House News

After a two-year hiatus, New York's finest purveyors of flash-fried power pop and disco-punk return with their sixth full-length. Despite being 18 years into their career, there are few signs of tiredness on the predictably vibrant As If. While potential sing-along moments are plentiful, it's the looseness of their grooves and the incessant funkiness of tracks such as "All U Writers", "Ooo", and the thrillingly low-slung "All The Way" - in which the Brookyln-based outfit brilliantly fuse springy dub-disco grooves, wild synths and classic house riffs - that catches the ear. Interestingly, the strongest influences this time round appear to be Prince and early Red Hot Chili Peppers, giving the album a particularly kaleidoscopic aural hue.

Sekhem, the Grenoble based label is back with his second various EP. This one welcome international talents like Moya 81, Do Or Die and Davide Piras as well as the very talented french producers Mohammed Vicente. All killers, no fillers on this one !

(2022 REMASTER) Green Vinyl

Murcof"s first three albums are to be reissued on vinyl to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of his seminal debut album, Martes. Out of print for many years, these albums have been hugely influential in the worlds of minimal and ambient electronic music in their use of modern classical instrumentation, and are significant landmarks in the history of The Leaf Label. Each of the reissues is presented in a new gatefold sleeve featuring updated artwork, with Remembranza and Cosmos featuring fully remastered audio, and Cosmos including a previously unreleased bonus track.

Big Yawn make experimental electronic music by fusing a wash of sweeping synthesizers, heavily refracted vocal sampling, motorik style percussion and disorientating dub FX.

Their latest studio release 'Pressure Acts' creates a space where breaks compete with live drums compete with drones. Relentless pummelling bass lines and kinetic dub FX come standard.

Big Yawn's energetic and unrelenting live performances create a definitive impression on this release. The sonic textures in the record are lush, stoned, frenetic and fun. The music is sinister yet also tongue-in-cheek — Phil Collins and Slipknot may have even been sampled.

The first single 'Ragazzo' is ideal for joy rides in HSVs and/or flaunting at the local disco parlor - a dank blend of YMO style pop hooks, driving bass, delicate synths, and a robotic pulse.

It's time for Clut004!! Clut Communication is back with the fourth release and this time we have one of the main characters of the label, Odracir. We have already “tasted” his music in previous releases but now Odracir marks his solo debut EP “Black Bullet” with four energetic cuts, influenced by house and electro sounds from the 90’s with spacey atmospheres and analog basslines.

Sismo 01, first realese of the label by OMAR

Dark Entries presents a reissue of Shawn Pittman’s 1989 Dreams, an obscure and highly sought-after private press gem produced and written by Art Forest. An undersung figure in the development of the late 80’s Detroit techno sound, Forest collaborated with, produced, or penned material for many of the key players in the movement, including Inner City, Suburban Knight, and the Belleville Three themselves (on Kreem’s “Triangle of Love”). This reissue gives Forest’s own productions some shine while providing a thrill for both dancers and collectors.

Dreams features two songs, both written and produced by Art Forest and featuring Shawn Pittman on vocals. The A-side contains two mixes of “Dreams”, a smooth R&B/modern soul number driven by Pittman’s vocal. While the song is undeniably radio-friendly, it contains some of the hallmarks of the Detroit techno sound – sparse arrangement, lush reverb, and booming bass. On the B-side, we are treated to two different versions of the clubbier “I’m Losing Control”. The original mix leans towards boogie/freestyle, with syncopated 909 beats and sassy synth vamps, and wouldn’t sound out of place next to Forest’s work with Inner City. The Extended-Bass-ment Club Mix strips things down and dubs them out, leaving us with shards of bass synth, brooding strings, and Pittman’s vocals eerily warped to the edge of recognition; a perfect late-night warehouse anthem.

All songs were remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The sleeve is a replica of the original cover art. Also included is a 2-sided postcard with lyrics and photos of Art.

Lovesick – everyone knows it, everyone hates it. Everyone feels alone. Everyone questions the previous relationship and what has been said during it. Everyone tries to numb the pain of this all-encompassing suffering with alcohol and drugs. Everyone calls at four in the morning and leaves embarrassing love confessions on the answering machine that will be never heard. Everyone feels alone and tries to find solace in casual acquaintances in bars, only to be turned away for being pushy. Everyone lays up for weeks stalking the likely reason this relationship ended, oh! It didn’t have to end, it was all so nice and this new one can’t be good and he/she won’t be good if the plans I’ve been making here for nights come true…oh how nice would this be! Oh it can’t be, maybe I just can’t be loved… maybe I just should…

Everybody knows it.

But from now on you never have to go through all that heartbreak alone again because we Herzschmerz Versicherungen have the solution! We are a band from Stuttgart, somehow only classified as dilletantic strange in the genre. We are at your side and take care of you when your heart hurts!

Book one of our numerous insurance packages today, or just listen to our songs – that helps too!

“Denn wenn du dir nicht sicher bist und deine Liebe bald zerbricht: Komm, schöner Mensch und kauf doch eine Versicherung bei mir, Bei Herzschmerz bin ich dann immer da, bei dir!”

Iassen Markov & Jannik Haller

Atlanta-based producer Sejva joins TAU for his debut release, Black Lipstick. With releases on Diynamic and Nervous, among others, he’s al- ready established himself as a remarkable talent who fuses retro elements with a future-facing sound to cultivate a style that is all his own. On Black Lipstick we get four slices of Sejva funk, each of which presents a different side to the artist, demonstrating his dexterity and diversity...

Repress on Clear Vinyl !

Detroit pioneer Robert Hood joins Radio Slave’s Rekids label with a new album entitled ‘Mirror Man’ this November.

A founding member of Underground Resistance alongside Mad Mike Banks and Jeff Mills, Robert Hood is one of techno’s originators and his decorated career spans three decades. The American artist and his M-Plant label laid down the blueprint for minimal techno and 1994’s ‘Minimal Nation’ on Axis was a definitive album that further cemented Hood’s reputation as one of the greats to emerge from the Motor City.

Since then, Hood has gone on to release on many of electronic music’s best labels like Tresor, Peacefrog, Music Man Records, Dekmantel and more. After a busy few years making music and touring as Floorplan alongside his daughter Lyric, Hood now joins Rekids with an album showcasing his innate knack for crafting paired back but intricate rhythms that deliver punch and soul.

Opening with the cinematic ‘Through A Looking Glass Darkly’, the album quickly flows into precise, powerful four four. There’s mesmerising cuts such as ‘Fear Not’ with its throbbing bass and spectral vocals, the twisted and off-key ‘Run Bobby, Run’, not to mention muscular tracks designed to light up dancefloors like the machine driven ‘A System of Mirrors’ or the mesmerising ‘Face In The Water’. Hood also breaks things up with downtempo and mind-bending interludes, including the tranquil yet spooky ‘Black Mirror’ and the beatless and murky ‘Freeze’. Each of these are aural feasts that demonstrate his vast musical pallet.

From start to finish ‘Mirror Man’ is an education in finesse from one of techno’s most heroic artists, landing on one of electronic music’s most important labels.

Taiwanese label JIN records enters autumn 2022, with a new promising release by South Korea’s Yetsuby. As always searching for gems in the pan-Asian domain, JIN is delighted to have Yetsuby for its latest/6th release.

On this EP, one-half of the ambient duo Salamanda, Yetsuby showcases her expertise in mood setting soundscapes, taking listeners on a sound journey across a wide array of musical spectra.

Opening on A1, Yetsuby reinterprets a traditional Korean folk story of a bear devouring garlic and green onions, transforming the animal into a human being. Aptly named ” Bear Becomes The Human,” she transforms the transformed, turning the bear into a buzzing modern drum & bass-fused energetic tune. It turns out garlic is a powerful source after all.

B1’s “Jelly” showcases Yetsuby’s talent for stripped-back glitch music: With a minimal bass and drum pattern, the track gently muddles along and presents itself as well suited warm-up track for the earlier hours of any party.


For the remix sides, Cleveland delivers a vinyl only remix of “Bear Becomes The Human” with a futuristic house tune filled with jungle like drum pattern and techy yet smooth atmosphere on A2.


On B2, New Zealand’s Eden Burns takes an entirely different path on his reinterpretation of Jelly. Embarking from the original pattern, he turns the original into a slow brewing psychedelic trance cracker that seems most suited for the early morning after hours that need an energy boost.

Taiwanese label JIN records enters autumn 2022, with a new promising release by South Korea’s Yetsuby. As always searching for gems in the pan-Asian domain, JIN is delighted to have Yetsuby for its latest/6th release.

On this EP, one-half of the ambient duo Salamanda, Yetsuby showcases her expertise in mood setting soundscapes, taking listeners on a sound journey across a wide array of musical spectra.

Opening on A1, Yetsuby reinterprets a traditional Korean folk story of a bear devouring garlic and green onions, transforming the animal into a human being. Aptly named ” Bear Becomes The Human,” she transforms the transformed, turning the bear into a buzzing modern drum & bass-fused energetic tune. It turns out garlic is a powerful source after all.

B1’s “Jelly” showcases Yetsuby’s talent for stripped-back glitch music: With a minimal bass and drum pattern, the track gently muddles along and presents itself as well suited warm-up track for the earlier hours of any party.


For the remix sides, Cleveland delivers a vinyl only remix of “Bear Becomes The Human” with a futuristic house tune filled with jungle like drum pattern and techy yet smooth atmosphere on A2.


On B2, New Zealand’s Eden Burns takes an entirely different path on his reinterpretation of Jelly. Embarking from the original pattern, he turns the original into a slow brewing psychedelic trance cracker that seems most suited for the early morning after hours that need an energy boost.

Oddball Fantasies is more than pleased to welcome Cheb Runner for its second release. His Moroccan roots remain omnipresent in this perfectly balanced blend between traditional Raï elements & the irresistible sound of the 80s underground. When old meets new, those who resist to dance, shall be few!

Repress.

There is an endless abundance of variations that the clarinet can use in changing the colour of a single note. Ben creates a web of sounds that are hard to pin down but easy to absorb as a whole. A sense and perception of continued growth too illuminated and overwhelming to resist.

‘Terre Promise’ is the debut album of the French electronic artist Blutch. Between nostalgia and melancholy in his native Brittany, a journey to the borders of electronica, breakbeat, house and IDM. Following in the footsteps of Rone, James Holden, Four Tet or Bicep, Blutch affirms with

this manifesto his ability to draw meditative landscapes as well as dancefloor escapades, syntheses of multiple influences crossed over the course of a faultless career, from his first love, hip-hop and abstract beats, his house vinyls released on the Barbecue label remixed by the cream of the genre’s guardians, from the American legend Terrence Parker to the more confidential Red Rack’em and

Strip Steve, or the adventurous new chapter he has begun to write on Astropolis Records since 2020 with ‘La Cité des Étoiles’, remixed by the great Michael Mayer.

‘Terre Promise’ continues his unique trademark: smooth and inventive textures, vocals that caress and embrace you, percussive and contemporary rhythms with an immersive sound design and those catchy gimmicks he’s known for. By immersing us in his memories, Blutch opens the doors to the landscapes of his childhood and dreamed views, through a plural sound palette: UK dance music heritage (‘Cobalan’, ‘River’), contemplative tracks (‘Les Bois’, ‘Terre Promise’), contemporary IDM with pop contours (‘Poplar’, ‘Rosko’, ‘Eussa’), or crossovers with other instrumentalists (Mirabelle Gillis’ violins on ‘Choices’ and ‘Cobalan’, guitar and drums on ‘Phoenix’ or the piano on ‘Poplar’) and danceable odes (‘Floatin’, ‘Les Sables Blancs’ or ‘Remparts’ with Maxime Dangles).

A promising debut album, as atmospheric as it is frenetic. Driven by the desire to bring people together and reconnect with the earth, Blutch invites you on a deep and spiritual introspective journey, where the listener can easily imagine the producer intention. And if not, just attend the a/v live accompanied by the sublime visuals of motion designer Romain Navier for an electrifying experience, between coloured or abstract 3D and images of landscapes captured in Blutch’s North Brittany. A live show that has already enchanted Panoramas in Morlaix, Clujotronic in Romania with other dates to come (Astropolis, Paris, ...).

Full of emotions, this beautiful, sincere and intense album is enough to send Blutch to the top of the electronic music scene in France. The impressive list of collaborations and remixes around the album is proof of this, with major artists of the French electronic music scene such as Jennifer Cardini, Maxime Dangles, Lauer, Madben, Maud Geffray or Mézigue, emerging artists such as Malcolm (Global Warming Records), or from acoustic music such as violin player Mirabelle Gillis.

Restock

Marcela Dias Sindaco's music captures the essence of Gated as a label, sitting half way between so many genres: bass-heavy electro, funky breaks, squelchy synth-boogie... but driven by Marcela's breathy Portuguese vocals, expressing the depths of her carioca soul. Marcela grew up in Rio de Janeiro, and as a classically trained pianist and cellist, music was in her blood, but it was her dad's obsession with Krautrock that influenced her early music taste. Later, travelling around Europe as a model, she discovered the clubs of Berlin, Paris and Milan and incorporated what she heard into her own music, using a studio filled with analogue equipment. The result joins the dots between heads-down club stompers, electrofunk, Prince, and Brazilian samba. In a word: fresh!

For Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber, the idea of rebirth is a creative driving force - an artistic device which not only informs their work, but anchors it. As the avant-garde electronic group Tosca, the two artists have lived many musical lives, from their early electronic experiments with tape decks to the blissed-out dub compositions with which they have made their name. Their latest project, OSAM, takes this idea of renewal even further. A meditative journey through rhythm and texture, the album represents a new chapter for the Austrian duo. It's as much an instrument for change as it is a source of inspiration. 'Osam' is a direct translation of the number eight in Serbian, but it also acts as the mediaeval symbol for a fresh start - a renaissance. This is their ninth studio album but in true Tosca style when they started working on the concept for the record, they thought it was their eighth.

Valley of Tears reach the end of the saga with this double vinyl full of collabs or bands to offer the maximum exponence of the saga.

Curated ona gatefold sleeve mixing the art design of Greta Haga with all the power of the music.

The Queen in tears needs to rest...Will she come again?

Slightly more than one year has passed since we debuted the Cardiff-based duo Plastic Estate’s first single This Place and we all know what happened meanwhile. But if you thought the global pandemic discouraged the Welsh boys from pursuing their research for an evolution of pop music from the past, think again.

Quite on the contrary, it seems that these past months of forced isolation and necessary restrictions only empowered the ability of the band led by Nicholas James and Stanley Fouracres to compose great songs perfectly in balance between dark, melancholia and happier, brighter feelings.

Or maybe their love for the best UK new wave and pop artists such as Dave Gahan, Ian McCulloch, Bryan Ferry is just too tough to die. However that may be, Plastic Estate have masterfully used this year to write their first full-length album and we at Avant! couldn’t be happier to bring it to you on 4 February 2022.

Ten new songs that shine a light on the duo’s impressive skills to juggle between the heritage of lost golden era and the pressing presence of the here and now, as well as electronic dance elements and acoustic instruments, ending up sounding classic and contemporary at once. Not an easy task, if you ask me.

Check out Out of Reach and its crystal clear synth-pop radiance, or one whirlwind dancefloor filler such as There Must Be More Than This, juxtaposed with the romantic intimacy of Berlin or Divinely Impaired’s elegant sombreness. Dive into the imaginary mémoires of a Sophisti-pop era with Antique Days and then resurface nowadays with the hypnagogic club notes of The Difference. We can even feel some Stone Roses-like vibe in the album’s last track Change Your Mind but maybe it’s just us.

What’s for sure is that if you liked their 7-inch single you will love their album. If you don’t know this group yet but you righteously adore the artists above, do yourself a favour and take a good listen now and you will not be disappointed.

Not in the least, as it is this rare to stand in the exact spot where you have a full view of the days behind you and the complete control of the moment you are in.
RIYL: New Order, Roxy Music, The Blue Nile, Future Islands, Lust For Youth