3: The Increased Difficulty Of Concentration
- C1: If There Was No Gravity Feat Mary S. Applegate - Jammin Unit Remix
- C2: Superfreaky Feat Nik Frost
- C3: Mandragora
- D1: Not A Mindtrip Feat Mary S. Applegate !!!
- D2: Liquid Men With Liquid Hearts Feat Mary S. Applegate
- D3: Spacebrothers 2001 - Reionhard Schmitz Remix
Remastered for 2025
Drumcode has become a label synonymous with some of the most-cutting edge and forward-thinking techno over the last 20 years. Their artists include both emerging and established names, and one of those well recognised is Enrico Sangiuliano. Now announcing the very first concept album of his career.
iomorph is born. A very special concept album designed to take the listener on a journey of evolution. A musical adaptation describing how biological and technological advances over numerous generations of time have all started from the same first step in our own biological journey.
Divided into 4 parts, Organisms opens with atmospheric tones, gradually blending complex textures and timbres to begin the evolutional process. The beginning of this section combines full sounding arrangements before stripping it all back to basics. From here it dissolves into the atmosphere. Organisms then progresses into a break-beat influenced, down tempo track using synths to add complexity to the straight, broken rhythms.
Galactic, futuristic elements are found in both tracks in Cosmic Forces. Upbeat, groovy, electronic synths resonate, before 'Hidden T' brings the tension to get things pumped up with stratospheric swirls and twirls to lay down one of the most mind meltingly deep drops.
Metamorphosis is mysterious, its opening beat is a deep and piercing tone that sends the listener into a sensory awareness of their surroundings before breaking into a fully charged, techno track, with Enrico's trademark sounds and textures.
All evolution has an ending.
Two Probabilities shows the positive, starting out evocative and emotional, with a gentle harmony, gazing towards a 'New Dawn'. On the other side of the spectrum lies the negative. This is influenced with a rhythm that articulates the beat of death, mathematical, cold and metallic in texture, it shows the unsustainability of its nature, with a hectic, anxious break beat influenced ending.
Air Texture Vol. VI selected by Steffi and Martyn
The Air Texture Series asks two Producers/ Performers to select a double CD worth of unreleased music. The only guidance is the music should not be main floor bangers, other than that we get out of the way, allowing them autonomy over their selection. This time Steffi and Martyn were asked to step up. Exciting, since as residents at Berghain/Panorama Bar - two of the most important dancefloors in the world... how would two such respected artists approach our experimental ethos.
Limited to 500 copies
- A1: Chakachas - Stories
- A2: Mad Unity - Funky Tramway
- A3: René Costy - Ostinato Bass
- A4: Alex Scorier - Topless
- B1: Open Sky Unit - Sunshine Star
- B2: Plus - Gimme Some More Of That
- B3: André Brasseur - Funky
- B4: Chicken Curry & His Pop Percussion Orchestra - Librium
- C1: Placebo - Balek
- C2: Les Hélions - Music & C°
- C3: Black Blood - Avenue Louise
- C4: S.s.o. Feat. Douglas Lucas & The Sugar Sisters - Tonight's The Night
- D1: Nico Gomez & His Afro Percussion Inc. - Ritual
- D2: André Brasseur - Saturnus
- D3: Chocolat's - El Caravanero
2024 Repress
Funky Chicken brings together some of the best Belgian dance tracks from the early seventies. Emerged in a country where virtually every musical wave passes through, most of these tunes were created and recorded by hired guns, in this case a few clusters of gifted session musicians and composers. The music on Funky Chicken is their take on (afro-)funk, soul and Latin. Some of their releases were hit parade cannon fodder, but occasionaly, some spare studio time or the urgent need for a B-side allowed for memorable musical experiments.
Funky Chicken is a post-fact documentation, the result of a quest into a period on which information is few and far between, the 'black hole' in Belgium's history of popular music. The barren wasteland between the variety orchestras of the sixties and the electronic revolution of the late seventies and early eighties. This series explores the ground the dance pioneers built upon.
- A1: German Trained Unit 1
- A2: Neoliberal Madness Offering I
- A3: Riyl Roma
- A4: Neoliberal Madness Offering Ii
- B1: German Trained Unit 2
- B2: New Bulgaria
- B3: German Trained Unit 3
- C1: Armchair Evader
- C2: Neoliberal Madness Offering Iii
- C3: German Trained Unit 4
- D1: Double Arm
- D2: Neoliberal Madness Offering Iv
- D3: Abhaengen
Repress!
Exceptional debut album of Military Space Music and / or Fluxus Techno rave drills from the inimitable, acronymic duo for Diagonal. RIYL Belgian Techno, SuperCollider, Powell, Lorenzo Senni,
the bleep test At long last N.M.O. execute their crazed debut album for Diagonal, distilling the playful calisthenics of their laptop and drum kit live show in a totally unique manner that somehow deconstructs and alliterates tracky acid techno with avant no-wave rock, computer music and the kind of snare-
driven tattoos coming out of Portugal's Príncipe label. Best just call it Military Space Music - Cleft as two corresponding but individual sides entitled Nordic Mediterranean Organisation
& Numerous Miscommunications Occur, it finds the Romantic Viking duo ratcheting the psychotomimetic intensity of their previous tape and trio of 12"s for Anòmia, The Death of Rave
and Where To Now according to their central mantra of As Strict As Possible, resulting in 5 alarming, powerful dancefloor raids intersected by infuriating locked grooves, or Neoliberal
Madness Offering #1-4, plus a series of barking trained Unit drills.
The razor sharp and raucous results don't sit comfortably in any pre-ordained category, preferring to scythe their own route thru the time-flattened field of contemporary music by employing
the fundamentals of physical pressure and precise psychoacoustic frequencies in a disciplined pursuit of new, syncretic sensations that toy with rave convention and serve to demystify notions of aerobic mysticism.
Nose to tail, they spell out their ideas with playfully pedantic attention to detail, whether physically making you get up to nudge the needle from its pervasive locked groove, putting you thru your
paces in their German Trained Unit challenges, or simply driving you to delirium in the album's full blown dance tracks.
Cut almost a side-a-piece for optimal intensity, those five dance cuts veer from the clashing sharp and wet, tight-but-distended dichotomies of RIYL Roma to the ploughing pneu-beta bass drum
and giddy top end tickle of New Bulgaria on the Nordic Mediterranean Organisation plate, to take
in the scuffling, compartmented swerve and teeth-chattering acid of Armchair Evader and what
Presenting 'Fire Zone'. Album written, produced & mixed by Zane Reynolds and pressed on 180g vinyl, by Ekster. Coming out May 2019, including poster 57x57cm artwork by the artist. Mastered & cut by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering.
The music of Zane Reynolds AKA SFV Acid celebrates lysergic life in small town America. His are urban hallucinations. Conceived in 'business parks, strip malls', in 'blue collar luxury'. On a diet of 'diner burgers'. From the self-released, hand-painted cassettes of his high school years, he has moved to work commissioned by locals 100% Silk, Japan`s Big Love, and Dutch imprint, BAKK. His latest long-player, Fire Zone, will be issued by Belgian label, Ekster.
The album continues to reference Zane's Los Angeles home, and in this case the devastation that rages there every Summer. The concept however, reaching away from the horror and flames, to offer an escape.
There are moments, interludes, that hint at, and hide, something darker. Where drone twists from tape hiss. Bends. Out of shape. Where chords distort. Their degraded edges disintegrating. Charred perhaps But Ai welcomes you to 'San Fernando Valley', and a low-riding 808 booms. Less L.A. More Overtown, or Liberty City. Its racing booty bass calmed by wind chimes. The rapid Electro-Funk clip countered by modal synths. Its sunny disposition reflecting the SFV climate.
Playful rhymes, fragmented dialogue, and answer phone messages, rub up against Rave sirens. Roland`s silver box squeezes out a Sci-Fi Jazz. Through ping-ponging percussion. Through a drum and bass battery. Punched by keys that wanna be horns. Rewinds that create a bin-blowing vacuum. Shore-line samples washing the more head-nodding tempos. Euphoria rising while a perfect beat pops and locks. (text: Robert Harris)
Australia based Brit Jamie Blanco serves up Kilsha's superb second EP and capitalises once more on a fine recent run of form.
Blanco has previously released on Felix Dickinson's Cynic as well as Futureboogie and more recently on Pelvis & Tone Dropout. He is one half of Ess O Ess as well as a solo artist making waves with his wonderfully off kilter sounds, and has played all over the planet in the last couple of years. Eclectic in taste and inspired by Balearic beats as much as driving percussion and acid, he is all set for a busy 2019.
Right from the off, 'Unit of Pleasure' gets in your affections with its mix of original live recorded percussion, aircraft noise and hypnotic bass. It's a wilfully diverse mix of sounds and scenes that is utterly compelling. The excellent 'Progressive View' then dips into broken beat and classic electro territory, with raw synths and cavernous hits driving things forward over a rhythmic b-line.
Keeping up the unpredictable mood of the EP, 'Grapefruit Agenda' is a tripped-out piece of left of centre house music, with paranoid melodies and circling pads amping up the energy and taking you on a real journey. The superb 'XOX18' closes things out with downtempo electro moods that are futuristic and dystopian, all with an effective analogue edge.
These four tracks confirm Blanco is a fascinating artist with a fresh take on dance music and provide another superb instalment for the supremely promising Kilsha Music.




















