Techno Vinyl New Releases - News

Depth.Request sees a new hat being thrown into the techno ring. The hat in question is the label's first EP Anvil—a post-tech five-tracker, and the person throwing it is Blasted—an Italian producer with a number of solid EPs to his name. Having had previously shared release credits with him on a number of occasions, Berlin's renowned noisemaker Unhuman fits into the picture as well, being the one charged with remixing duties regarding the titular track.

Setting common tact aside for a moment, the opener showcases Blasted indulging in esoteric inclinations by the means of concentrating on slick, abrasive sound design, cutting the number of kicks in half and utilizing a vocal sample to add a pinch of EBM into the mix. Unhuman's slowed-down rework in turn evokes gears' incessant grind at the backdrop of steam pressurizers going up and down in alteration, producing arrays of heavily plodding, whamming kicks. Breaking free of esoterism and leftfield production, the EP continues with Jawbreaker—a peak-time affair wherein the lows are ravaged by constant sub-bass pressure and ruthlessly striking, syncopated kicks, laid under the neatly-synthesized, impenetrable hats, pertaining to Blasted's signature sound. On Filthy Goat, the assault continues with a renewed strength as anxious synths and panning hats gradually invade the scene shortly before the devastating kicks storm down in a hail of obliterating projectiles, creating a battlefield-evocative environment within this decimating, explosive stomper. Lastly, demonic closer Belial bids its fair digital-only-money's worth of adieu with magnificent ambiance interwoven within the spectrum alongside meticulously arranged drumwork presented through plethora of varied, carefully picked samples.

After his contribution to the "Lifesaver Compilation 4 - 21 (Dedicated To Andrew Weatherall)" last year with the pumping "Let's Hide Away", Damiano von Erckert presents his first proper full four tracker on LARJ. Expect dreamy moments with a lot of punch and great vocal snippets as Damiano dominates the bass drum in his masterful way.

A1 "MOONS" sucks you in with light and groovy bongo patterns which build the foundation for an uplifting track that's a bit dark around the sunnier side of things, yet still keeps the positive message: You and I can make it!

A2 "A MONSTER TO LOVE" sounds a bit like a modern take on the "Captain Future Theme", yet much deeper and darker. Atmospheric but built on one hell of a monster groove.

B1 "THESE ARE THE MOMENTS (FOR ZIMNI)" has epic qualities and is full of the uplifting moments we all need - not only Zimni … It does have a certain British sound to it and will definitely rule on a lot of dancefloors with its majestic bass line and whipping hi-hat.

B2 "WISHES" is reminiscent of yet more British sounds from the early 90ies (think Warp and early Nightmares On Wax). The beautiful vocal sample helps build up the tension here before a driving 303 bass line kicks in and takes no prisoners. You better wish for moments like these indeed … and relish them.

While we continue to dig into our archives, techno stalwart Insider came up with 3 massive tunes from the 90’s. Boots On The Run was once remixed by Thomas P. Heckman and made the dancefloors go nuts with it’s driving tribal beats, backed with Trial Bells with a similar sound and feel. In addition as a third bonus track we’ve added What You’re About To Hear, which is a rework of one of his old Music Man classics. A must have for every Bonzai record collector coming on a 10" black wax package.

Techno Parade Vinyl is saddened and honored to release our beloved friend Tim Baker. Tim was this good-hearted and cheerful person who lighted our souls and this white vinyl, Last Dance, is meant to perpetuate his light. His music will be played for generations to come.

Tim was a friend and a mentor to Van. They created sounds and crafted ideas which will forever remain in their hearts and their timeless music.

We also have a special guest CUBR1K who is the a.k.a created in 2006 by well-known Techno artist Cristian Varela, focused on curated melodic sounds which can be listened on his very own weekly Radio Show on Ibiza Global Radio of the same name. This great premiere can be exclusively offered thanks to this very special release in memory of the great TIM BAKER, besides to commemorate the 15th anniversary of our dear CUBR1K!!

Early support from Cristian Varela, Joseph Capriati, Robert Armani, Michel De Hey, Giuseppe Ottaviani, Dimitry Kneppers, Sven Thomschke Radio Z 95.8 Nuremberg, Stéphane Chambord (Radio Résonance), DJ Brian D, Sam Divine (D-Vine), Pablo Mombo, Antonio Grassia, The Abyss radio show, Marco Molinari Dj, Mirko Hensel, Graham Robson, Erik Bruce, anthony piercy, MISTERAMD, major K, Padhme, Dj Akira, Carmelo Carone, Claudio Ferrone, DJPoldi, Neil Craven, Mind2damax, DJ Sigvaldason, Salvatore Lo Giudice, Jim Star (Monique Musique / No Sound Music Group Owner), Ceaz Amaze, DJ Geri, Dj MarQ, Peter Byles, DjCandyCox, Werner Maxximixx Play, DJ TALLO, Marius Rypdal, Tariq Ziyad, gwenael louvet, G-Prod, Rüdiger Born, Lemon8.

Repress

Invisible Menders are back. After a long hibernation, the duo of Jane Fitz and Dom finally release their long-awaited return to Animals On Psychedelics, the Dream Forest EP. Opening track Dārukā is deep trip to the heart of the forest floor. It comes backed with a pure trance remix from good friend SYO (aka S.O.N.S). Also included Weather Obsessives, remixed by in-demand Dutch producer Eversines, who twists the original into break-fuelled bliss.

PRICE TBA.

A Queer Anthology of Drums - "a percussive collage of low-fi frequencies documenting a journey that never took place" (Takuroku), a home recording capturing Valentina's ritualistic free-improv essence, is now being presented to audiences across the world by bié Records, via both streaming services and vinyl for the first time.

*A Queer Anthology of Drums was originally released on Cafe Oto's label “Takuroku” with 8 tracks solely in MP3 format. The new version by the Beijing-based bié Records, whose associate acts range across Hualun, Yu Su, Lim Giong, Gong Gong Gong and many more, is specifically remastered for vinyl format and expanded to 9 tracks with the previously unreleased “She/Her/Gone”.

Grey Marbled Vinyl Repress


Belgium's 'Raving George' dispenses of her alias on her debut ep for Turbo Recordings as Charlotte de Witte.

The 23 year-old Studio Brussel resident DJ has quickly made a name for herself following EPs on Bad Life and a massively successful collaboration with Oscar & The Wolf (which actually sold 15k copies in Belgium alone). Shedding her alias here, Charlotte shows she's ready for prime-time with this expertly crafted EP of big-room techno.

Lead track 'Weltschmerz' sounds like an instant Berghain classic; dark, massive, trippy, and with an emotional character all too rare within the genre. The kicks are banging, the verbed out percussion is fierce, and it all moves around a haunting melodic breakdown that artfully dances on the right side of 'progressive.' It's a killer track that perfectly sets the tone for the whole record.

'Damage Control' is a straightforward flex-a-thon, a housier rhythm that struts along confidently. The technical term is 'floor-filler.' 'Lonesome' brings the emotion back, with it's super-tense, unresolved melodies, this is perfect for all your mega-club yearning & gurning needs. 'Relatives of None' is the nastiest of the bunch, and probably the most at home on Turbo, built around a screechy synth hook. Finally, 'Weltschmerz (Melodic Theme)' provides an epic ambient outro, crystallizing the emotional tones of the EP and establishing a sense of artistic vision that ascends well beyond the pedestrian.

How about some bright groove fighting the dark winter days? Clark Davis will light up your ears and mind with an energizing interaction of house tunes, funk and techno beats. Together with two remixes by Lucinee and Syntax Error, the Hamburg connection is perfect.

2022 Repress

The second drop in a limited run of vinyl editions from Talismann's Percussion project. Talismann continues to unleash the percussion. Drums summoned from ancient times echo over the ruthless beats that pound harsh into your soul. Percussion is a multi-release album, and will provide a complete experience. Offering a multitude of unified tracks which all share a synergy with one another. A synergy that will invite for others to play and create one's own within the universe called PERCUSSION.

First VA release from Norwegian deep techno label inspired by the seasonal changes of the nordic sun. This is four techno cuts for the body, the mind and the spirit.

This release is a promise from Micron Audio to provide only carefully crafted and curated electronic music from progressive minded artists. Nothing friendly... Period. Galaxian: An intelligent, intricate composition of titanium android parts and artificial intelligence. LOKA: Sidewalk cracking, body moving waveforms, that strongly reflect the title of the track. Ctrls: Like listening to an audio book on neuroscience except you can dance to it and raise your IQ at the same time. 6SISS: This sonic blast gives you fair warning that you're going to travel about 20 years into the future. DJS 313

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Leeds based party On Rotation launches it’s record label with a LP from resident Adam Pits. His debut album ‘A Recurring Nature’, draws inspiration from time spent in nature with friends during a year when clubbing was an impossibility. Over the course of 8 varied tracks, Adam moves between club slammers and spaced-out introspective downtempo with ease, showing off the production skills that have made him one of the most talked about names of late.



Combining the unique style of his previous club EPs with organic sound design and his own classical cello background, the psychedelic sonic palette is reminiscent of long summer days foraging for mushrooms and other treats from the undergrowth.

300 Copies Limited Edition

A Project to last in time with no expiration date!

Art, feeling, motivation and man united in sound and visual expressions as this work is composed.

Imagine and delve into the history of each topic / passage.

A message in each work to imnotize and feel sensations.

This first special edition, as on the cover, shows a beautiful tree, nature and music with pure textures.

Erreka, Bidaia, Dotore and Zuhaitz.

The roots of a seal that has matured over time.

Founded back in 1997, Trax Magazine is the pionneer of Electonic Music and soon became the referent for this movement. Please find the finest selection of three genres of the Club Culture with artists and tracks that forged these styles : House,Techno and Drum'n'Bass. From the start in Detroit to the endless nights of Berlin, go through the greatest Techno Hits. From Dave Clarke to Josh Wink or Laurent Garnier, all the main names of Techno on a double vinyl.

Dark techno EP by the prolific and versatile Finnish producer Empath. Four hard and distinctive tracks inspired by cold cyberpunk fiction and built for sweaty warehouses.>

Hi, this is Remco, who made the music for this record. These tracks are my take on techno and electro cuts with an experimental twist. But I’d rather share a bit on the underlying theme of what this record means to me.

Digital Plant System, Solvation, Labyrinth and Altar all touch upon the subject of not always being able to change difficult situations that you encounter. It has occurred to me that the more you seek, the more you will keep looking. Digital Plant System for me symbolizes how it can feel very hard if not impossible to understand the world and how it works, while Solvation and Labyrinth as you might guess by their titles, feel like dwelling on certain problems and getting stuck in thought loops about them. The final track Altar is all about surrendering to the fact that a solution might not come by working ever so hard on analyzing it, but simply yielding to something bigger, and stop resisting.

This record feels very personal to me even though it’s one of the clubbier projects I’ve put out, which is why I like to share some of the symbolism these tracks hold for me. I really hope you enjoy them.

Sincerely,
Remco

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Debut Release From SISmo´s new artist Qasio, Chilean artist Based in Berlin, his release is a mixture of dark,serious and hypnotic sounds, a complete EP with 4 tracks Club Oriented, Including one Remix from OMAR.

After exploring some of the UK’s house music heritage, Late Night Burners’ reissue offshoot Still Burning struck gold closer to home; the Dutch have always been adept at crafting club sounds and Marcel Franke’s contributions are no exceptions.

Between 1992 and 1998 he was moving freely between house, progressive, trance, and techno under various guises leaving behind a trove of serious dancefloor 12-inches. One of these was “Tinnitus” released in 1995 under his single-use alias Timelock, containing four menacing party cuts straddling ravey house and deep techno. The Late Night Burners guys took two of them, had them faithfully remastered for the modern dancefloor from the original DATs, and added two remixes; one by the label bosses themselves and one by Youandewan, who has had the original record in his bag for so long it only seemed fitting to ask him.

Banging electro techno in the fantastic 1 track per side DJ friendly style ! MASSIVE bassline !

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Blue vinyl repress of this Bonzai classic!

After a hugely successful first vinyl run of the superb Bart Skils Remix of Universal Nation, alongside the Original Mix of course, we’re delighted to announce a special Gold Edition repress to celebrate the record achieving gold status. This is a huge achievement, thanks to you, our fans.

The repress will be a limited run and we will also be introducing our newly designed Bonzai branded inner sleeve, so keep your eye on our websites and socials for more info about how you can own this wonderful piece of history.

To honour the creator and musical genius behind Universal Nation, M.I.K.E. / Push will receive a specially commissioned gold record in recognition of all-time sales, which is a testament to his overall contribution to electronic music.

clear red viny
Tensal K is already here with a special sound and visual design for the occasion, 4 tracks of fiery rhythms and explosive textures ready to pulverize the dance floor, excitement for your senses.

Tape
Limited edition of only 30 copies.
C-30 Black tape, pink fluor and white spray on it, each one is different.
Includes download code.
Tracks written and produced by : Juan Camilo Betancur
Mastered by : Soj

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True To The Dna Of Luke Slater's Imprint, Rene Wise Fires Off A Throbbing Combination Of Big Room-ready 4/4 Mechanics, High-velocity Bass And Hypnotic Acideries On A Dopey, Dubby Flex - Engineering The Tools Of Chaos For A Highly Immersivedive Into The Basement's Teeming Underworld And Its Nocturnal Fauna.

A collection to celebrate the label’s 20 years in the business of releasing timeless techno and house tracks from the crème de la Crème of the artist roster.

“We like our bike, it is made for 3. Our Mike sits on the back you see. We like our Mike and this is why, Mike does all the work when the hills get high.”

Timeless words from the great Dr. Seuss, and in considering the 20 year history of Mike Shannon's Cynosure label, there could be no truer sentiment. From it's humble beginnings in a sleepy Canadian town formerly known as New Berlin (Kitchener, Ontario) to it's current home in Berlin proper, the label has grown to become a nurturing launch pad for artists from around the globe, and one of the most dependable and consistent providers for those in search of deep minimal funk of the house and techno persuasion. Much like Shannon himself, each and every release in the label's now vast catalog reveals itself with unhurried, confident class, and always with a wink and a wry smile.

In celebration of the label's 20th anniversary, Shannon has amassed another peerless collection of tracks from his nearest and dearest which, much like every banger in the back catalog, are certain to become permanent fixtures in record bags of DJs with an ear for taking dance floors straight down the rabbit hole for many years to come.

Featuring contributions from fellow Canadians Mathew Jonson, The Mole, and Deadbeat, Shannon's frequent collaborator Dewalta, and American legends Ryan Crosson and Brett Johnson to name but a few, Cynosure 20 is a testament to Shannon's stalwart commitment to the music he loves, and the incredibly talented group of merry pranksters he's brought along with him for what, it's safe to say has been one hell of a journey... may it continue for many years to come.

Part of the new brigade of artists making their mark on the label, Veerus lands his fifth release in two years on Drumcode.

With a pair of EPs and numerous contributions to the coveted A-Sides compilation under his belt since his debut in 2018, Veerus has established himself as a talented go-to producer for Adam Beyer; from his stirring cut ‘Hypnosis’ that highlighted the Drumcode founder’s Cercle performance, to the killer ‘System’ that provided an early 2020 moment for the label.

His consistent vein of form will result in a coveted spot at Drumcode Festival Malta 2021 in September.

‘Recovery’ continues the Italian’s talent for crafting powerful melody-led techno projections.

The title track is an ace. What begins as a smoky atmospheric cut is quicky elevated to beast status as intergalactic robot stabs shatter the mist, while an acid-underbelly adds to the mood. ‘Dysfunction’ brims with a distinct 90s synth aesthetic, propelled by a crisp and classy bottom end.

Bolam is back on Space Dust with the 'Lost In Time' EP, a continuation of the journey started with the widely acclaimed 'Suspended Animation'. Another well-rounded and diverse record dives into the wormhole with ’Moving Lights’, a high-energy affair propelled by filtering resonators and a haunting vocal. ’Ozone’ breaks through the stratosphere of a new world, a huge track with electro-inspired groove, booming kicks and a razor-sharp lead melody, creating a feeling of uncertainty and delirium with swelling pads and arpeggiators.

The B-side begins with the mysterious and epic, genre-defying anthem ’Air Tension’, enticing the listener into the strange new world with a chugging rhythm, tantalising textures and an indescribable melody that keeps you on the line between paranoia and euphoria. ’Bioluminescence’ descends into an alien jungle, with a hypnotic, dreamy, downtempo beat and iridescent synths and chords. Finally, as you lay down in the otherworldly glade, the record wraps up with the ethereal, ambient finisher, ‘2 Parsecs From Home’.

Kerrie makes her debut for DBA with four tracks devised originally for her high impact live sets. Other than a cut on highly regarded London label I Love Acid's 10th anniversary comp Kerrie is a relative newcomer but the ten years she has put in honing her style immediately shine through in her music. The EP ranges from Before Calm's bug-eyed, angular swagger replete with a hair raising distorted hook, to Orb Weaver's peak time techno roll via Acid8 Slider which is one of the most original 303 tracks to come out of the UK in some time and Curveball, a bolshy electro leaning stepper.

Her influences range from current UK artists like Blawan to Japanese artists such as NHK yx Koyxen & Hiroaki Iizuka and pioneers like X101, Joey Beltram and Surgeon. The running thread in her taste is a penchant for high energy, raw banging grooves with a machine funk flavour, and a love of analog sound both as a producer and DJ. No doubt this stems from her time spent working at legendary Manchester shop Eastern Bloc Records where she joined in 2013 and has worked ever since. Honing her skills through her DJ residency for EBloc Kerrie has gone on to become a regularly booked act for the UKs most prestigious underground club nights. As a live performer she has also toured the UK since 2017 with the live show being met with high acclaim. Her live set for Freerotation 2019 has been one of the festival's most talked about debuts.

Third EP from Raar on his own label, it features his signature dreamy techno. From the brain melting percussions and vocal of A1 to the more experimental breakbeat rhythms and modular rumbles of the B2. Four tracks that will fit any deep and emotive moment on the dance floor.

DTTC is back once again with a brutal release…

The 7th EP from Uruguayan Phonotheque Recordings by Z@P.

Ecstatic Northern techno from Evigt Morker! Restless with giddy excitement and fidgeting through candescent swells, Evigt Morker's latest EP deploys a familiar, playful edge to degrees that were only hinted at in previous excursions. Ecstatic polyrhythms compound the wealth of fizzy details into prudent club missions with a bright yet rugged edge. Quality stuff!

Sigourney Discs presents its third release following BACK by Dark Vektor and CZ200 by PLOM. Rinse Repeat is the new EP from Barcelona-based French producer La Fraicheur and Berlin-based French producer Leonard de Leonard.

The Rinse Repeat EP shows the duo’s wide spectrum of love affairs with techno’s rich universe of sounds and moods. The title track Rinse Repeat is built around a raspy and ever-evolving playful acid bassline with added drama from sound design and distorted glitchy gimmicks. Mind The Step is taking the sound design-induced drama a step further with a slow burning spacious and epic cavernous fantasmagoria that flips itself on the head half way through, becoming a vengeful track driven by a menacing yet groovy gritty bassline.

Rounding up the EP is the apt-titled Fairies Bootcamp. Ethereal and eerie skidding melodies balance out a grounded martial rhythm as if you had, on a forest walk, stumbled upon an army of fairies in a training camp caught mid-flight arming themselves to take their land back. The soundtrack of a supernatural call for arms.

On remix duty, Sigourney Discs co-founder Yandira leaves the war behind to focus on the otherworldly elements of Fairies Bootcamp and offers a trippy floaty dreamstate rendition for open airs and early morning rising suns.

Midi fanfare orchestrator Novo Line is back on Protofuture with a blazing 12”. His album “Racconti” (a concept-album on cassette) gets reinterpreted by the artist’s confrères Eva Geist, Dama, Wilted Woman, Tyler Pope and Elena Colombi, one year after its original release.

Cosmic/electro/dub meets synthetic, pulsing patterns inspired by Novo Line’s disorienting yet danceable polyrhythms in this varicolored E.P, which journeys across late night and early morning sounds.

Kindly mastered by Analogcut in Berlin, the music sees the contribution of Protofuture’s inmates Dj Fett Burger, Trent and Telephones on mixing and live percussion duties.

While our lives are being set upside down due to a crazy amount of events, from climate change to eco-political re-assessment with crisis and pandemic emergencies a new spiritual era is approaching us. Rituals as well as magical practices are what we really need to learn how to go through this and be born again. We need to look inward and seek the truth that we can neither find in the outside world nor inside the digital one.

'As I'm always evolving, every now and again I need to make a point about my latest sound. Curveballs has been especially written to showcase the full range of my current sound and features a carefully selected collection of tracks designed for a club environment. "Riva Starr

Dance music's prolific Italian-born London-based sharpshooter Riva Starr set to release fourth artist album Curveballs via Adam Beyer's revered Truesoul Records.

Riva Starr has been shaking up the world of dance music with his eclectic and unpredictable palette of sounds and styles for over a decade. Over the years, he has racked up numerous accolades and achievements including releasing 3 acclaimed albums (If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade in 2010, Hand In Hand in 2013 and Definition of Sound in 2016), having a myriad of single/EP releases on some of dance music's most established labels (Snatch! Records, Hot Creations, Relief, Crosstown Rebels, Dirtybird) and amassing an impressive remix resume of artists including; Audion, Groove Armada, Dennis Ferrer, Usher, Estelle, London Grammar, Fatboy Slim, Reboot and David Morales.

With all of this success and experience under his belt, the time has come for the talented Italian to deliver his much awaited fourth long-player, Curveballs - comprising of 12 stellar tracks inspired by current club sounds and old school music elements, driven by Starr's endeavor to produce music that stands the test of time.

The LP's striking opener, 'Always' gets things underway and sets the tone with its powerful house groove, warm chord stabs and divine soulful vocal courtesy of legendary house diva Jocelyn Brown. Elsewhere, there's the funk-driven disco-tinged 'Piknik', the uplifting 'Needin' U' esque 'Disco Loco', the dark and commanding 'The Hole (Release Your Soul) and the pounding peak-time synth-laden roller 'Give Me Love'.

Other highlights include, the infectious breakbeat workout 'Britcoin', the techy electro-tinged 'Fresh' and the experimental synth-driven Techno gem 'AnalHog'. The album concludes with 3 fine cuts in the form of the bass heavy TR-909 laden 'Ride', the funk-fueled house groover 'Mantra (Early In The Morning)' and an exclusive deep-house-esque Dub version of 'Give Me Love' to round off yet another essential long-player from one of dance music's much-loved artists.

A staple of South America’s ever-effervescing techno community, Colombian-born producer Adriana Lopez sure ain’t no stranger to the aficionados of wild four-to-the-floor epics, having delivered the totality of her typical, custom cut bunker-busters on Developer’s Modularz and her own imprint, Grey Report, in about a decade of intense dancefloor activism.

For her first sortie away from her usual recording homes, Adriana steps up in no real unknown territory either, with Stroboscopic Artefacts’ Totem series providing a much suitable shelter for her deep-penetration, quaky club weaponry to grow and expand.

Kicking things off in frontally brutal fashion, the title-track ‘Embera’ sets the mood right away, swallowing us amidst the countless spans and layers of hypno-tech quicksands. With the kinetic energy gauge now set to eleven and kicks thumping their way across a forest of obsessive synth spirals, Adriana then whips up a frenzy of delayed percussions, spaced-out riffs and jammed radar echoes on ‘Saija’, sure to keep the dancers in a state of wilful enslavement.

Opting for a more straightforward, steady-flying angle of attack, the EP’s closer ‘Awa’ tops it all off on an equally abrasive and elegant note, true to Adriana’s trademark mix of groove-making finesse and uplifting potency.

On textstar+ Jan Jelinek brings together the material from the CMYK series, four EPs he released between 1999 and 2002 under the pseudonym farben (the German word for both colours and paints), on a vinyl double LP for the first time. The selection of tracks has been remastered from the original tapes, joined by two additional pieces that appeared on compilations during the same period.

A Polaroid. Still life with tangled leads and consumer electronics, late twentieth century. Black and various shades of dirty white are the dominant non-colours. The image’s spatial depth remains diffuse, the links between its elements speculative. A note stuck to the wall (a legend, perhaps, or an all-explaining blueprint in text form?) is impossible to decipher. You can’t see what connects the picture’s signs. You have to hear it.

farben says: Every sound is a text. A bearer of meaning in search of a reader. Hoping the ideas inscribed in its autonomous existence will be understood as intended. While its beauty lies precisely in misunderstanding, in reading the coded message a new way every time. A thousand colours of sound, a thousand different ways to hear, to see, to understand.

On textstar+ Jan Jelinek brings together the material from the CMYK series, four EPs he released between 1999 and 2002 under the pseudonym farben (the German word for both colours and paints), on a vinyl double LP for the first time. The selection of tracks has been remastered from the original tapes, joined by two additional pieces that appeared on compilations during the same period. Another new element is the Polaroid, showing the origins of a world: Jelinek’s home studio in Berlin at the time.

farben says: Move your body! The project has its roots in Jelinek’s love of house as a reductionist vision of soul. Of four to the floor as a proposition that can be accessed anywhere. Of electronic dance music as a realm of possibility that can be continually expanded. farben was written as contemporary house music. As a text about excitement and euphoria. The arrangements were made directly while recording to DAT, on a twelve-channel mixing desk. Several track titles suggest a link to live concerts, coupled with the context of machine music and bedroom recording. Others affirm pop music’s most extravagant stock phrases about various states of love.

Jelinek produced the tracks with the aim of making music for dancefloors. An idea that failed very productively. In the locations to which it was originally addressed, the project barely figured. But people did listen, and they listened all the more closely to this music that opened up new acoustic and associative scope for house. farben is the opposite of genre: a music spawning new terms (clicks & cuts, micro-house) that never manage to fully capture it.

farben says: Signifiers. The four CMYK EPs are designed as a network of references that cannot be missed but that can also never be precisely deciphered. The vectors of sound, word and image point to Isaac Hayes and Ornette Coleman, to Detroit and the first generation of the Red Army Faction, to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. So multifarious that they are distorted to the point of recognition. Overall we hear sonic docufictions whose appealing vagueness derives precisely from this oscillation between clarity and ambiguity, which is also the source of their poetry: the lyricism of the pure circulation of signs.

The artwork is based on photographs of former Red Army Faction members, broken down into the four colours of the CMYK model. The motifs dissolve into individual dots of a single colour, so close to the faces that their expressions are only hinted at. Taken together, the individual colours compose a new whole out of fragmentary material, defying definition and thus maintaining their vibrancy. The same occurs on the level of sound. The sampler Jelinek used for these tracks had to be fed with floppy disks, imposing a memory limit of 1.44 megabytes per audio quotation from soul or jazz records. As a necessary consequence of this, the individual references, like the dots of colour, are dissolved into details and abstractions. They appear as splinters that recombine in new ways to create new meanings. The joy of collapsing metaphors.

farben says: New departures. Even two decades after its original release, textstar+ does not come across as an epitaph to the modern era. Instead, it appears as a euphoric affirmation of the utopias of the twentieth century, translated into new sound texts via the aesthetic strategies of abstraction, collage, networking and speculation. 1.44 megabytes of history, one thousand signifiers, one album. From “Live ...” to “... Love”.

Arno Raffeiner, 2021

HI-LO, the techno alter-ego of Oliver Heldens debuts on Drumcode with a full-force two-tracker ‘Hypnos’. Unbeknown to many, the Dutch future house star has been cultivating a love of techno separate from his mainstage persona. As HI-LO, he’s remixed Nina Kraviz’s ‘Skyscrapers’ and released on Octopus and Filth on Acid, the latter consisting of collaborations with Reinier Zonneveld, T78 and Will Clarke.

Over the last 12 months, HI-LO has become the sixth highest selling Techno artist on Beatport, as well as cemented his place as a top streaming act in the genre.

In recent times Heldens has become a regular supporter of Drumcode’s catalogue via his Heldeep Radio show and DJ sets. Likewise, he’s been on the radar of Adam Beyer since 2019 when the Drumcode boss played his monster cut ‘Poseidon’, which encouraged the young artist to begin sending him demos.

His Drumcode debut ‘Hypnos’ is effective and infectious in equal doses. The title track is led by a catchy bass groove that espouses plenty of personality and is a handy tool for building energy throughout the night. ‘Hera’ is a straight-edged euphoric gem, driven by an uplifting key riff throughout.