Techno News

If early humans heard today’s music would they shun it or relate it to the constant struggle, brute danger and terrifying, preterite beauty of their world? On his latest Where To Now release, ‘Lowlands’, grizzled sonic voyager U goes some way to approaching and exploring this notion.

Far more dancefloor-geared than his last release for Where To Now?, (the acclaimed ‘Vienna Orchestra’), the EP opens with ‘Arctic Eden’ where slamming breaks somehow obliterate any trace of evoked dance music nostalgia as they are chopped to a perpetually rolling false start. The effect is visceral yet stilted, like a dog jerking to begin the motion of running from an ambient threat such as fireworks. Snares are sometimes overshadowed by clanging hits like a child gleefully banging on pans. This and the following 2 tracks are cryptic and primordial acid flashbacks marking the A-Side as the proverbial ‘edge of the forest’ where we can gather in relative safety and semi-familiarity, aside from the looming and dense periphery of trees and ill defined peril that lies adjacent.

‘Don’t Fuck With The Dragon’ deceives with its heavy kicked four-to-the-floor introduction before diving into a low-hanging smokescreen of murky synths that obscure pounding percussion and vague and muttered voices. A sawing bass synth tears through amid pinging 808 cowbells and frequent flashes of sound like granite scraping across the EP’s sonic tiles. Sudden euphoria takes hold as the murk clears to the track’s ebullient conclusion. ‘Buildbase’ indeed has the driving pulse of construction to it but the base is nearly destroyed as explosive sideswipes render previous sequences to sludge and rubble and the percussive clicks no longer propel forward but tiptoe around the bass drum thuds and menace.

On the B-Side we are into the forest. Barely navigable and unfamiliar - in classic U style we are turned on our heads and forced to feel for the touchpoints on this side having been perhaps lulled into a false sense of security before. A strong Eastern vibe announces the side as dune-dwelling drums hammer behind a sandstorm of swishing sonic texture. This heralds a sombre and regal section that develops into a thanatoptic drone with a post-industrial lament of echoing metallic percussion rising from the track’s smouldering ashes.

High tide’s downbeat drums float behind a submerged classical motif and drowned piano melodies as we drift into the focal point of this strange collection. The title track opens like a Celtic ‘O Superman’ as heavily processed vocals weave a traditional tale over beautiful, doomy, looming synths and ambiguous high register melodies. It is raw emotion delicately balanced on the edge of the comical. Unsettling and familiar and uncomfortable. It is the perfect conclusion to an intriguing 30 minutes of music that seems to deliberately cater to nobody specific yet prods at myriad facets of the human spirit.

Idealist returns with his second long player this October, entitled 'Mind Field' and featuring eight dub-leaning cuts from the Swiss producer. Based out of Zurich, Switzerland, producer and DJ Idealist has become a respected figure in raw, dubby house and techno over the past five years via his releases on Echocord and his Idealistmusic and Details Series labels, picking up support along the way from the likes of Mike Huckaby, Dana Ruh, Tini and Mandar to name but a few. Here though we see him returning to Copenhagen's Echocord with his second long player following 2016's 'Firewood Street' on his own label. Leading on the package is 'Explorer', setting the tone with crunchy percussion, billowing stab sequences and airy dub swells before 'Dimension' employs pulsing subs, soft organ like chords and gritty analogue drums as its foundation whilst fluttering stabs and sweeping atmospherics wander within.'Stage One' is up next, consisting of a weight low end drive, thunderous kick and snappy clap running in unison with swirling dub echoes and tension building strings, a shining example of an effective dub-techno tool. 'Golden Places' offers something different, this time round embracing a walking bass groove, soft 303 style resonant flutters and cinematic strings. 'M.I.T.H' opens up the flips side of the release, upping the energy levels with a dynamic, robust rhythm, gritty stabs and murky modulating effects throughout before 'Singularity' edges things back into deeper territory with fluttering synth licks, vacillating pads and low-slung drums. 'Smoke and Mirrors' embraces a loop driven approach next with a focus on short, sharp synth cuts, bumpy drums and skippy hats before 'Final Cut', as the name would suggest, wraps up the album with oscillating percussion, choppy bass hits and raw drums all unfolding with the subtle nuances prevalent throughout yet another smooth and understated addition to Idealist's catalogue.

Gear Check:

Elektron Digitakt
Mode Machines ADX1
Roland Juno 106
Dreadbox Abyss
Korg Minilogue
Korg Monologue
Korg Volca Keys
Roland RE-201
Boss RE20
Strymon Blue Sky
EHX Small Stone
FMR RNLA
Soundcraft LX7II
Cymatic Audio Utrack24

LUSS is cleared for descent.

Great sounding new imprint based in Moscow and run by Vadim Lankov. The first release comes up with a quite dubby and minimalistic four-tracker, that is probably can be defined the crossing between minimal and house tech. This release is made by well-known Vadim Lankov.

Sound design masters Benjamin Brunn and Dave Wheels of the Workshop fame team up with the iconic Berlin based Sushitech for a beautiful double 12" LP release.

"2000" is an electronic masterpiece, lush melodies, dubby rhythms and some mesmerising synth lines that we can all recognise from previous milestone Benjamin Brunn releases such as Song From The Beehive that was already released a decade ago together with Move D.

This 2x12" with 8 full length tracks packed in a gatefold sleeve makes a beautiful pack that is a simply must have for any serious vinyl collector - BIG!

fourth blueten release for the barcelona-berlin connection from
gimenö and stefan helmke with three dub/break/techno sounds ! vinyl only !

Dutch producer and live act Conforce is back with 'Autonomous', a fifth artist album and the latest in his long relationship with Delsin Records. Conforce is Boris Bunnik, a producer who explores the deepest realms of dub, house, techno and electro under many different names. His Conforce alias is where his most club orientated material comes from and this new nine track album finds the Transcendent label boss producing dark syntheses inspired by his hometown and harbour city, Rotterdam, and its automated industries. A masterfully conceptual album that really paints a vivid picture of a harbour as heard from deep down in the depths.

Amadeo Savio is next up on Vigenere, the label that has thus far presented a whole host of unknown names in the field of minimal techno all bound together by a shared classiness in their production style. Savio's approach is deep and dubby on opening cut "Isolat", one primed for the after hours. "Trance Later" has a slightly more forthright approach, but there's still plenty of mellow delights to be found in the synth department to keep you chilling. "Encor" heads into more typically minimal pastures, while "Kassion" explores broken beat patterns and fragmented samples with scintillating results.

10" vinyl only

Boundless sounds of winter on the new Aniara. Spacious explorations into beauty, rhythm, soundscapes.

fifth blueten release for the barcelona-berlin connection from gimenö and stefan helmke with three dub/break/techno sounds ! vinyl only !

After been releasing techno monsters on the biggest labels on the planet (Soma. Ovum. Drumcode. Sci-Tec) Itamar Sagi comes back with his first EP on his own lable -3R88 RECORDS-. The Israelian techno master delivers 3 amazing cuts with his own unique sound signature. warm and filled with groove. the title track "Mercury No Retro" got a punchy remix from the Swedish house and techno veteran Joel Alter

Jens-Uwe Beyer

Cologne-based musician Jens-Uwe Beyer creates atmospheric, melodic tech-house that ventures into song-based synth-pop as well as more experimental ambient works. Under the moniker Popnoname, he began releasing singles and EPs on German labels Firm and Italic in 2005, and was a regular contributor to Kompakt’s lauded Pop Ambient compilation series. Popnoname’s debut full-length, White Album, was released by Italic in 2007, and was followed by Surrounded by Weather in 2008. Two years later, Japanese label Plaza In-Crowd released Surrounded by Mars, a remix album featuring reworks by artists including the Field and Ada. That same year, Beyer co-founded experimental music and art label Magazine along with Barnt and Crato. The label’s debut release was Render, a limited EP by Cologne Tape, a supergroup featuring all three of the label’s founders as well as Axel Willner (the Field), Kompakt mainstay Jörg Burger, and others. In 2011, Beyer released a collaborative album with Drums Off Chaos, a percussion-heavy project spearheaded by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit. Also in 2011, the three founders of Magazine released their first effort under that name, an abstract house EP titled Concerts, Festivals, Shows and Other Special Events. Beyer’s first solo release under his own name came at the end of 2012 with the release of Red Book, a single 80-minute long track. Popnoname returned in 2013 with 50 Degrees, the project’s most collaborative and song-based effort yet. In 2015, Beyer released an experimental ambient album under his own name as part of Kompakt’s Pop Ambient artist album sublabel.

Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen was born in Krefeld, Germany in 1954. He attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, where he studied under Sigmar Polke until 1981. During the early stages of his career, Oehlen’s artistic inclinations and thematic interests were diverse, ranging from music to painting. Neo-Expressionism became the prevailing aesthetic in the 1980s, inspiring him to combine abstract and figurative elements throughout his paintings. He established a close friendship with German artist Martin Kippenberger and dedicated himself completely to abstract painting. As early as a decade ago, Oehlen set up a studio in a tower of the city walls of Segovia, where he began to work on computer generated images that would become integral to his paintings. Oehlen’s spatially complex works use the collision of figuration and abstraction as a strong reminder of the multiple forces involved in the resurgence of painting at the latter part of the previous century. Albert Oehlen has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held in institutions such as the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2018, The Cleveland Museum of Art and Guggenheim Bilbao in 2016, The New Museum in 2015, Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy and the Musée d’ Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2009. He has also participated in exhibitions in major institutions such as the Musée Cantonal Des Beaux Arts in Lausanne, the Renaissance Society in Chicago and at the Kunsthalle in Basel. Oehlen’s show at MOCA Miami in 2005 marked his first major solo exhibition at a museum in the United States. In 2009 Taschen published an oversized artist’s monograph as part of its XL series that covers the entire scope of Oehlen’s oeuvre. Albert Oehlen lives and works in Switzerland.

Great "7" by Joachim Nordwall's industrial dub alias, white vinyl in generic black sleeve.

Pynch are Spencer Enock (vox / guitar / synth), James Rees (guitar), Julianna Hopkins (drums) and Jimmy Folan (bass).

Based in London – the band who hail from various places including Birmingham, France and Ireland, met Enock (who comes from Ramsgate) in London while all studying music. Pynch originally started life as a set of demos written and recorded by Enock in his parents Ramsgate basement taking inspiration from indie stalwarts like LCD Soundsystem, The War On Drugs, The Strokes and Beach Fossils to name a few.

Speedy label boss Dan Carey came across the band when they sent an email containing three demos over to Speedy HQ – the first of which was ‘Disco Lights’. ‘I try and listen to everything we get sent,’ says Carey, ‘which is hard because we get sent a LOT. This came through as I woke up early one morning in a hotel in Berlin where I’d been recording with an artist. ‘Disco Lights’ stood out immediately – and seemed so different to anything we’d done before. I called Pierre (Hall, Speedy co-runner) saying we had to do it, and emailed the band straight away. I loved its pop sensibility – but the demo was really lo-fi. I kept imagining this bigger, more widescreen version of it. In my head I wanted it to be almost like TOY covering ‘Everywhere’ by Fleetwood Mac.’

The resulting cut puts Carey’s vision into fruition. An immediate sun-drenched pop song with nods to Tame Impala and MGMT whilst maintaining that lo-fi Captured Tracks-esque feel, the production gets bigger and bigger as the track progresses culminating in dreamy synth layers being added and a killer solo to boot.

Of the recording process the band says - 'Hands down the best recording experience we've ever had. It was so much fun working with Dan. He was genuinely excited about the song and had so many creative ideas on how to bring it to life. Everything took shape really quickly and we were blown away by how everything was sounding.' 

The B-side ‘Orla Carey’s Pynch Your Lights Out Dub’ is a dub remix done by none other than the producers 14-year old daughter (having previously mixed tracks for Scottibrains, Goat Girl and Girl Ray) proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The band have also acquired an unexpected fan – in that of Libertines frontman Pete Doherty, who invited them to play a few dates with The Libertines. Of the unlikely relationship Enock says, ‘It’s quite funny really. My parents live near Margate and about two years ago my dad bought an ice cream van to use during the summer and struck up a friendship with Pete. He then played him a few of our songs and Pete quite liked them and let us open for them at the Kentish Town Forum. It was super cool of him.’

Another essential Speedy disco-very. Pynch yourself. It’s real.

New label, Reposition are setting themselves at the vanguard of cutting-edge electronic music with their first release by Belgium's T-Scale.
T-Scale, from Liege, started experimenting with audio editors and sequencers in his early teens. Active on his local scene since 1998, having been involved with several collectives and the now defunct Industrial-Bass Music band, Urban Toonz, he played alongside internationally acclaimed DJs and live acts like Murderbot, Ital Tek, Subjex, Exillon, Milanese, Boxcutter and Noize Creator. Now based in London, he is a member of the UK based collective and platform, Loose Lips, which launched in 2014, as he continues to push his sound forward. In his quest for physically impossible sonorities, he has spent the past 6 months developing a performance tool that gives him the ability to sculpt sounds on the go.

At a recent gig in Macedonia, he played an incredible 'live pure data' set, using real-time graphical data flow programming to create all his own sounds.
With this huge wealth of knowledge and a hard drive stacked with unreleased productions, his 'Spookz EP' is long overdue. He describes his music as Industropical or Funkyndustrial and when you hear his two original cuts on this EP, these descriptions become more apparent. 'Spookz' is dappled and harmonious with sweeping electronics and in-depth grooves. 'Prance For Me' is atmospheric and quaking in its deliverance, showing all his innovation and creativity.
The EP comes with two stellar remixes. The first is by El Prevost who delivers a grinding reworking of 'Prance For Me'. El Prevost has been forging his sound over the last decade, gradually shifting into the House and Techno scene in particular for UK label, Third Ear and his most recent self-run label, No Speakers, which boasts a varied artist roster that includes Doorly, Red Rack Em, Wbeeza, 65D Mavericks and Gabbi Lopez.
Rommek's remix of 'Spookz' follows and shows why this recently emerging artist is fast becoming a definitive force on the Techno scene. Fellow Loose Lips collective member, Rommek made his production debut on Weekend Circuit, before joining James Ruskin's iconic Blueprint label who released his 'Moth Hole EP', plus an appearance on their 20th anniversary compilation, 'Structures and Solutions' gaining him an admirable reputation for textured sound designs.

Clear Vinyl

Regarded by Dominik Fernow as the “best US noise project in terms of texture and composition”, Skin Crime return to Hospital Productions with an immanent inversion of noise convention
exploring ideas of tense, slow-burn patience instead of aggressive intensity.
Brutally active between the early ‘90s and mid ‘00s, Skin Crime took a 12 year hiatus until 2016 and the bloodshed of their instantly sold-out, 20CD boxset of archival material. That same year they
also issued ‘Ghosts I Have Been’, a crushingly bleak album inspired by Japanese mythology and ghost stories which have paved the way for this new one, where the band’s Patrick O’Neil and Mark Jameson continue to refine their instincts into the dankest brand of organic ambient noise.
In key with their ghostly Japanese muse, specifically the “Bakaneko” or “Ghost Cat” movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, as well as the writing of Lafcadio Hearn aka Koizumi Yakumo - author of ‘Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things’ - Skin Crime’s music in ‘Traveller on the Road’ is all about presence and the suggestibility of hypnagogic and half-awake states. Their cold-fingered sleight of hand is applied to exceedingly fine layers of textural enigma in long, unbroken tracts that hold the listener’s gaze with frightening power.
‘Avoid Large Places At Night’ takes hold with intravenal potency, very subtly drawing eyes to half-mast with its mechanical womb-like ambience, and stealthily introducing subharmonic rumbles
and peripheral rustles that suggest unseen spectres lurking in a thicket of ghosts. A lack of sudden movement only ratchets the threat levels to seat-edge. Likewise with its deeply soporific subs
and texturhythms, the B-side’s ‘Black Cat From The Grove’ continues to numb the senses in a noise style, but eviscerated of all open aggression, preferring a dense mode of suggestion that only emphasises the unheimlich nature of their music.
It’s a masterclass in saying it without saying it, and effectively amounts to a missing link between Kevin Drumm, Painjerk and Mika Vainio, or even Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement and Meitei, that should not be missed by any fans of the above.

Bash (AKA Julio Bashmore) graces Trules fifth release and the first in a series of ten inch singles with Jubilee, a sub heavy, minimal, UK garage dub that manages to marry the sparser techno vibes of his Conch releases with the subtle anthemic quality of his other alias. A real dance floor sneak bomb.

Al Wootton provides a two-stepping dub remix on the B-side, chopping the drums and echoing everything out to infinity.

“Assembly Sequence” is a split EP featuring two of the four founders of Kajunga: Berndt and Cloudy Kid. Having taken root in Minneapolis and frequenting cities like Detroit and Chicago, the EP has an inherent Midwest feel. This marks Cloudy Kid’s third release with Kajunga and Berndt’s second. Berndt has also released with sister labels Clave House, and Corndogs out of Detroit.

Assembly Sequence is controlled by the mechanical nature of its creators. Berndt and Cloudy Kid split the arrangement down the middle to manufacture a sonic signature they believe can be used to drive the biomechanical functions of life-space.

Side A begins by fusing ethereal groove polymers with stabilizing oscillations from Berndt’s precision pump rhythms; On side B, Cloudy Kid neuro-casts an injection chassis turbine on the entire structure, constraining the rhythmic patterns to rip deeper into the corrosive noise planes of the collective Darkmind.

alter basic channel stuff, ein klassiker vor dem herrn