Techno News

2021 repress on black vinyl, first released in only 50 copies in the legendary Bunker Mantra Box, but now for a short time available to the general public. Dark and manic house from the Acid Coloniae of Cologne, by Andreas Gehm (aka The Minister), whos profile has been raised recently with a ton of hyped releases and remixes for o.a. Snuff Traxx & Robert Ownes. First part of a two parter.

This isn’t an actual vinyl record, but a piece of playable artwork made from machined card and spot UV especially created by Haroon Mirza, and is packaged in a record sleeve. Comes with a unique download code to download the full visual movie and audio files.

Intro

hrm199,the studio of artists Haroon Mirza and Gaia Fugazza, is pleased to announce OUTPUTS, a new label run in association with musician and artist Nik Void (Factory Floor). OUTPUTS will launch with the release of The Wave Epoch, the long-awaited concept album by Haroon Mirza and Jack Jelfs featuring GAIKA.

The Label

OUTPUTS will initially focus on releasing projects by artists already associated with hrm199, starting with The Wave Epoch. This will be followed by two long form compositions, created by Gaia Fugazza and Nik Void. As well as developing new collaborations, the label will also delve into hrm199’s archive containing previous collaborative works with artists such as Okkyung Lee, Shiva Feshareki, Beatrice Dillon and Mark Fell.

Available as a limited edition playable artwork made from machined card and foil especially created by Haroon Mirza.

The product will come with a download code and a download for the full visual film created by Haroon.

Originally conceived by artists Haroon Mirza and Jack Jelfs during their 2018 residency at CERN – the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, and home of the iconic Large Hadron Collider – The Wave Epoch is an album and film developed in collaboration with artist and musician GAIKA amongst others who joined them on the residency. An immersive and multimedia live performance version of The Wave Epoch has previously been performed at the Brighton Festival, Lisson Gallery and the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

Incorporating music, poetry, incantation, archive and original video footage and homemade electronic instruments (including some built from discarded scientific equipment from CERN), the album imagines a distant future in which the forgotten remains of the Large Hadron Collider have been rediscovered. How would a civilisation several thousand years from now interpret this vast octa-circle carved into the landscape, with its miles of underground tunnels, cathedral-like spaces and forbiddingly complex machinery?

Taking this scenario as a starting point, the album and accompanying film are a visually-led sci-fi exploration of knowledge and belief, matter and consciousness, scientific activity and shamanic ritual, and of our quest to find patterns and order amidst the endlessly shifting realities of human experience.

Editors notes

hrm199 is a studio founded in 2004 by artist Haroon Mirza as a platform for collaborative artistic production. Today the studio is run by Mirza and the visual artist Gaia Fugazza, from where they make their own work, as well as facilitating collaborative projects and residencies. They work in a wide range of disciples spanning visual arts, music, architecture, design, physics, fashion, neuroscience and bioecology. The studio has collaborated with Factory Floor, Okkyung Lee, Assemble, Wayne McGregor, OSMAN and scientists from Imperial College, to name but a few.

Gaika Tavares, better known simply as GAIKA, is an artist and writer who describes his sound as Ghettofuturism. His creative output has always straddled different worlds, taking influence from academia, philosophy and political theory. His debut album Basic Volume (2018, Warp Records) was described as "gothic dancehall and industrial electronics" while The Guardian have said that his music blends "Caribbean dancehall tradition and London grime but also nod to R&B, trip-hop, grunge and Prince."

Jack Jelfs is a British artist whose work combines sculptural, video and text elements with electronics and live performance. His interests include questions about the nature of consciousness, ontology, ritual, divinatory systems and the limits of language. He has released music under various aliases and performed or exhibited at venues including Tate Modern, the Barbican, Serpentine Gallery, FACT and CCCB.

Haroon Mirza has won international acclaim for installations that test the interplay and friction between sound and electrical signals. He devises sculptures, performances and immersive constellations of objects, moving image, light and sound. An advocate of interference (in the sense of electro-acoustic or radio disruption), he creates situations that purposefully cross wires. He describes his role as a composer, manipulating electricity, a live, invisible and volatile phenomenon. Exploring myriads of socio-political, scientific and theological discourses, Mirza invites us to become aware of our physical experience, which engages our systems of belief as opposed to a notion of truth.

Mirza lives and works in London and is recipient of several prestigious prizes such as the Silver Lion at the 54th Venice Biennale, The Calder Prize and The Nam June Paik Art Centre Prize. He has been presented internationally including Tate Modern, MoMA, Lisson Gallery, The Paris Opera and The Australian Centre of Contemporary Art.

Nik Void is a composer and performer whose work blurs the lines of techno, ambient, avant-garde, and noise. Her interests lie in unconventional encounters with her tool, both analogue and digital as a means of expression. Voice, Guitar, and Modular are her key instruments, engaging in a new language using extended technique and cut-up sampling through synthesis. She has released critically acclaimed albums as Factory Floor, Carter Tutti Void and NPVR, on record labels that include Mute, DFA, Editions Mego and Blast First. Void's improvisational nature led her to explore the intersection between electronic composition and visual art interpretation, with visual artists, including Haroon Mirza, Gaia Fugazza, Hannah Sawtell, Phillip Parreno, and Francisco Lopez.

From Raster-Media; Frank Bretschneider as Komet on Side I, & Olaf Bender as Byetone on Side II - revised versions of tracks from Benjamin Brunn 2019 BLUNDAR7 LP.

More exciting tracks from the relatively fresh DWS imprint. Label founder Oliver Moon delivers an impressive package for 002 on the label. 4 cuts of premium dancefloor heat with remixes from Agile Kind & Jay Tripwire. Limited stocks!

A double album of new music intended as a companion piece to Shawn Rudiman's album Conduit from earlier in 2020. Flow State is a cinematic journey guided by ambient and textural pieces with occasional supporting roles by beat driven tracks. The album is delivered as a 2xLP, unmixed digital with bonus tracks, and as a continuous mix created by Shawn.

Everything you are going to hear is unique and recorded in jam session in different nights, in free improvisation - so it is impossible to reproduce it in the exact same way as it is.

O-Wells and 41ISSA have teamed up for their first joint EP. Marking 41ISSA's release debut, the result is three tracks full of speed and space-filling melodies: think big festival stage, think rave, think 2010 dance music (in the best possible way). Taking influences from their early clubbing years in the late noughties, O-Wells and 41ISSA found a mutual musical voice in a large and crisp sound between electro, techno and trance. Catchy melodies take the lead, backed by reverberating claps and relentless basslines that build up to rich club tracks. Opener "Suzuki" is a 149-bpm laser-focussed workout with a raucous deep synth. The Berlin-based producers embrace the trancier side of contemporary club music in "Are You Ready", with a breezy ambient intro that leads into an epic dome of darkness. The more reflective"Pulse" takes it down a notch, breathing a sense of calm - an introverted techno track dripping with melancholy. A bleepy electro remix by Finnish DJ and producer Sansibar completes the spectrum of "BKM", an EP sure to be heard across club dancefloors this winter. "BKM" marks 41ISSA's first release as a producer. She's been part of Live From Earth since 2018 as a DJ, covering a wide range of genres with a zeal for emotional sound textures and a lot of bounce, from ambient to club and techno. O-Wells has been producing for more than a decade now, having found a musical home at Die Orakel lately. Both are not only partners in music, but also in life. "BKM" is short for "blutigekaesemauken", their joint alias as which they've been making music since their early days of dating.

Ronan’s journey has seen him move between Boston and New York, Washington State, Bogota, and most recently Mexico City. Rarely in one place for too long, his energy and enthusiasm for his craft carry that same roving sense of adventure, whether in his own expressive productions welding hyper-speed techno and classic hardcore into a dynamic whole, or through his Eternal Ocean imprint, which has notched a string of impressive releases from close friends and like-minded producers. Throughout, a sense of wide-eyed wonder and joy is the constant, an awe for its ability to transport and transcend, to become a calling in its own right, through sound and soul, a grounding force that becomes the guiding path through the world.

It’s that sense of possibility that dominates the sensibility of Vision Quest, Ronan’s second outing on Eternal Ocean, a four track offering recorded in Ridgewood, Queens just before he headed west in 2018. The tracks echo this awareness of a road stretching out before him. These are tunes about the journey, best exemplified by the snaking routes and pathways they pull the listener through: half-time breakdowns, sudden vocal stabs, hard-left turns and sudden shifts of tempo. Where previous Ronan EPs found their strength in meticulous mixing and track-craft, these embrace technique and arrangement as means to an end, resulting in lyrical, ever-evolving tunes that show an artist embracing the time given to create worlds unto themselves.

A new name joins the array of anonymous white labels on YUKU that have been doing the rounds and generating a fair bit of hushed hype among the heads.

The cult techno outfit "Teste" digs up and re-transmits sonic archives forming a new 2xlp for L.I.E.S. Full story below.....Artwork licensed from legendary NYC street photographer Richard Sandler in appropriate fashion....lp comes with a giant newsprint poster as well.

Teste was still-born by the mid-90’s and with the ensuing PTSD I had become a SHUT IN working on the Amiga Computer for Audio and Video and completely immersed in grisly, depraved art-house cinema. This release pays homage to that time in NYC when I frequented Mondo Kims daily to rent the trashiest films I could find. Things like Richard Kern’s “Fingered”, Nick Zedds’s “They Eat Scum”, Makavejev “Sweet Movie”, Merhige “Begotten” all the classicks! The 42nd Street Mind forever! In retrospect I can’t believe they gave me a membership card! Wish I still had it!

MICRO BUDGET, DISCONTINUED FORMATS. All of the tracks on this release are sourced from decaying tapes (VHS, 4-track, DAT, MD) some of which were encoded to early digital formats to add another layer of artefacts and grit. I can emphatically proclaim these ideas have taken three decades to come to fruition at my present Partner in Teste (Goner) Berlin Facility. One chapter closes and another unfolds!

One day it’s 1992 playing absurd Teste gigs in a Sports Bar (Tailgate Charlie’s!) in scenic Hammer Onterrible opening up for Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials! You could just feel the love in that room! Referred to as the “Toilet Incident” by unsuspecting attendees. From that debacle another unfolded in an infamous “final” appearance at the Pure Party in Glasgow Barrowlands 1994 -which proved an unceremonious demise to the first incarnation of Teste… Details like most things from that era are foggy… No insta stories or tweets! Just instant cameras that didn’t always make it out of the rave!

After the Teste fallout then embarking on another Techno adventure for an extended stint in NYC from ’95-97. This proved a pivotal time to say the least. HUREN becoming a solo entity and the lasting shockwaves with Zhark which was a New York label in those days. Also in retrospect I can say I experienced the end of the NYC of old right when the “NO DANCING” by-laws were coming in. R.I.P Strange?, Sonic Groove (Manhattan),Liquid Sky/Temple, Save The Robots, Soundlab, Tunnel, Twilo, Limelight and others that slip the memory banks…

All I knew of NYC when I got off that Greyhound the first time in Port Authority in 95 after an 11 hour drive was from movies. I thought the city was like what I had seen in Abel Ferrara films “Driller Killer”, “King of New York’ “Bad Lieutenant” or the Schoolly D, or Wu-Tang Clan videos! Turns out I wasn’t too far off in a way as this was the era of the Club Kids depravity.

Upon reflection my formative clubbing years had an element of Crime in them as I’ve been in the proximity of two very well known serial killers. First in the 80’s when I attended a club Paul Bernardo used to Frequent in Ontario and later on the Limelight NYC with Michael Alig. Definitely casts a sinister tinge to some of the memories. Curious coincidence the party I performed at in NYC was called KILLER… And I myself was almost murdered in 2012 but that’s another story…

Repress !

Private Selection Records founder and curator Dreams comes crashing in with a 6-tracker falling between thick body music and gnarly, frenzied electro. With ragged rhythms, reverberating synths and heart-wrenching vocal elements these tracks tie together a dystopian journey beginning with sheer rampage, leading to devastation and ending in hopeless ruin.

A selection of exclusive tracks from a dusty shoebox full of cassettes and DAT tapes, recorded by Facehugger and Deviant between 1995 and 1997.

The Parasite EP showcases their first batch of live analogue jams that mash the boundaries of experimental house, deep electro, acid and the hazy bustling sounds of the city – a soundtrack of travelling to raves, staying up late, coming home and making wild mixtapes until early Monday morning.

Despite the untimely passing of his production partner, Deviant, in 2009, Facehugger has remained a dedicated and unique beatmaker, close personal friend and unsung hero of the scene, not to mention “unofficial” manager of the Plates record shop, known for his outspoken, boisterous and loud opinions about any new releases which came in!

Now, nearly 30 years on, nestled in the quiet suburb of Carlton (Nottingham), Facehugger loads up his drum machines and starts to create, with the promise of a new wave of music on the horizon…

DJ support from: Charlie Bones (NTS), Bradley Zero, Coco Bryce, OK Williams, Glenn Astro

All physical releases have two covers. The design is created in such a way, that when the cassette is flipped over, the other side can serve as a cover also. One cover bears the title Flight Acid, the other Salicylic Stimulator.

The re-release is primarily aimed at fans of true analog techno. Thanks to the remastering by Thee J Johanz and some restauration of the tracks, Peter's first songs sound better than ever before.
All tracks from the original two U-TRAX releases were recorded in the early 90s on cassette, using only analog gear. Being the typical chaotic person that Peter is, these cassette recordings were the only versions available, no settings or stems had been saved. In some cases the recordings were heavily overloaded, which caused very audible distortion in the recordings. We managed to remove most of the noise for this re-release.
The cassette release of the album is the only version that has 10 tracks: all 9 original tracks, including 'Ducking' from 1993 that was omitted from all other versions, plus the 10 minute 'Long Metal'. Total playing time is over 80 minutes.
This album received some great reviews, wide media coverage and strong DJ support.

P.A. Presents aka Peter Aarsman ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn't lived in the city for 25 years and has only recently returned 'home'.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12"-es and he was an active player in the early hiphop and electric boogie scene in the Utrecht quarter Lunetten in the 80s. All those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, Peter can rival with any of today's DJs.
While the era of house and techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn't cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12" Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig's mix CD that was just the second release in !K7's DJ-Kicks series.
In 2019 Peter returned as a producer with new vinyl and digital releases on U-TRAX: Swirling Gas EP and Sax Madness EP. Another release is planned on the fellow Utrecht label SoHaSo. In May 2021, P.A. performed at the critically acclaimed Intergalactic FM Streaming Festival, as part of a U-TRAX package.

2022 repress

Roma Zuckerman returns to with his debut EP, which emerges after 2 stand-out appearances on the label compilations in 2015 and 2016. 'That Present Terminal' blends murky textures and sinister vocals across 4 delusional tracks.Glitchy percussion and scuzzy frequencies march with intent whilst uncanny voices mumble to the beat of their own insanity. Unnerving tones test our limits whilst underlying grooves offer mild relief. 'That Present Terminal' condenses a broad sonic palette into 4 truly bizarre cuts that, once tested, are hard to put down.

Argentinian producer Thissperso has been living in Barcelona for a good season while producing music that reflects what he experiences in his day to day life. His productions are harsh and violent, but they have a quality and energy that makes them contagious and addictive. This work, edited by NNY Records, compiles some old songs that have been revisited and remastered, which coexist with new compositions that continue to explore the most visceral and dark side of electronics. This is the work of a producer who is not tied to any style and who enjoys setting the dancefloor on fire when one of his songs is played. Producers like Parris Smith have already been able to verify it in the first person with a couple of songs from this new EP in which we find Electro mixed with Industrial, EBM, Acid and a punk and nonconformist attitude.

Soundscape Versions pres. the 5th installment on its sublabel Mystic Versions with seven cuts
produced and performed using all analogue hardware gear.

We present the first release of the new Xtraperlo recs. sublabel called BLACK QUASAR, based on Electro / IDM / Acid sounds.