Techno News

Tokyo-based Ryo Murakami has been releasing slightly minimal-inflected house music since 2007. His club-oriented work has always been subtly atmospheric and deliberately soft-spoken and non-confrontational, conjuring up an original sound that fits to modern-day house music like a glove. He co-runs and releases on the Panrecords label and has also published his music on Dessous, Poker Flat, Baud, Curle, etc. His 2013 album "Depth Of Decay" signaled a change towards a more experimental, ambient-based sound. Meakusma is proud to present these two new tracks that combine the forward momentum of his previous work with his new-found experimental approach. Both tracks play with atmosphere and impact, are essentially slow burners that through Murakami's subtle play with dynamics and change become incredibly moving and abstracted studies into groove and ambient sound. Cherry on the cake is the Porter Ricks remix, their first 'production under the Porter Ricks moniker since their 2002 Nine Inch Nails remix. Here they catapult the Porter Ricks sound into today, without losing their trademark characteristics. A hazy glow that is as revealing as it is mystifying covers the track, whilst the basis of it is, in the best Porter Ricks tradition, a surprisingly funky twist on the rhythm and bass of the original track.

ESHU Records returns with another various artists EP. 4 tracks by Aepiel, Hakimonu, Albert van Abbe & Counterpart, ranging from ambient to more straight forward techno. Limited to 450 copies, all handnumbered.

Harbour City 2014. Sometimes people from different environmental backgrounds cross paths with one another through similar interests, and they notice that they have more in common then a certain taste in music alone. Boris Bunnik (aka Conforce) is hailing from the small scenic Dutch island Terschelling, that can be seen as the complete opposite environmental background as the dirty streets of Rotterdam's South Side that drew the first guidelines for Frustrated Funk's watchword: Mad Drama From Everyday Life. Although the background is opposite, the drama and struggle of daily life seem to have more similarities then one would expect. Struggling creative minds searching for correct paths, fighting to keep focused with daily routines, burning ships, moving forward, trying to bend negativity into something positive, writing music as an outlet for their compulsive need to create. This is our game. No hits, no hype, no bullshit, just the real deal, bringing timeless techno from the heart that will always stay untouched. So here's FR029, experimental techno from the young master mind that's Versalife. Small batch on crystal clear green mixed vinyl. Check!

Prologue continues with the Portefeuille Series and present with number 3 new Prologue faces for this release. First is Etapp Kyle, recently released on Ben Klocks 'Clockworks' with an unbelievable emotional techno track. Second is a complete new producer face from Italy called Mod21. Mod21 delivers a biological living techno monster. Last on the EP are Artefakt know the dutch Field Recordings with deepest melancholic grooves for the dance floor. We are very exited about this release and we are sure we see all soon again on Prologue.

Freund der Familie have been in the Dub Techno scene for a long time and they certainly have delivered very fine releases on their own label and a superb remix for Sven Weisemann on our label Telrae. So this is their first solo 10 on Telrae. -Pacifier- is a brilliant sonic experience. A sun drenched and lucent sound landscape becoming a trip. -Freundlich- is the straighter and tighter track and a beat machine by all means. Enjoy two acoustic journeys into sound by our friends.

Time is running...and it seems like we just woke up out of our interstellar sleep-mode as we are facing the arrival of the 14th edition of the almighty COCOON RECORDINGS COMPILATION. Starting with the letter 'A' we reached 'N' meanwhile which probably marks one of the longest running techno-compilation-series ever around. The list of the featured artists is amazing and almost endless. Big names like Funk D'Void, Alter Ego, Michael Mayer, Steve Bug, DJ Rush, Adam Port, Christian Smith, Nina Kravitz, Henrik Schwarz or Argy can be found here. Not to forget some of the biggest players in the circus like Sven Väth, Anthony Rother, Extrawelt, Timo Mass, Radio Slave or Ricardo Villalobos, DJ Koze, Dubfire and even Berlin's Basic Channel mastermind Moritz Von Oswald! With the new 'Compilation N' we will add even more big names side by side to some fresh and promising ones. Let's start with Konstantin Sibold & Leif Müller who gave us 'Kolibri", a great slowed down techno-tune that brings us back to the high days of Alter Ego when Harthouse released big listening and electronica albums. Track number two by Julian Perez follows that feeling and explores the deep and dubby sides of techno, too. A perfect transition to Frankfurt homeboy Markus Fix. It's dub again however spiced up with hypnotic strings and a clubby kickdrum shaking our bass bins! With track number four, 'Compilation N' opens the door to proper and kicking club music.

Green Vinyl Pressing!
Here comes the second EP by our new artist on Echocord Colour, the super talented Roberto Clementi from Italy. Roberto is one of the most inventive and creative electronic music artists currently making his name known in the underground scene at the moment. Roberto is mostly known for his releases on Soma, eps + recently he released his rst album. He has also been releasing on Brendon Moeller's label Steadfast Records. The track Barrel is a super powerfull Techno track full of deepness, heavy staps and dubby elements.Traps is a slower heavy Dub-Techno trip also perfectly for the peaktime hour.This ep also comes with a heavy monster Norman Nodge Remix.

Mike Dehnert comes with a new Techno 4 tracker on his own Label..inspired on his America Tour impressions over Detroit,Chicago,SF and LA tourstops..

We welcome back one of our favorite artists, Brendon
Moeller. This time as Beat Pharmacy. Brenson has
been releasing several records for us before, on
Echocord and Echocord Colour.
On all these tracks, one thing becomes apparent, with
a few simple elements and a dub approach to mixing,
one can create space, movement and groove without
the need to change keys. magic maybe.
Thank you dub manipulators of the past and present
for the music and lessons.
Brendon has been releasing music in many years on
many labels, also running his own famous Steadfast
label.

"Lars Stowe is mostly known for his work as Anstam, releasing his very own brand of avantgarde bassmusic and IDM-flavored intense electronic music on his own Anstam label and on Modeselektor's 50Weapons imprint. His new Anno Stamm moniker sees him take on house and techno with the same eclectic and open-minded stance. The first Anno Stamm release on All City Records, earlier this year, was welcomed as a refreshing, ultra-modern yet rootsy take on techno. On this new release for meakusma, Stowe once again injects his tracks with fervour and eclecticism, breaking open their mould and giving them a sense of direction shaped into a relentless groove that slowly but surely opens up time and again. Here are four tracks that pay homage to Berlin's techno roots. Just as much well-timed as 'out of time', these four tracks are underground slabs of raw but sophisticated, daftly funky techno power!"

Time for more crazy and beautiful analogue acid goodness on this 3rd vinyl release presented by the AcidWorx crew. The label has announced that the artist/s behind these acid pieces are currently unidentified, but we might find out who he/she/they are when the digital release of this is announced...one day. Right now, it's vinyl only !

Gunnar Haslam is a long-time regular at The Mister. By day he's a scholar of particle physics and signal processing, and by night he makes very heady music, some of which has made its way onto their very first ten-inch release.

The Sub Squared label presents an EP by Kloke, a Melbourne based producer who captures the atmosphere and vibe of a variety of his native Britain's forms of electronic music without merely rehashing past genres: Jungle, Dubstep, Grime, Ambient and Techno are distilled into his original but familiar soundscapes. Kloke's back catalogue includes releases on Entrada, Granholme and Styles Upon Styles. On the first side the tracks are beat driven; two tracks with distorted drum machine at 120bpm providing the bones for reflective harmonic and melodic parts that are reminiscent of Jungle or Breakbeat Hardcore. The second side of the record is a mini album in itself; seventeen minutes of beatless music in three tracks. 'Ember' matches staccato rhythmic elements to thick lush pads, 'Yeman' employs a piano and cymbal sample over melancholy tones. The title track of the EP is a 10 minute medley of ambient music that ranges through moods of warmth, desolate electronic bleakness, unsettling menace and skin tingling nostalgia

Jackmate comes here with a build-up monster piece of techno which is driven by massive broken drum patterns. 'Thanks for purchasing a real copy!

Back in April, Slovenia's Valentino Kanzyani dropped the first half of a two part underground house EP on Cadenza, titled 'Love & Gratitude EP1. It was his debut release on Luciano's label, and was dark and funky for the most part, with the majority of the four tracks' energy coming from percussion and raw beats (Kanzyani is currently working on an album for Cadenza, which will contain mainly new and unreleased tracks). 'Love & Gratitude EP2 is more heady and hypnotic. Throbbing beats and relentless kick drums drive the rhythms forward, whilst swirling synthesizers and experimental techno soundscapes diffuse the grooves, creating contrast and tonal changes. If anything, the gentle melodies and subtle musicality of Kanzyani's three new original tracks here (the fourth track is a dub edit of the last EP's El Circulo De La Vida cut) create a kind of dancefloor psycheism, where the mind moves in a different spatial plane to the feet, encouraging you to drift off into alternate dimensions. The first track 'Mirvan' is the heaviest cut on the EP, and has a tension and vibe similar to the raw rhythms that Berghain residents Ben Klock or Marcel Dettmann might play at the Berlin techno temple. When some pads fade in around the 2:30 mark, you can sense Kanzyani's desires to coerce you into a dreamlike state. The sounds are infinite and all pervasive, like outer space, forever expanding beyond the reaches of any known logic or meaning. The beats are drowned out at points by the ever-growing black hole of sound, however the drumming is reliable and constant, like an engine that never stutters. The second track 'Chanta Lopez' is more housey, with a tangible bassline and more swing in the groove. Loose claps on alternating delay patterns keep the tension high in the first part of the track, before a metallic, machine-like synth cranks into gear. Unlike 'Mirvan', the synth has a recognizable melody and moves with purpose. At times, the synth combinations almost turn into an aco

After 4 EP ep on Pong Music here is the New 10" in the series by P.C.M. (Pulse Code Modulation). Two Deep Techno with Industrial dub touch between Detroit and Chain Reaction sounds. Highly supported by Kirk Degiorgio, Life Recorder, Jack de Marseille, Gez Varley aka G-Man, Dave Miller, Dj Oil, Deep in Dub, Emanuele Pertoldi, Ricardo Gabe, Mike Huckaby...

It feels like only a moment ago that we welcomed Russian prodigy Andrey Pushkarev to the Circus Company fold with the Gingo Biloba 12, and after that refined exercise in stripped down dancefloor aesthetics it's gives us great pleasure to bring him back in for another three-pronged demonstration of his considerable studio talent. The core principles laid out in that first EP are back in abundance, with Pushkarev expanding on his love of dubbed-out dance music with a fresh batch of rhythms and pulses custom-made to ensnare the subconscious in that time-honoured tradition of meditative house and techno. 'Between The Mountains' makes no attempt to mask the influence of Basic Channel looming overhead, letting the seductive throb of dub techno chords echo through a crisp arrangement of drum machine beats that speak to the building blocks of electro in their mechanical construction. Taking a tougher approach from the outset, 'River' instantly sets itself apart as a more house-orientated affair, thanks in no small part to the solid beat that underpins the track. The insistent synth that stalks in the lower register of the mix drives the track forwards while spine-tingling washes of metallic melody appear intermittently to break up the grooving thrust of the drums. As if the first two cuts weren't deep enough, 'A First Snow' heads even further into hypnotic territory that maximises on the impact of choice reverbs and alluring keys to summon up a surprisingly funky blend of minimal house and dub-wise warmth. It's the little details that allow Pushkarev's skill to shine through, creating sublime dancefloor moments from the most delicate of touches. When considered control and pristine production can result in monotonous output, our Russian friend shows just how captivating the subtle approach can be.