Beats News

Sophie Hunger Returns With Her Brand New Album 'molecules'.

'she Makes President', The Album's First Offering, Was Written Before The Us Presidential Election, With Hunger Having Listened To A Radio Programme That Declared That The Female Voters Would Wield The Deciding Vote On Election Day Owing To Their Greater Numbers And Likelihood Of Voting. I Wrote That Song Trying To Portrait This Future Female Identity And Then Trump Got Elected,' She Says, Still Audibly Stunned. Knowing That Women Had It In Their Hands Not To Elect Trump, But They Proved To Be Yet Again Unreliable When It Came To Standing Up For Their Own Rights.'
'molecules' Is Hunger's First Full Album In English, And Is What She Describes As Minimal Electronic Folk'. Her Most Compelling Qualities - An Ingenue-like Delicacy And Contrasting Solitary Darkness - Haven't Changed. Familiar Trickles Of Funfair Weirdness Still Permeate The Music, Calling To Mind Beth Orton And Regina Spektor. Moreover, She's Still Enigmatic And Self-possessed To The Point Where It Feels Too Intrusive To Ask Certain Questions.

(a) A1. She Makes President
(b) A2. Silver Lane
(c) A3. There Is Still Pain Left
(d) A4. Tricks
(e) A5. Let If Come Down
(f) B1. I Opened A Bar
(g) B2. Oh Lord
(h) B3. The Actress
(i) B4. Electropolis
(j) B5. That Man
(k) B6. Coucou

Arctor has a way of making music for moments where the crowd has just melted in the palm of the dancefloor. His latest EP bursts with kaleidoscopic melodies and streamlined percussion, continuing his run of sophisticated electro euphoria.

‘Escape’ opens with a chilled groove, locking down a vocal hook with grounded kicks while cosmic synth arps peel away into space. And for anyone who loves a good stepper, they’ll find a load of synth-infused chugging acid keeping its cool on ‘Bad Blood.’

Exploding Head Syndrome drips a wistful synthline over lush pads, invoking 80s glitz and sunset drives before it plummets into a fierce, sleek drum pattern. Gritty vocals skitter over stabs and traces of acid: an adrenaline shot to the ears, but also full of soulful feeling.

Second on the B-side, ‘Heartless World’ serves up cross-beat chords and skipping snares at 152 bpm, resulting in a swift and suave electro number. Lastly, ‘United’ rekindles the carefree sweetness we heard back on Arctor’s Memory Gene EP, backed by a relaxed electro beat made for after-hours and morning sets.

Euphoria indeed. Rie Lambdoll and Mayuko are the two euphoric Synth Sisters, Osaka-based musicians who also comprise Crossbred. Euphoria' is the duo's long-awaited second release, following their 2014 debut. This release consists entirely of new Synth Sister recordings, featuring Mayuko's synthesizers, and Rie's electric piano and synthesizers as well as her celestial vocals. The euphoria on offer here features equal parts of angelic arpeggios, seraphic sequences, meditative melodies and transcendental timbres, masterfully mixed and mastered by Kabamix. The pieces here, all composed and produced by Rie Lambdoll, combine drifting drones with rhythmic elements sure to appeal to fans of Tangerine Dream, (Terry) Riley-esque meditations melding with psychedelic musings in blissful ease. Euphoria' is yours for the asking. (Cover art: Ginji Kimura)

Rie Lambdoll (synthesizers, electric piano, voice) Mayuko (synthesizers)
Composed by Rie Lamdboll Recorded and masterd by Kabamix at LMD Mixed by Kabamix and Rie Lambdoll
Cover art: Ginji Kimura

HIROSHIMA 45. CHERNOBYL 86. WINDOWS 95. Penelope's Fiance (La Beauté Du Négatif). Rawmance + Security (La Beauté Du Négatif / Knick Knack Yoda). Alessandro Adriani (Mannequin). Raw Ambassador (UN.T.O. Records / Mannequin).

Berlin based Japanese industrial synth duo group A make their debut on Mannequin Records with a killer 3-tracks self titled EP.
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Tommi Tokyo (synth, drum machine, vocals) and Sayaka Botanic (violin, tapes and sampler) released 2 studio albums and 1 live album in Tokyo, before to move in Berlin in 2016. With their mixture of dark minimal synth, avant-noise, striking visuals and performance art, the duo still carries on the very breath of early industrial pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle, Die Form, Klinik, Cabaret Voltaire.

The EP was recorded in Tommi's bedroom and later mixed together with Mannequin Records head Alessandro Adriani in his own studio in Berlin. The first two tracks of the EP, 'T.O.P.' and 'Ketabali' represents the duo personal reaction against the current economy, an up yours to capitalism, news and politics, all permeated by industrial rhytmic-noises and words with no meaning.
The B2 'Alibi' instead was inspired by an autobiography of Hi-Red Centre(Japanese avant-grade art group in the 60-70's) written by one of the members, Genpei Akasegawa. Tommi found the word "Alibi" in the book and she just started singing about the group. As she never wrote lyrics for that, during their live performances they are always improvised, so changing and mutating every time.

Mannequin Records presents a trilogy of reissues from the avantgarde Italian-born producer Doris Norton, "Nortoncomputerforpeace" (1983), "Personal Computer" (1984, originally released by Durium Records), "Artificial Intellingence" (1985).Apple's first music "endorsement" and Roland affiliate, Doris Norton is one of the most important women pioneer in the use of synths and in the early electro / computer music. Norton is the wife of Antonio Bartoccetti, progressive rock guitarist, and mother of the musician and techno producer Rexanthony. As a teenager, she was drawn to medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, not to mention quantum physics, differential equations, organic chemistry, the experimentalism of John Cage and animated movie soundtracks. Her love for modules and circuits found expression through the waves of an old harmonium, the frequencies of a Minimoog, a Roland System 100M, a Roland System 700 and the ARP 2500/2600.

In 1980, Norton began her solo career by recording at Fontana Studio 7, the Milan studio of the composer and musician Tito Fontana, resulting in the electronic opera "Under Ground". Norton became more prolific, continuing her adventures in experimental electronics and computer music with Parapsycho (1981), Raptus (1981), Nortoncomputerforpeace (1983), PC (1984) - whose album cover prominently features Apple's colored logo - and Artificial Intelligence (1985).

While the beat-oriented style of Norton's music aligns her with such global fellow-travelers as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk, her championing of the personal computer as a tool for self-sufficient musical creativity also connects her to more artsy musicians such as Pietro Grossi, Laurie Spiegel, and the League of Automatic Music Composers. Norton's predilection for the bright, glossy timbres of early digital instruments also recalls Hubert Bognermayr and Harald Zuschrader's bizarre 1982 one-off Erdenklang.

Later, her talent and expertise attracted the attention of IBM, who in 1986 named her as an official consultant. Already the reigning queen of the Italian electronic scene, she recorded two CDs for IBM: Automatic Feeling and The Double Side Of The Science. Influenced by her son, the musician and producer Rexanthony, Norton brought her fascination with the early days of techno into the 1990s, when she released three volumes of Techno Shock on Italian trance/hardcore label Sound Of The Bomb.

While her music remains largely out of print and inaccessible, Norton's early records have recently begun to receive the inevitable rediscovery treatment.

"In the late sixties I had already conceived computers as personal.' I have always trusted in the benefits of solitude, (being) alone means freedom... What's better than a personal' computer for materializing ideas, by oneself" (Doris Norton)

Kagami is the duo of Jared Blum (Vision Heat, Gigante Sound) and Maxwell August Croy (En, Root Strata). Their eponymous debut, recorded between 2014 and 2017, finds the pair navigating a bracingly wide range of niches with aplomb and precision. Evoking summertime ambience, widescreen electronics, anthemic pop instrumentals and windswept romantic gestures, Kagami is a charming and dramatic record that at times recalls the soundtrack to some lost title from Nintendo's golden age or perhaps a spiritual successor to the miniatures of Yasuaki Shimizu's Music for Commercials.

Original cover art by Brenna Murphy, layout by Konrad Jandavs. Mastered by Helmut Erler, Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

Following hot on the heels of the fabulously well received, and instant selling out of the great recent Jonas Reinhardt LP, comes the next instalment of Deep Distance's ongoing love for- and toe dipping into the magical world of Dirk Jan Muller's incredible COSMIC GROUND.

Both artist and label are often asked about the chances of releasing the revered, self-titled debut LP from 2014, on vinyl. Sadly, due to track lengths it has proved nigh on impossible but mercifully, DD offer up perhaps the next best thing. 2 killer cuts from that CD and digital only release on wax for the first time ever, the magnificent LEGACY' (Dirk's first ever piece using the Cosmic Ground moniker) and a rawer, earlier mix (previously unreleased) of The Plague'. Both remastered by Dirk for this release in 2018.

Two incredible side long pieces, epic in ambition and breadth, which again showcase Dirk's mastery of the revered Berlin School groove, heavy on leanings to Schulze, Froese and Co. yet instantly and incessantly of it's time now. Incredible soundscapes which for our money, is bettered by nobody out there just now. Magical, sequencer heavy, electronic psych- hike up the volume to the max and off you go... But don't hang around as like all the CG catalogue, it all sells out in a heartbeat so get on it!

A pressing of 300 only, and preceding LPs up shortly from ZOFFF and (Wire guitarist) Matthew Simms' SLOWS project.

Polytechnic Youth enter the fray once again, continuing an already productive year (these new 45s are 4/5/6th releases in 2018 already!) with a trio of quite brilliant yet totally different 45s.

Alpár aka Hungarian Bálint Zalkai, is the co-founder of 'Farbwechsel', the Budapest based record label, and his own recordings of electronic compositions (often built upon random looping sequencers in a minimalist style) are key to the label's release output thus far. His goal as he sees it is to catch a random pattern, loop it and build up a piece with that randomly pulsing theme. Just let to flow the voltages and sound waves and try not to disturb them or change their basic behaviours'.

The two tracks here were recorded with this approach very much in mind. The atmosphere of 'Mejiro' is not unlike a bird observation. Attempting to find the right spot, getting closer and closer to the bird, which almost controls you and your movements as you attempt to near it'. Whereas 'Wakayama' is a more direct piece, and maybe the most melodic song Alpár ever recorded. While 'Mejiro' is a woozy, cautious piece, 'Wakayama' is like a tropical fruit or the ume, (the japanese apricot), colourful and full of flavour yet -with thanks to- the slowly humming theme in the background, an element of sourness grips you at the back of your tongue as it ends!

A beautiful pair of tracks released as a double A side 45 early March 2018. Pressing of 250 numbered copies....

Limited to just 60 copies on transparent orange vinyl with download/bonus remix EP

HUNTERS MOON is the debut album by All of Them Witches, a one-man operation run on the imagination and nightmares of Gary Dimes. He steps into the musical world of 70s and 80s horror cinema and stitches together musical motifs and Gothic melodies that wouldn't be out of place in stories told by Argento, Romero, Coscarelli, and Carpenter. 11 tracks blending synth driven ambient electronica and brooding dark tales.

The next collaborative release between Freeride Millenium and Pauls Musique is a terrific two-tracker from Manchester artist Joseph Louis Harland Manning under his new alias Los Angeles with the 7 vinyl release artwork designed by Daniel Rajcsanyi as part of his 'BABY' exhibition in Austria. Joseph Louis Harland Manning was the drummer of the band Wu Lyf and is involved in projects like Los Porcos, the Mancunian boyband Menage a Trois and Dream Lovers. Under his other aliases he released on Aficionado, Cracki, Ocean Records and Is It Balearic sub label Uber as well as having made music videos for Molly Nilsson. Here he is fine form across a pair of delicate and moving synth tracks. Opener 'L'amour' is a gentle cut that starts with celestial chords and wide-open expanses of synth before a buried deep groove slowly comes to the fore. Breathy vocals also add to the loved-up, dreamy feel and the whole thing carries you away in a majestic reverie that shifts from ambience to new age house. The track features the artists own field recordings from the streets of Berlin, twisting up sounds from the sidewalk into percussive notes that give an organic feel. The perfectly soothing second offering is 'I Wanna Go To Heaven' is a gorgeous synth piece that suspends you in a crystal clear blue sky on a warm summer's day. Chords are smeared and stretched whilst angelic, wordless vocals drift by. It is the sound of a blissful passage to the afterlife and will leave you feeling cleansed. This is a truly emotive package of music that marks another first rate release on this ever evolving label

Phono Ghosts (alias of producer Neil Scrivin - also behind Meatbingo) returns with his long-awaited second album released via brand new imprint Fonolith. Building upon the cassette-raiding, micro-sampling methodology and varied sound landscape of 2013's Chrome Position on Skam Records, Solar Dream Reel is a journey through summery funk, mangled radio jingles, evocative atmospheres and anthemic edit-stomp, all filtered via the shimmery analogue lens of the compact cassette. A sonic exploration of that borderland between the waking world and sleep - a place everyone has been to but few remember - Phono Ghosts comes back to reality with a selection of vivid Polaroids and cassette memories from his visits to the hypnagogic hinterland of the collective unconscious and presents these pure distilled documents for you on four beautiful sides of vinyl. Something may have come back with him...

Lullabies for Insomniacs brings you the debut release from the intoxicating Garland. A project which emerged years ago and subsequently developed and transformed through overseas exchanges. Influenced by popular media and musical practices the duo channels a resonating wonderland that echoes, calling for magic to ignite.

-Vinyl comes in black or clear colours.-LP includes download.
-Recorded and mixed at Decade Music Studios (Car Seat Headrest, Tortoise).

* Starting in 2014 as a collaboration between visual artist Heather Gabel and percussionist Seth Sher, the Chicago based industrial duo known simply as HIDE was formed. The following three years have seen HIDE crash through with a number of aggressively rendered singles and EP's while quietly collecting the shattered pieces that would form their debut full length album, Castration Anxiety.

* Those familiar with HIDE's provocative live performances will already be accustomed to the hypnotic low-end and sinister vocal delivery that has become the band's signature. The opening track, Fall Down, sets an eerie tone that permeates Castration Anxiety until the end. Throbbing pulses swirling around Gabel's death laden mantras succumb to themes harvesting power from desperation and hopelessness.

* The first single and video for Wildfire, keeps the same repetitive, dark emphasis but delves deeper into the ideas of the physical world rejecting its inhabitants. Harkening back to the slow, brooding industrial anthems from decades before, HIDE's treatment of this sound is notably unique as it is familiar.

* Tracks such as Fucked (I Found Heaven) and Bound/Severed ratchet up the tempo with a hedonistic dance floor séance. Each song ripping apart the ideas of empowerment and autonomy, throwing them back out to the audience in the form of Sher's addictive rhythms, shattered EBM-styled samples whipped at the end of a leash, held in check by Gabel's cathartic delivery.

* Wear Your Skin unveils HIDE in a disruptive personal state. Churning electronics stepping up to anthem-styled synth melodies, disrupted sparingly by incantations of Gabel's experiences about identity and obsession, blurring those themes into prophetic feedback.

* The past few years has seen HIDE touring nationally, playing alongside related acts such as ADULT., Ceremony and Champagne Mirrors, as well as providing main support for Marilyn Manson during The Pale Emperor tour.

* Dais Records presents HIDE Castration Anxiety' on March 23, 2018 in limited edition splatter and clear vinyl, as well as standard black vinyl and digital formats. Castration Anxiety was recorded and mixed by Adam Stilson at Decade Music Studios with additional recording at Valley Recording Co. by engineer Joe Cardamone, who contributed additional instrumentation and arrangements.

-Vinyl comes in black or clear colours.-LP includes download.
-Recorded and mixed at Decade Music Studios (Car Seat Headrest, Tortoise).

* Starting in 2014 as a collaboration between visual artist Heather Gabel and percussionist Seth Sher, the Chicago based industrial duo known simply as HIDE was formed. The following three years have seen HIDE crash through with a number of aggressively rendered singles and EP's while quietly collecting the shattered pieces that would form their debut full length album, Castration Anxiety.

* Those familiar with HIDE's provocative live performances will already be accustomed to the hypnotic low-end and sinister vocal delivery that has become the band's signature. The opening track, Fall Down, sets an eerie tone that permeates Castration Anxiety until the end. Throbbing pulses swirling around Gabel's death laden mantras succumb to themes harvesting power from desperation and hopelessness.

* The first single and video for Wildfire, keeps the same repetitive, dark emphasis but delves deeper into the ideas of the physical world rejecting its inhabitants. Harkening back to the slow, brooding industrial anthems from decades before, HIDE's treatment of this sound is notably unique as it is familiar.

* Tracks such as Fucked (I Found Heaven) and Bound/Severed ratchet up the tempo with a hedonistic dance floor séance. Each song ripping apart the ideas of empowerment and autonomy, throwing them back out to the audience in the form of Sher's addictive rhythms, shattered EBM-styled samples whipped at the end of a leash, held in check by Gabel's cathartic delivery.

* Wear Your Skin unveils HIDE in a disruptive personal state. Churning electronics stepping up to anthem-styled synth melodies, disrupted sparingly by incantations of Gabel's experiences about identity and obsession, blurring those themes into prophetic feedback.

* The past few years has seen HIDE touring nationally, playing alongside related acts such as ADULT., Ceremony and Champagne Mirrors, as well as providing main support for Marilyn Manson during The Pale Emperor tour.

* Dais Records presents HIDE Castration Anxiety' on March 23, 2018 in limited edition splatter and clear vinyl, as well as standard black vinyl and digital formats. Castration Anxiety was recorded and mixed by Adam Stilson at Decade Music Studios with additional recording at Valley Recording Co. by engineer Joe Cardamone, who contributed additional instrumentation and arrangements.

The first full length LP on KSE comes from the Belgium electronica mastermind Luc van Acker. Taking Snapshots is his first full-length album recorded in the early 80's in his own home. Witness Luc van Ackers enlightened musical spirit at the start of his career with this far-out experimental electronic release.

Having debuted with a fine EP by Job Sifre, Artificial Dance has returned to the source for release number two. The 12' pays tribute to one of the most influential figures of original DIY electronic music scene of Holland, Hanjo Erkamp.
During the first half of the 1980s, Erkamp had a hand in some of the most experimental and forward-thinking releases on the now legendary cassette label, Trumpett. Famously, he was a member of two of the label's key bands - industrial outfit Doxa Sinistra and new wave combo Ende Shneafliet - but during the period he also recorded a swathe of solo tracks as C. Stein, most of which only saw the light of day decades later.

La Bombe Plastique', a thrillingly spacey and futurist cut rich in proto-techno rhythms, intergalactic electronic motifs and drowsy choral vocals. For this timely reissue, the superb original version comes accompanied by a fresh re-edit created primarily for DJ use.

Respuesta Alternativa or the Alternative Response was the project of Spanish musician Jesus Mª Catalan, created with the help of Julián C. Pérez.
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As the title implies the music was generated in response to traditional music notions of the time, and reflects how Jesus Mª Catalan would challenge these traditional ideals using a fusion of styles and his unique vision. Jesus laid out his synths and drum machines, while other musicians played traditional instruments over the top. This unique approach worked to create atmospheric tracks capturing simple themes, with each influence being carefully thought of in the joint result. As he explains each instrument weaves independently throughout a passage in a curious game where the listener's attention goes from focusing on a keyboard, guitar to bass or percussion. Previously only released on a cassette album in Spain, Left Ear have polished 5 choice cuts for a 2018 12'.

Recorded in Miami in 1985 by a school teacher and originally released as a self-published single for educational purposes, copies of 'Do You Know Black History' did not circulate much further than Florida's public school libraries and the record has been shrouded in mystery up until now.

Dr Mary Sullivan Bain recorded the song to be used as an educational and motivational tool in the Miami-Dade public school system she taught in.

Produced with no label constraints, this cross-genre grail sits comfortably in many boxes... 808's, bass synths, deep chords, live percussion and effects dubbed into the mix. The production leans towards the electronic diy framework that informed the local sound on the Miami south side. Whilst the categories are blurred what's clear is that Bain was thinking outside of the box. Official 12' reissue from Backatcha Records.