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O.D.D., Modini and Casio Royale team up to wreck clubs across the galaxy! I glanced at the wrinkles on my hands as they worked the controls on landing pod. I'd aged considerably since we left Earth to track the alien. Taking an extremely dangerous short cut via the rim of a black hole allowed me to get to the outer regions of the universe before I turned geriatric and was too decrepit to navigate the ship. Now, as we approached Planet Simila, excitement burned within me. It wasn't just about meeting an extra-terrestrial, I was lonely. It had been many years since I'd spoken to anyone other than the ship's computer and here I was about to meet the first known life form outside our planet. I bumped the pod down on the terra firma as gracefully as I could. Intel confirmed Simila had an almost identical atmosphere to earth and that I'd be able to breathe on it unaided. However, precautious as always, I put the large dome shaped breathing apparatus over my head and pulled on the silver safety suit. I took my first step out of a spaceship in 14 years and there it was only yards away from me; a small green creature with large white goggle eyes on the end of two spindly antennas. If you'd asked a 5-year-old earthling to draw a spaceman it would have looked exactly like the thing stood before me. I had no idea whether it could comprehend English or not but nerves made me blurt out: 'Greetings from Planet Earth, I have travelled many light years to meet you, I...
'Here, never mind that pish, ya space helmet, you got the new DABJ Allstars Vol 3 on ya, it's got new stoaters fae O.D.D, Modini and Casio Royale. I've heard it's oot o' this world.'

The sixth release on Deep'a & Biri's Black Crow label welcomes another new name into the fold: Nico Campanella has been quietly building a stellar reputations for himself over the past few years, working under a variety of aliases to explore a sound that much like Deep'a & Biri draws deeply from techno's Detroit heritage as well as the propulsive dub techno of Basic Channel. With releases for several high quality under-the-radar European techno labels, including Construct Re-form, CLFT, Monnom Black and his own label Subosc, Campanelli's Kaelan and 2030 projects in particular have won him some ardent admirers & plenty of tips as a talent to keep an eye on. It's as 2030 that he joins Black Crow, for the Timeworm EP, which is completed by remixes from FXHE's Luke Hess and the label's Tel Aviv-based founders. The EP's original track are a pair of lushly-produced classic Detroit-influenced excursions, redolent of the cascading ambient textures and string melodies found within the work of the city's first wave pioneers. A1 cut 'In aeternum' could easily be mistaken for a lost early 90s classic in the best possible sense, while the title track also draws on a similarly timeless quality. With the original track ensuring the EP package will win other home listeners, it's the remixers who shape them for the dancefloor. Luke Hess's 'In aeturnum' remix is powerful dancefloor workout that retains a softer edge, recalling the producer's recent collaboration with OB Ignitt. On the B side, Deep'a & Biri offer two of their own interpretations of the title track, pulling the track across the dub techno galaxy with their trademark dexterity. Completing a truly exceptional package is beautiful hand drawn artwork by Israeli artist Avraham Guy Barchil.

This is the remix edition of Dino Sabatini's recent second album "Omonimo" (April 2016, Outis Music).Like the recent album, this EP "Concentrica" features renowned Italian veteran pianist/accordionist Antonello Salis on the tracks "If" and "It All Ends Here", albeit here in different versions. Out of these two tracks the former is on "Concentrica" reworked by Dino Sabatini and the latter in a collaborative live variation between Salis and Dino Sabatini. Simultaneously with the announcement of "Concentrica" was it announced that Dino and Antonello are launching their new live project: Dino Sabatini & Antonello Salis present 'Electronic Opera Concentrica'. Howie B is veteran producer mainly known as a purveyor of early trip hop, having produced cuts from Tricky's debut album, Björk's "Post" and "Homogenic" as well as other major like U2.
After inaugurating the 'Opera' sub-series of his Outis Music label with the sublime 'Omonimo' double LP this April, Dino Sabatini has invited some choice allies to help define the vocabulary and expand the vision of the new imprint. The aforementioned album, which wove together Sabatini's atmospheric conjuring skill with the piano flourishes of Antonello Salis, already exhibits the label's commitment to dismantling the 'either-or' logic of contemporary genres by successfully merging a variety of supposedly irreconcilable styles, talents, and worldviews (e.g. both mythological and the technological perspectives). The follow-up EP, 'Concentrica', draws on the material from 'Omonimo' and delivers it into the hands of additional remixers in order to continue the Outis Opera voyage.

he second time around: fred p aka fp-oner is back on mule musiq with another record that demonstrates the many cosmic qualities of his deeper shade of soul.
it is the second part of a trilogy that features his detailed sonic landscapes that are full of mystery and power. while his last fp-oner album 5' was leaning more to the jazzier, relaxed and atmospherically side of his artistically deep house expressions, the runner-up grinds even deeper into spherical worlds that enhance deep meditative highs.
they are not made for club use only. in fact all eleven compositions work also massively without big speakers. again the new york city native that is working on his very own music for almost 20 years produced a journey inwards that is compelling, mesmerising and enchanting.
you find cosmic dust in it as well as dark entropies, percussive power, sweet seducing melodies and rolling bass power that shakes your inner and outer profoundly. the tracks are listening to names like awakening co creator', alternate reality' or adjusted perception' and the album title 6' stands for a meaning,
that fp-oner describes like this: 6 represents the number of man and his or her limitations, weakness and imperfections.
this body of work examines and looks towards one awakening. adapting to a new way of being creating an alternative and reaping a higher state of mind and being. enhanced by love and serenity, satisfaction and joy.'
all tunes are produced around the world, as he is a guy who never stops feeling in sound. that is why he caries his studio around to get up in the middle of the night or right in the morning after a sweaty party to transfer his emotions directly into sound. the result is massively powerful music with slow, intimate passages for treacly melodies, stirring synth-lines and little rhythmical quaintness.
an almost lyrical house journey that works like a musical sculpture in which organic machine grooves float along keys on air. the evolution of the each track is impeccable and their power grows with any new listening session. fp-oner himself characterizes his art like that: 'my music is designed to enhance deep meditative, or altered states, to allow the listener to personally connect to the creator of all that exists in the universe.
my music style is to first create a foundation using cyclic, polyrhythmic music, then build several layers of improvised leads and rhythms that allows you to transcend time and space... we have memories of past lives that reverberate in our hearts like echoes from ancient caves'.
there is nothing more to add, except that those who do not know fp-oner so far should know that he danced in his younger years in legendary new york city clubs like the red zone, sound factory or tunnel to dj sets of larger-than-life selectors like david morales, frankie knuckles or danny tenaglia.
during those nights he learned that sometimes less is more. and that he should rather listen to your heart and soul, then to the susurrus of the music market. most of the eps and albums that he produced under his other monikers like fred p or black jazz consortium have been released via his very own label soul people music, which exists since more then ten years.
as fred p he also dropped 12inches on jus-ed's underground quality imprint as well as on toshiya kawasaki's mule musiq label. for the latter he now is working on a trilogy under the fp-oner alias. this little paper introduces the second part of it. the final one will hit your heart and soul in an unwritten future. whatever circumstances of life will be around by then: you can be sure that fp-oner will transfigure them into a dynamic emotional and spiritual terrain.

Powerdance is a collective formed by Luke Solomon and Nick Maurer formed as a reaction to bland soul less dance music that seems to infiltrating nightclubs the world over.
Luke and Nicks comradely stems back many many years to their association with the Classic Music Company - a label formed by Derrick Carter and Luke.
Nick Maurer was one half of the then prolific Greens Keepers.
This EP for Optimo Trax features the wigged epically funkoid gem "Mysterious Space Plane", who doesn't like songs about space On the other side is the modern hyper jacking "More Fire". Alongside these are a reprise of "Mysterious Space Plane" and a bonus beats of "More Fire" for those djs who like to / are able to get creative with their mixing.

James K is a stranger to obviousness. Over the past few years the New York native has quietly honed her sound and peculiar aesthetic. Equally organic and electronic, her sound is a combination of odd dreams, industrial beats and vocals, both incomprehensible and appealing, with a thick layer of glitter on top of it. James K is a concentrated dose of emotion mixed with sorrowful iciness, which in turn ties together ripped, broken, morphed and enchanted samples. James K stands for a fusion of visual and sonic elements, deeply rooted in conscious art practice and downright freak-out. James K creates a mythology of her own.
'PET,' her first LP due out in early 2016, will be a co-release with Dial and her own label, She Rocks! A special edition of the album with added bonus tracks and interludes with be released on cassette through Canadian label 1080p.
In James K's words: 'The underlying desire of 'PET' divides into two parts: an escape into ethereality and a mischievous denial of my own experience. It narrates my search for honest expression by means of the premature denial- a childish excursion into a world of monstrosity and innocence.
PET reflects my mental state during its production - as a person, I was owned, objectified and hurt by other, and that wound I then unwillingly internalized. I turned to my music as a way to dissect these thoughts. The product became my possession, or 'pet.' In retrospective, this process gives me strength over myself; love—knowledge and wisdom enacted. The arrangement of the music and the PET itself relates to my endless struggle, namely, my attempts to reclaim myself.'
Her 'Sokit' 7' is a double track single for her album, which she released last Spring. James K is featured on the recent compilation released by Dial Records for their 15-year anniversary, and a mini LP of her noise pop project SETH (along with producer Gobby), was also recently released by label 1080p in June, in cassette and digital form. She rocks.

We here at L A MISSION like to whip out our politics in public. We kinda get off on it. And so we're especially excited to slip you B EANER' s first solo outing on the label . From track titles to sound samples to magazine articles to packaging, this record / magazine / performance package highlights im/migration, the brown experience, and stripped identity. La Mission knows from brown. The collective is run by a crew of devastatingly handsome deviants whose racial identity is, well...it's complicated. We've lived our lives being neither white enough nor brown enough to fit neatly into racial categories. And so we took some time out from our usual exploits (like our MultiDirectional Playground Tire Swinging' orgies and Elected Candidate/Dead Pig/HungerGames slashfic) to focus on brownness. People started talking about cultural appropriation' when Miley Cyrus started twerking. We couldn't throw shade fast enough. But cooptation and exotification runs rampant in all genres of music-including dance music. We here at La Mission feel pretty fucking awkward about it. We've seen queerofcolor culture turned into whitedudebro business ventures. And as brown folks with stripped and fragmented identities, we're never sure of what culture is ours to use and abuse, anyway. Can we honor our own roots if they're messy and broken When we're inspired' by the music of other cultural groups, is that solidarity or stealing Nothing we have is whole. We can only work with the fragments we have at hand, well aware that there's unfinished business... BLACKMOUTH is the live version of the classic soul/disco sampling house tune. Take the work o f o t h e r s w h o c a m e b e f o r e y o u a n d t u r n i t i n t o a d a n c e a b l e j a m . G O T B L U E S u s e s t h e w o r k o f a b l i n d 1930s blues bongo player to form a weirdo repetitive rhythm tool: another example of using a forgotten artist for one's own gain.

Formed by MGM A&R man Michael Viner in 1972 to supplement the soundtrack to the virtually anonymous B-Movie flm The Thing With Two Heads, 'The IBB' went from a loose studio collectve to
an instrumental pop covers consortum, interpretng classics of the day in their own inimitable percus-sive fashion.
B-Movie soundtracks, The Beatles, drummers gone bad, Frank Zappa, Kool Herc... These albums have a remarkable story behind them which is detailed in the exclusive insert included in the boxset, writen by Angus Batey.
The IBB's cover of the 'Apache' track - originally made famous by The Shadows - has become simply legendary in the worlds of hip hop and dance music. The track was a staple of Kool Herc and Grand-master Flash in the 70s as they invented the art of Djing at Bronx block partes, leading to its logical status as one of the most sampled tracks of all tme and a hip hop and breakers anthem that has stood the test of tme. It is stll revered as THE break of all original breaks, with the rhythms of the LP it was frst found on helping to coin the term 'breakbeat'.
Apache has been sampled by Missy Elliot, Coldcut, Will Smith, Goldie, Jurassic 5, Moby, Run DMC, Sugarhill Gang, Beaste Boys and Massive Atack among many others.

Minimal Wave present an album of long lost tracks by Dutch electronic music pioneer Das Ding, entitled 'Missing Tapes'.

Danny Bosten formed Das Ding as a solo project in the early 1980s and released his music and friends' music via his own cassette label called Tear Apart Tapes. At the time, he was studying graphic design at art school, and in turn he ended up designing the artwork, cassette-sleeves and illustrations for the label himself. Meanwhile, he recorded his own music as Das Ding. Powerful dark electro, he made several addictive and danceable tracks which later become Minimal Wave hits. Danny made all his music in his bedroom which essentially turned into a small recording studio. He went on to release many of his own tapes and also played some live gigs.

Old tapes were uncovered around 2010, and Minimal Wave released a remastered version of 'H.S.T.A.' and select other tracks. A wave of renewed interest followed the record's release and soon people were in touch to propose live shows. Twenty years later, and after some deliberation, Das Ding was reincarnated under its old moniker but now with a revised line-up and a working set-up that reflected inevitable technological change.

Recently, Danny came across further tape archives from those early days. And from the batch, we selected our favorites to present to you in vinyl release form. 'Missing Tapes' is a limited edition LP pressed on 180 gram creamy yellow vinyl, and housed in a heavy weight printed glossy black and white sleeve featuring one of Danny's original illustrations from 1982.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks began to formulate their visionary brand of aural catharsis sometime during the first half of 1977, amidst the sordid ruins of a then fully down-and-out Lower Manhattan. The mastermind behind this juggernaut of sonic libertinage was a barely pubescent but world-weary runaway who called herself Lydia Lunch. Influenced strongly by the Marquis de Sade and Henry Miller, Lunch shrewdly decided to graft the existential horror of her own writing onto harsh, atonal music after being exposed to the room-clearing live output of other contemporary rock-music deconstructionists like Suicide and Mars. With an agenda of conjuring nightmarish intensity in lieu of technical instrumental ability, Teenage Jesus instantly made the supposedly nihilistic' and raw' current wave of so-called Punk acts sound like slick, good-timey pop music by comparison. Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, lisa, She Wolf of the SS, and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, transliterated into a blatant mockery of the increasingly tired, basic rock-band format. Posthumously, there have been numerous reissues of the primary Teenage Jesus corpus, namely the first side of the Lydia Lunch double compilation album Hysterie (CD Presents, 1986), a very incomplete anthology titled Everything (Atavistic, 1995) and Shut Up and Bleed (Cherry Red/Atavistic, 2008), which also featured Beirut Slump tracks. These less-than-fastidious documents contained reverb-laden transcriptions of the studio cuts directly from vinyl copies, as well as random live tracks of mediocre fidelity. This particular collection about to be released on Other-People is meticulously edited and mastered from rare bootlegs taped during the initial 1977-1979 period of classic band, and only one title (Crown of Thorns from January 17,1979) has been legitimately released to date, albeit in a completely different sound quality.

ARTS TRASPARENT shaped his form in many different ways into electronic music, giving clear directions to any other label out there, emotionally and technically. This time the label will focus on the first Dub Master Series, a collective of the best Dub Techno Artists we have around the globe.
Zaltan Solomon / Grad_U / IXM aka Kaelan / Hydergine. On 12" Transparent green, clear & black mixed.r

Gone with the flow - after a little break the German musicians Julius Steinhoff and Abdeslam Hammouda revived their musical adventures and left all electricity untouched this time. For their new acoustic project the duo has chosen the alias Tonight Will Be Fine - a name that is familiar to those who followed their work in the past years. As Steinhoff & Hammouda they used the name for their first 12" on Smallville Records, the worldwide acclaimed house and beyond label and record store that Steinhoff co-runs. Now they reheated the phrase and chose it as the alias for a bittersweet acoustic singer/songwriter project. Their wonderful, captivating new musical venture came into life due to happenstance and old ferventness. After their trips into house music the duo parted geographically. Hammouda moved away from Hamburg while Steinhoff strengthened his label Smallville, built up a global DJ career and produced acclaimed house records on diverse labels - solo" and with his buddy Dionne as Smallpeople. In all the time Steinhoff and Hammouda never stayed out of touch, bound together through deep friendship.

At some point they met again for musical missions and started to record music that had nothing in common with their prior work. Steinhoff re-activated his self-taught guitar abilities and entered the studio of his friend Lawrence in the back of the Smallville record store to capture some steeldrums and vibraphone sounds. Hammouda brought more instruments like a banjo, a violine and tablas and they just started to record sketches and songs. Hammouda's musical backround leads to a widespread range of influences while growing up, before he got into producing hip hop and electronic music. For Steinhoff, the transformation from an electronic music producer into a singer/songwriter wasn't that new too, as his first musical steps have been routed in band music. Until his late teenage years, when he discovered house and techno, he played drums in a local indie group in Freiburg and for Tonight Will Be Fine he now also freed his old drum kit from cellar dust.

After the duo felt that their musical communication elevates into something more profound then a session thing, they provided themselves with additional instruments like new guitars, claves, an accordion, a piano and more. Initially the songs were very rough and sketchy. Musical ideas that did not have a real song structure. Then we started to arrange the tracks and added our voices and lyrics.' both reveal. Their charming singing covers almost the whole album with a characteristic sense of deep winking melancholy. Their lyrics are exercising the possibilities of words and are inspired by life, the world and all the those questions a human can ask in his time on earth. At some point both started to show their new songs to some friends and they liked it and encouraged the duo to move on. Somehow one of the tracks landed in Toshiya Kawasaki's mailbox. He instantly fell in love with it and asked if they would like to do an album for Mule Musiq. They did what was asked and after some reformatting and reinventing Tonight Will Be Fine originated 13 songs full of sweeping acoustic guitars, airy rhythms, piano melodies, gloomy accordion emotions, touching voices and a bunch of other exotic instruments, done without the help of electronics. They all form Elephant Island' - an incredibly inspirational place where impressionistic lyrics dance gently with kinetic acoustic music that comes out of plain jamming fun. The melange of a structured song base and free improvisation injects all songs a loose feeling. And shows two handsome fellas carving out their own musical utopia. It is a warming one, full of hope and musical freedom powered by an unabashed instrumental playfulness.
nstrumental playfulness.





É a5 | soliloquy

2015 brought the trilogy of the dancer to Ressort. Now the labels core artists each remix their tracks in circles.
While all of them aim for the dancefloor, Ressorts core artists could not sound more diverse. Ekserd and Border One aim for the raw, the groovy and the pure while Array Access and Glos lose themselves more and more in sound design and dreaminess. Since the many aspects of art and music form a cycle of ying and yang, each artist
shows the other an interpretation of what he might have missed before.
Be it a complete stomper or a light absorbing epos, a deep and groovy House and Techno hybrid or a journey into the depths of space Every artist made one of the well known tracks released on previous EP's his own. It s a very colourful package that bares every moment the label tried to cover in it's series before.

Comet is pleased to announce the third volume of the Afrobeat Makers Series: Nu Guinea - The Tony Allen Experiments.By re-working the original magic drum patterns from the Afrobeat master Tony Allen, Nu Guinea created a compilation of tracks which is charged by a voluminous electronic jazz-Psyche funk imprint.For this release, Comet Records teamed up with Early Sounds Recordings, the berlin label, also home to duo Berliners Nu Guinea.The Naples formed, Berlin-based duo, is a project that arose out of jam sessions, melting synthesizers with instruments, containing a handmade sound that is not aiming for perfection but genuineness. It can be understood as a steadily shaping form, always open for collaborations with other musicians.
They've previously collaborated with singer Wayne Snow (fellow berliner artist on Comet) for the vocal edit of Nu-World, also delivered a remix for Wayne Snow' Rosie Ep' both recently released on Tartelet Records.Nu Guinea - The Tony Allen Experiments LP due to be out on February 9th 2016, as vinyl LP.

Beautifully Designed 1LP, 180g Vinyl Press kit: Following his Extended Play EP on Other People last year, Jream House is the turbulent and spiritual debut LP of Mark Hurst aka A Pleasure. Blending mathematical composition with an unrestrained studio experimentalism, the sound of A Pleasure charts a space where formative influences confront the most immediate performative impulse. Using a process of numerical transposition, the names of personally significant bands and composers are converted into drum patterns. He then lets loose, improvising around these structures with a variety of traditional and unorthodox instruments: bass and guitar, bowed cymbals, drum machines juggled like turntables, blowtorch on aluminium, to name but a few. With his influences as start-points, he builds rhythmic structures literally in their namesake, blasting their hulls with walls of noise, monolithic basslines and any other jam-yielded shrapnel. Despite the chaos and complexity of the process, the results sound neither clinical, nor garbled. The tracks always find their way to an emotive melody or strong groove. Lush guitar strums and yearning keys ride the high-speed beat of Slow Channel", which seems to soar through cloud-cover as one snaking mass. The Order of Things' folds a cosmic guitar-part into a backdrop of heavily side-chained noise. Arthur Russell' features a neck-snapping rim-shot and crushed snare that splash up the bits of an elegiac vocal part. Through violent and idyllic atmospheres, Jream House jettisons its inspirations like landing shuttles, always in search of new ground. These are songs, not just experiments.

A collection of nine reworks crafted by fans and selected by Nils himself form the 'Screws Reworked' re-issue, also featuring his original 'Screws'. The 2012 album 'Screws' by Nils Frahm, was the result of inspiration from his fans and friends while he recovered from an unfortunate accident, which saw him fall from his bunk bed located directly above his studio, which resulted in a broken thumb.

These nine intimate recordings were offered to fans to download for free and in return fans thanked Nils by sending him their audio and visual reinterpretations. Fascinated by the results, Nils then publicly asked his fans to submit their reworks or any form of art that was inspired by the release and all these submissions have been collected since on a dedicated website: It gave birth to the 'Screws Reworked' project from which Nils selected nine reworks to feature on a special edition re-issue which also includes his original 'Screws'.

'Whenever you have to decide between two things, you end up favouring one over the other. In the case of this record, I had to choose nine out of hundreds of songs - but I didn't want to follow this logic, I didn't want the songs to compete against each other. I never liked music competitions, neither when I was a kid playing classical music contests nor today when the best album of 2015 is awarded.

Having been in the situation to pick my own tracks for my own records, I knew that the only way to manage this tough job is to concentrate on the cohesiveness of listening to the songs all together. Screws Reworked should sound like a record, not like a random collection of tracks.

The motivation to make such a record came with the release of Screws in 2012 as a gift to my listeners. I thought about it as a starting point for people to make their own interpretations of the songs. The feedback was overwhelming. A couple of months later, we counted over 300 contributions. Without going through a selection process, they were all available only online until now.

It seemed essential to make it a real record as I imagined how happy it must make those who would find their names - in most cases for the first time - on a real record.

Now is the time to thank you all for your numerous and beautiful contributions. In case you don't find your track here, please don't think it stands behind the others. This record means, in fact, that some of the most beautiful songs couldn't be included as they simply weren't 'good neighbours' and because there is only one rework for each of my original compositions.

However all of you opened your hearts and minds and shared your uniqueness with us and I feel incredibly blessed by each and every single rework of Screws. Thank you!' - Nils Frahm.

As the first output of our new label we present you RTGD001: the Won't Cry' EP by Matteo Luis & Lo, both part of the fam & currently finishing the last touches of their upcoming debut album. The young cologne natives offer a warming and moony/dreamy/atmospheric work from their archives to start the labels catalogue as smooth as possible. Alongside Matteo's deeply driven signature sound, Lo's lyrics will lead you into a dreamy state with blue pills in backstreets and babies and pigs in the sky. The original was reworked trice by amongst others, friends of the emerging label as well as long time role models of the label heads Marlon Hofffstadt and Goldberg. The former delivers a drifty and impulsive close to the floor interpretation of Won't Cry, whilst buddy Johnjons remix gleams through percussive sequence sounds and a further deep touch. Besides these two auspicious interpretations, no other than Running Back boss Gerd Janson and fellow Philipp Lauer are highlighting their perspective on the title track in appearance of their renowned and outstanding supergroup Tuff City Kids. The duos' outcome is an ingeniously constructed rework of Matteo Luis and Lo's original that never fails to raise euphoria throughout the whole track. Each copy is fully printed with an artwork of Berlin based surrealist Hermann Reimer.

Two raw extended trips from the mind of STL in a rare foray beyond his self-run Something imprint. Stephan Laubner applies his usual auteur principles to these groove experiments, whose sounds circle round each other cagily, rough meeting smooth, organic meeting synthetic, all combining in a propulsive form that's classic STL. Shifty hats on 'Crank Notion' provide an insistent shuffle through which nauseous pads plot a dissonant course. 'Neat Buzzl' is a grimier excursion in the undergrowth, little creatures scurrying left and right while the kick maintains its forward stomp. Join STL and Assemble Music in these off-map excursions and see where you emerge.

Alex from Tokyo presents new label world famous debut release from Tokyo Black Star - Edo Express EP out in October, 2015


Paris-born, Tokyo-raised, New York-based international eclectic French DJ, music producer and sound designer Alex from Tokyo is very excited to announce the October 2015 launch of his record label 'world famous" with a new Tokyo Black Star EP (the first release in three years)!


The four different straight up house music club tracks here on the "Edo Express EP" showcase Alex from Tokyo's versatile and funky DJ style and come from a very special fun jam session that took place in January 2015 at Isao's Tokyo Black Star and phonon studio with the help of their great musician/analog equipment otaku friend Kenichi Takagi leading to Kenichi san officially becoming the third Tokyo Black Star member, bringing along some of his favorite old, new and handmade (modular) synths into the mix.


The stunning artwork for the release is done by long-time collaborator the very talented New York based Japanese artist Tomokazu Matsuyama, who has been creating the Tokyo Black Star visual identity since their first release on Innversions in 2005.


Working in harmony with music partner and sound/mastering engineer Isao Kumano in Tokyo, Alex from Tokyo formed Tokyo Black Star in 2000 while remixing Big Moses feat. Jan'elle's house classic "For you" for Kerri Chandler's label Bassmental records. Since then Tokyo Black Star has released five EPs including the first-ever release on high-profile Berlin label Innversions (the "Psyche Dance EP," 2005) and their full length debut album 'Black Ships' (April 2009, also on Innervisions), an EP on DJ Deep's Deeply Rooted House label and remixes for artists like Tony Allen (P-Vine records Japan, 1999), Carl Craig (Psyche 'Neurotic Behavior' on Planet E, 2011), Phenomenal Handclap Band (Tummy Touch Records, 2013), Bing Ji Ling (Lovemonk), and Kuniyuki (mule music), and among others.


Always looking for new challenges and sonic adventures, in the summer of 2010 the Tokyo Black Star duo were joined by top Japanese audio professionals at Isao's studio in Tokyo, leading to the creation of a new 'revolutionary' audio brand called phonon , which makes exceptional pro-audio equipment for studio and DJ use.


Tokyo Black Star's last release, in 2013, was a special musical contribution called "X" for a unique celebratory 10th anniversary compilation for Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas fashion brand Y-3. Alex from Tokyo co-directed the exclusive compilation


world famous will be presenting a wide range of dance floor and eclectic music by Tokyo Black Star, Alex from Tokyo's collaborative projects with other artists and his affiliated japanese and international connections! Mastering for all releases will be done by Isao Kumano.

Drew McDowall's back story reads like a primer of psychedelic fiction woven into statements of the unbelievable, superhuman and outright insane. Somewhere in the chaotic madness, comes an artist such as McDowall with total control and absolute calm within his songs and artistic method.

Growing up in the gangs of 1970's Scotland, Drew McDowall started to shy away from the daily violence once punk took hold of the counterculture youth. Drew McDowall quickly scrambled to form his own punk band in 1978 with his then wife, Rose McDowall, called The Poems. Shortly lived, the Poems released a single and various tracks but more importantly, the band allowed McDowall to network with other local musicians in Glasgow, such as Orange Juice, and allowed him to travel down to London thus forming friendships with Genesis P-Orridge, David Tibet and countless others, bringing Drew into the fold of the experimental revolution happening in the UK brought upon by Throbbing Gristle and executed by bands such as Psychic TV and Current 93.

During the 1980's, McDowall found himself in the ranks of P-Orridge's Psychic TV and collaborating with the mysterious duo comprised of former Throbbing Gristle creator Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson and the enigmatic John Balance who had been creating esoteric and progressive electronic music under the title of Coil. It was during his formative collaborations with Coil that McDowall saw himself shift from occasional contributor to austere full-time member of the arcane outfit. McDowall's impact on the band's sound was apparent as the releases transformed from their previous avant pop signature to a more complex and methodic electronic imprint accompanied by even more abstruse subject matter than previous years. McDowall would continue honing his compositional skills with Coil until the release of the band's two most broad-minded albums, Astral Disaster and Musick to Play in the Dark.

The past decade, Drew McDowall found himself living in New York City and re-appropriating himself within the local music scenes he found himself contributing to. In 2011, alongside his friend and collaborator, Tres Warren (Psychic Ills), McDowall found himself exploring his passion of meditative drone and abstract sound patterns in their project Compound Eye. In recent times, McDowall's production work has provided the music world with some of the most outstanding remixes for bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Azar Swan and Long Distance Poison as well as his well-received scores he composed alongside artist Tamaryn for the works of Bret Easton Ellis. Outside of his collaborative duties, McDowall formed an audience as a solo artist, playing countless performances and showcases around New York's electronic music haunts.

Dais Records approached Drew to solidify his standing as a leading electronic musician with the recording of new material neatly wrapped up in his debut album entitled 'Collapse'. Recorded in 2015 in Brooklyn, NY, McDowall's synonymous modular synthesizer compositions are augmented by obtuse sampling cut-ups and contributions from Nicky Mao (Hiro Kone / Effi Briest) rounding out the lumbering sequential knot work that has become synonymous with McDowall and craft.

Over the past few decades, there has been a seismic shift in Brazil's musical landscape. A plethora of varying musical undergrounds has developed across the nation. While Rio and São Paulo have been overwhelmed with networks of talented musicians for a long time, creative life is now bursting all over the country. Amplificador exists to document and propagate the wonderfully diverse music currently blossoming from Brazil's vivacious and geographically varied musical undergrounds. Presenting an up-to date insight into Brazilian music, this compilation draws together some of the components of 'Novíssima Música Brasileira' (brand new Brazilian music), ranging from afro-grooves to rock, to modern samba and MPB. The music reaches back across Brazil's incredibly rich musical and cultural traditions, while also taking in influence from other movements around the globe.



Having begun life in 2012 as a Brazilian music blog run by Marcelo Monteiro, Eduardo Rodrigues, Mateus Campos, and Ricardo Calazans, the aim of Amplificador is to document and propel to wider audiences, Brazilian music of the '00s and '10s generation. This is a task made more significant by obvious changes in the way music is consumed. 'People are no longer obliged to listen to what the radio and TV are presenting. There is a whole new generation that wants to listen to new bands and new sounds and we try to connect those bands with other bands, producers, fans and even the mainstream.' These changes in technology and the way music is discovered and shared have developed parallel to the proliferation of these emerging scenes. The ostensible decentralization of the music industry means the promoting and filtering work of journalists and blogs, like Amplificador, have become increasingly important, as people try to keep up with the tsunami of new music and media flooding the country on a daily basis.



Marcelo uses the example of the Mangue Beat movement to explain a trend in contemporary Brazilian music that looks both inwards, to Brazil's own musical traditions and outwards, to movements around the world to create a novel, localised identity: 'The 90's Pernambuco art-social movement was inspired by Coco, Maracatu and Forró all mixed with modern riffs and grooves. The mythical

revolutionary Chico Science, his Nação Zumbi, Mundo Livre, Siba, and many others do this blend perfectly. There are also the references to the older generations and masters - Gil, Caetano, Luiz Gonzaga, João Gilberto, Tim Maia, Jorge Benjor - as a constant inspiration for all bands.' This is very much the case for the Brazilian artists of today.



Music is unquestionably informed by place. Brazil has always been famed for its regional differences in this sense. Indeed there are still pronounced variations between the scenes of Rio, Sao Paulo, Natal, Goiânia, Belo Horizonte and Belém for example, there are also great divergences within cities and while technology has brought changes to the way musical influences are shared, there are cultural differences, rooted in folkloric traditions, that aren't going away. Expressing his appreciation for this fact, while highlighting the potential of Brazil's spread of musical flavours, Marcelo explains that 'what we have now is new ingredients to make an even better mixture.'

This compilation heavily features music from a scene in Brazil's current musical make-up, which draws inspiration from African music, particularly Afro-beat music. Abayomy Afrobeat Orchestra from Rio formed because of their shared love of the music of Fela Kuti, uniting initially in 2009 for a jam session in his honour. But what sets Abayomy apart from other groups of a similar nature, is the fact that their sound also brings with it the songs and rhythms of candomblé. In this sense, Abayomy was the first band of its kind. The thirteen members of the orchestra have a palpable current of Rio's musical heritage - its rhythms and culture - running through them. So while their sound is distinctly African, it is also inherently Brazilian. Similarly, Zebrabeat Afro-Amazônia Orquestra draw upon traditional guitarradas and carimbos from the state of Pará and fuse these with the poly-rhythms of Afrobeat to create another regional hybrid, which stays true to both its Amazonian and African roots, yet which results in a very fresh, Brazilian sound. From Belo Horizonte (capital of Minas Gerais), Iconilli are another key band on Brazil's Afro-groove scene. With influences as varied as funk, jazz and psychedelic rock, congado, mining harmonies, maracatu, coco, ijexá, carimbó, Iconilli somehow manage to balance all of these sounds in such a way that makes it impossible to pin them down. From the Northeastern city of Joao Pessao, Parayba, Burro Morto's pshychadelic afro sound leans more towards rock and funk influences, with hint of regional Brazilian rhythms such as frevo and forro. They add another flavour to the Brazilian afro-groove scene: just one of the many exciting facets of Novíssima Música Brasileira.



While African-inspired music features heavily on the compilation, it is just one of the many styles within. Ive Seixas has a fresh approach to MPB, based on traditional rhythms and instrumentation, punctuated by a pop sensibility, coupled with a powerful female vocal. As an artist she is a product of a 'Do It Yourself' outlook to creativity, taken from her love of rock growing up. In 2013 she embarked on a project of street performance: wandering, like a lonely troubadour with just her guitar. Ive and her project began to gain notoriety and shortly after, her first EP was recorded, featuring some important names of South Rio's underground scene. 'Cervejas Populares' taken from the EP, is a beautiful, sombre piece of modern Brazilian pop, with a traditional samba rhythm. Another artist of the new MPB scene is Fabricio, from the city of Vitoria, who's 'Feito Tamborim' melds rock and funk and is also clearly reminiscent of the old Brazilian masters. It's an appreciation for the national musical heritage, alongside a keen ear for melody and an acceptance of foreign influences that results in these promising new sounds of Brazilian MPB.

Sao Paulo's super group of the underground 'Passo Torto' have been at the helm of an emerging scene in the city: an innovative approach to samba which draws in and experiments with afro grooves, jazz melodies and rock structures. Their sound is naturally very Brazilian, but the nylon twang of Faira Lima Pra Ca, interspersed with ominous strings and light rolling percussion, seems reminiscent of Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits, as the band lament their frustrations with their native city through their music.



The Future of Novíssima Música Brasileira looks very bright. The main challenge (and purpose of this album) is to get the music beyond Brazil's underground and into view of international audiences. In the last 10 years this goal has become somewhat more attainable, as the Brazilian government has begun to see the internationalisation of the nation's culture as a strategic objective, with public projects gaining increased investment and backing. The continuing project of Amplificador is to reinforce this international bridge by writing, filtering and promoting the scene as a whole. There is a wealth of great music currently blooming in Brazil and using new media tools, Marcelo and the team, alongside many others, will passionately continue to get the voices of Brazil's underground heard.

Let's focus on Ricardo Tobar: Born in Chile and now residing in France, Tobar picked the "creative border crossing" as the common thread for his album "Collection". Musical experimentation and crossing musical borders - Tobar refers here directly to the style and sound of the great new-wave-bands of the 80s and 90s. With the help and influence of their new electronic instruments (that often met classic rock guitars) the post-punk-electronic-movement turned almost everything upside down. No matter if the result was moody and mysterious or romantic and hedonistic, all sounded new and different back then and paved the musical path for a whole generation - the reverberations of that episode are noticeable until today.
Tobar plays with the musical approach of the post-punk-era, he mixes, merges and experiments fearless with styles and moods. He creates a wide range of "own styles" and even dives into abstract sound fields - listening electronic in best form! Ricardo Tobar breathes the air of his own musical universe and is not refering to the typical styles of this genre - you won't find any Detroit, Berlin or Sheffield reference here. Although produced in France, Tobar's album doesn't have anything of the sweet and lovely french listening touch. It also won't beam you into the north of England and the grey and cold Sheffield winter like so many other electronic albums try to do.
"Collection" contains full compositions, sound collages, experimental sounds and even proper beat based tunes. Tobar rather creates than produces and is presenting a bigger picture with his collection. Many electronic music artists are trying to do this however Tobar delivers a collection with an impressive range and it seems he did all this in an almost nonchalant way. He plays and combines his instruments and sounds at the same time very sensitive and harmonic but also brave and dissonant without risking to be inaudible at any point. He creates atmospheres by using electronic sounds and layers. Listening to the sound of "collection" almost appears like reading an acoustic book. This album is full of interesting sounds and ideas and is far from being boring or even too demanding.

Speedy Ortiz is proud to announce their sophomore album, Foil Deer, which will be released via Carpark Records on April 20th.

'Major Arcana' released in 2013 won them glowing reviews , features and several UK tours (highlights below):

- 4 PAGE NME FEATURE

- 9/10 LEAD REVIEW IN NME: 'One of the reasons 'Major Arcana' works so well is because it's addictive and fun. The guitars and bass sound incredible, like the last Deerhunter album without the Yankee Doodle Dandy'

8/10 Drowned In Sound : ' Speedy Ortiz are way too euphoric and glorious to suffer for their artfulness. Stripping away the frills, at heart Major Arcana is a mournful treasure that asks to be celebrated.'

*NME RADAR FEATURE: 'What's miraculous, though, is that Major Arcana doesn't sound at all self-pitying; it's torrid Slint-meets-Pavement rattle bolsters Sadie's relished words so that yelling along is an exercise in gleefully exorcising your own demons'

8.4 ON PITCHFORK: : 'There's the squalling, guitar-on-guitar carnage of Archers of Loaf, the grungy mysticism of Helium (Dupuis lifted the title Major Arcana from a book she was reading on black magic), and of course the deadpan wit of vintage Liz Phair ('I was never the witch that you made me to be,' Dupuis tells a burnt-out old flame on 'Plough', 'Still you picked a virgin over me').

Standard LP is gatefold, single black LP with chapbook, plus digital download card.
Deluxe LP Is as above but with metallic gold coloured vinyl, and sticker.(200 ONLY FOR UK)
CD comes in digipak with a folded poster approximating the chapbook in the LP.

Speedy Ortiz said they would get the flowers themselves. What a lark! What a plunge!

When considering Massachusetts' Speedy Ortiz, that line from Virginia Woolf comes to mind. Not only for the obvious echoes to DIY, a form and function that's characterized the band's nascency, but in the proto-feminist undertones driving much of their sophomore album, Foil Deer. "I'm not bossy, I'm the boss," Sadie Dupuis sings on "Raising the Skate," invoking in spirit one half of the Carter-Knowles clan and echoing the other's wordplay. And wordplay makes sense, considering Dupuis-the band's songwriter, guitarist, and frontwoman-spent the band's first few years teaching writing at UMass Amherst. She's drawn to the dense complexity of Pynchon, the dreamlike geometry of Bolaño, the confounded yearning of Plath-all attributes you could easily apply to the band's 2013 debut Major Arcana, which fans and press alike have invested with a sense of purpose and merit uncommon in contemporary guitar rock.

The group, including Mike Falcone on drums, Darl Ferm on bass, and new addition Devin McKnight of Grass is Green on guitar, have spent the last year on an almost endless cross-continental touring jag, tagging along with the likes of The Breeders, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, and Thurston Moore. That shift into full-time musicianship brought with it an attendant reordering of priorities when it came to songwriting, and the band members' lives in general. They would get the damn flowers themselves.

Dupuis wrote much of Foil Deer at her mother's home in the Connecticut woods, where the songwriter imposed a self-regulated exile and physical cleansing of sorts, finding that many of the songs came to her while running or swimming alone. "I gave up wasting mental energy on people who didn't have my back," she says. "Listening to our old records, I get the sense I was putting myself in horrible situations just to write sad songs. This music isn't coming from a dark place, and without slipping into self-empowerment jargon, it feels stronger." Many of the songs deal with a similar sense of starting over, editing out the unnecessary drama. "Boys be sensitive and girls be, be aggressive," she sings on "Mister Difficult."

And while their debut album was recorded on the fly, Speedy Ortiz spent almost a month in the studio on Foil Deer. Falcone's drums are taut, mechanistic; Ferm's bass ranges from the aggressive rattle of an AmRep classic to smoother, hip-hop inspired lines. McKnight, meanwhile, lends spacier, textural riffs to complement Dupuis' wiry, melody-driven guitar style. "The demos for our songs have always had tons of small details and production experimentation, but we never had any money to pay for more than a couple days in the studio, so the songs came out very live-sounding and guitar heavy," Dupuis says. It was recorded and mixed at Brooklyn's Rare Book Room with Nicolas Vernhes (Silver Jews, Enon, Deerhunter), with the record mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, Haim, Beauty Pill), lending a more polished sound and a pop sensibility that will stand out to existing fans and new converts alike. For all the lyrical complexity and guitar-based excursions Speedy Ortiz have built their reputation on to this point, Foil Deer has a sense of light-footed fun. What's the point of doing things yourself if you're not going to enjoy the trip

Standard LP is gatefold, single black LP with chapbook, plus digital download card.
CD comes in digipak with a folded poster approximating the chapbook in the LP.

hile it may seem as though it's been a quiet year in the studio for Brooklyn-based DJ/Producer Greg Schappert (aka Donor), his first full-length album entitled Against All on Chicago-based Prosthetic Pressings, will prove otherwise.

This 10-track release is a tour de force of formidable intensity and suspense and Donor wastes no time creating an ethereal realm right from the start. By taking a deep dive into a dystopian world full of distant transmission like voices, expressed through field recordings taken in and around New York City, Donor successfully paints a picture of what could be his unsettling vision of the future. While it may be difficult to explain how this album progresses throughout, there is something below the surface tying everything together, leaving us with a feeling of despair in that the world does not end how it is likely to be perceived through this beautiful or haunting, yet sophisticated, soundtrack. Alien invasions, civil war, post apocalyptic mayhem, call it what you will, Donor sets the stage for an unsettling vision of the not so distant future that can be heard in his thought provoking debut LP.

Donor's time spent overseas living in countries like Spain and Japan, his love for Birmingham Industrial Techno and early Dutch and Detroit Electro, combined with his upbringing on John Carpenter films, have all contributed to Donor creating his unique, yet recognizable sound.
Feedback:
Audio Injection / Droid Recordings
Yeah my boy Greg getting down! Great album!!
Leonard Posso / Thema
Hands down one of the best bodies of work to date from Greg aka Donor! SOLID PACKAGE! Many of these will get played throughout the night! Big Ups Donor and PP!
Vidal / Droid Recordings
nice sounds
Ergin Karabulut / FAZE Magazin
ok
DJ Nori / Posivision
cool dark essence.
Paul Clarke / Dj Mag
Not exactly heartwarming but lots of good stuff if you like it bleak.....
Mark EG / Core Magazine, Tilllate Magazine
IP Test
Nerk / V-Records / De:Bug
dark & minimal (in a good way)
Exberliner
!
Frank Hilpert / Freshguide (5x Regional A5 Mag) , Freshguide BLN, Freshguide MDL, erwischt.org/
Big - Review to follow.
Berlin Mitte Institut / Berlin Mitte Institut
More IDM than techno. Some interesting tracks on this album.
David Marcia / Phuturelabs, Phuturelabs
Good stuff. Considering for review and radio play.
Bleed / De:Bug
considering for review
Benoît Carretier / Tsugi
solid one tx
Pawel Gzyl / Nowamuzyk
killer1
Laurent Diouf / MCD magazine / WTM radio show
another wtm's playlist is coming soon...;)
Alland Byallo / Nightlight Music, Bad Animal, Pokerflat
Fantastic album. Deep, dark, nasty. Pure mood (and some seriously heavy BOOM).
Solomun
Hello, i am downloading and pre checking all promos for Solomun. I will give you a personal feedback if he plays and supports this release. Thanks a lot and have a great day.
Solenoid / Graphene / Belief System
wikked album of deep ritualistic techno ...
Electric Indigo
cool tracks here. station a14, ip test and own exile are my favorites after first listen. thank you!
Corin Arnold / BLN FM
sounding good, support!
RADIO CAMPUS BESANCON / THE VINYL GUERILLA
not really for me ... DJ Gaogao
Riyaz Khan / Diversions on chry105.5fm
like the shifting tensions and brooding atmospheres throughout!
Fabian Birke / WOMR College Radio / BLN.FM
For radio play, thanks
Andrew Grant (Circo Loco)
Own Excile is very good
Slam / Soma Records
cool album thanx
Sebastian Roya (Connaisseur)
Bomb! nice job!
Matthias Springer / Diametral / Chillkyway
great release, brainsqueezing!
DJ Hyperactive
good tune on here man
Patrick Bateman (Tic Tac Toe / Connect Four)
Hands On, Calling, Menace Is Mine & In Your Place are the ones for me. As always full quality from Donor!
Jonas Kopp / Curle, Deeply Rooted House
Will check properly , thanks.
HalfStereo
Dark moods is what i like...
Angel Molina ( Sonar / Tresor )
LOVE this dark & hypnotic release. Tracks like 'Menace Is Mine', 'Station A14', 'Counter' or 'Fault Is Found' are absolutely fantastic. thanks!!!
Scuba (Hotflush)
thanks. downloading for scuba!
Bryan Zentz / Minus / Thoughtless / Portlandia
I am miserably late on this—but really like it on quick listen. In Your Place and Us For Them are awesome. Looking forward to listening all the way through. Thanks!
Pär Grindvik / Little White Earbuds
thanks
Dr Hoffmann / Blind Spot
Great release, digging most of the tunes. thanks
Philip Downey / Swoon / pastlessonfuturetheories blog
Like Calling, IP Test, Us for Thenm, Fault, could try some on radio.
Tim Thaler / Bln.fm
downloading
Lukasz (Nermal) Napora / Audioriver Festival, Radio 4 Poland
great stuff. eager to listen to it from wavs
Vito Camaretta / Chain D.L.K
Interesting sonorities
Noah Pred / Thoughtless Music
Stark business worthy of a deeper listen.
2000 And One (100% Pure, Intacto) / 100% Pure
Oh yes perfect intermezzo stuff :)
Alexi Delano / AD ltd, Plus 8
Will have a proper listen.
Echologist (Steadfast) / Third Ear, Echocord
really liking this. fresh beats and trippy hypnotic vibes. look forward to spending time with this.
john1 / Bedrock
downloading
James Zabiela / Renaissance
In Your Place is nice in a bleak way.
Marcel Dettmann / MDR, Ostgut Ton
thx
Richie Hawtin / Minus, Richie Hawtin
downloaded for r hawtin
The Advent / Tresor
fantastic.. pure techno here.. Donor - Station A14 Donor - IP Test
Andrew Weatherhall / Rotters Golf Club
Downloading obo Andrew Weatherall
Noice Podcast Series
very nice Techno...
Samuli Kemppi / Prologue
Great album. Donor in top shape. Full support!
Lee Holman
Good album of deep dark sounds. Especially like Station A14. Thank you!
Benna Schneider / Harry Klein
some nice tunes here ,that I´ll play out surely
Douglas Fugazi / Medellinstyle
Yeah! Sounds really good. Thanks!
Plastic Lounge @ Freies Radio Freudenstadt
good tecno,playing
Kyle Geiger / Drumcode
Really like Space Station!
Paul Ritch
thx a lot for the promo
Dave Angel / Apollo, Rotation Records, Polydor/Love, OuterRythum, React Records, Island
Thanks! Will let you know if supporting.
Luciano Esse / Safari Electronique, Out-Er, Leftroom, Material Series
Great sounds, but I couldn't use them in set! Thanks anyway!
Arnaud Le Texier / Affin, Bass Culture, Cocoon, Children Of Tomorrow, Syncrophone.
Some inspiring tracks on this album! Thx
Henning Lösch / Radio Dreyeckland Freiburg
last exit Brooklyn...:-)
Roko (Sub.fm/B.O.M.B.)
OH shit this is good!!
Sigha / Immerse / Hotflush / Avian
loving this, many thanks
Jerzy Przezdziecki / Recognition Records, Boshke Beats Records
raw and mental. i like.
Alex Tolstey / Triangle Eyes/Boshke Beats Records
ho ho! review to follow
Alan Fitzpatrick
epic! love this.!

LP version comes with free download card.

Radio support from Benji B & B Traits (BBC Radio 1), Nemone (BBC 6 Music), . DJ support from Ben UFO, Joy Orbison, Caribou, Tessela, Mosca, Kowton, Ron Morelli, Bok Bok

Print features confirmed in Groove, Beat Mag, Faze (DE), Tsugi (FR), DJ Mag (IT), Volkskrant (NL), The Gap (Austria)

Print reviews confirmed in Mixmag, The Wire, Crack, DJ Mag, Uncut (UK), Blow Up, Rumore, Rockerilla (IT), Irish Times (IE), Musikexpress, Doppelpunkt, Westzeit (DE), Exclaim (CA)

Online features / premieres: The Fader, NPR, XLR8r (USA), The Quietus, Dummy (UK), Wasabeat (JP),

Hessle Audio are excited to announce the release of the self-titled debut album by Pearson Sound, aka label co-head David Kennedy. Characteristically minimalist in approach, its nine tracks use a handful of elements to craft mesmerising, self-contained worlds, alive with motion and near-subliminal detail: from vast and inky landscapes, to electrifying rhythm tracks, where layers of percussion and bass tumble over one another like rocks in a landslide. Recorded between 2013-4, Pearson Sound documents a distinct phase of Kennedy's studio explorations. "I had a signal chain set up that I was really happy with, and I started sending my machines through the same processes" he says. Expanding upon the techniques underpinning his recent REM and Starburst 12"s, its tracks emerged swiftly through improvised jam sessions, some were captured in a minimum of takes, while others later took shape through extensive sculpting and post-processing. "A lot of it was made by feeding the the same sounds between two different pieces of equipment and they'd end up feeding back between each other and snowballing. On some tracks it's about harnessing that and taking it to the brink before it disintegrates, and some of them are about just letting it go full-blown out of control." The result is a record of striking contrasts: bold, stark and visceral, yet also subtle, harmonically complex and deceptively playful. While Pearson Sound's livewire percussive energy remains inextricably rooted in the club, this exploratory studio process has created Kennedy's most wide-ranging yet coherent body of work to date: a suite of thrillingly impulsive, expressive and open-ended music, untethered from restrictions of form.

The most interesting, advanced electronic musicians create unique, hermetic soundworlds that seem to emanate from unknown realms. See/hear Aphex Twin, Autechre, Farmers Manual, Iannis Xenakis, and Bernard Parmegiani, among a handful of others. If Chloe Harris isn't quite in that echelon yet, she is quickly approaching it with Dose.(This album was originally issued on very ltd.-ed. cassette in 2012 and is now getting a vinyl release, mainly due to the urging of Italian techno magus Donato Dozzy.) A former globetrotting DJ, Harris has shelved that lifestyle and aesthetic for a more stable family life in the Seattle area and a more cerebral approach in the studio. With this collection of exploratory compositions, she decided to experiment with an array of synthesizers, mainly the Waldorf Q. Working on the eight tracks here in her home setup, Harris would 'layer as much as I could or sometimes there was no layering at all. I tried to let the machines talk. I was trying to find my own voice. It was sad and melancholy because I stopped DJing and decided to try something new in my career.' This change had financial and creative risks, but Harris has transitioned boldly into this more adventurous musical mode.

! Irreal, the fth long player from Chicago's Disappears, is another trip down the rabbit hole. The album plays out as a dream sequence - hazed dub landscapes give way to the group's most experimental and open music yet.



If their last album Era conrmed the fact that Disappears are on their own trip, then Irreal is where it kicks in. Eternalism, roboethics, identity - it's a Ballardian mix of imperfect melodies, half thoughts and good ol' dystopian modernity. It's a master class in texture, pace and control.



Produced by John Congleton at famed Chicago recording institution Electrical Audio, Irreal sits in the negative space where art rock and post punk collapse onto each other. It's the sound of Disappears reporting back from The Void.



track listing:

1.Interpretation 2. I _ O 3. Another Thought 4. Irreal 5. OUD 6. Halcyon Days 7. Mist Rites 8. Navigating the Void



press quotes for Era:



'On Era, Disappears begin to pave a path to transcendence that's a little more varied, grabbing the more anemic sounds of Clinic and Liars, while keeping the forward momentum of their most obvious influences Spacemen 3 and rough-edged Velvet Underground. They know they trade in the business of the past and work within confined musical language, but they play on, middle fingers scratching their eyebrows.' 7.3 Pitchfork



'For Chicago based quartet Disappears, time seems to move at a different, altogether more indeterminate pace. Era is a work of magic; a record you could lose days or even weeks in, without noticing at all.' Drowned in Sound



'It's an incredible mix of legitimately haunting energy and maturity that is really, really hard to nd, and even harder to nd in an exciting form that doesn't come off cynical or jaded.' The Talkhouse



'Era is truly a landmark album for this formidable foursome' -Brainwashed

Sao Paulo born Toni Tornado was considered the Brazilian James Brown by many.

His career began as 'Tony Checker', lip syncing to rock 'n' roll hits and touring extensively outside of Brazil. Whilst in New York he met Tim Maia and became involved in the 'Black Rio' movement. Toni also worked with Ed Lincoln and Antonio Adolfo amongst many others. He had a successful acting career and starred in many soap opera's.

'O Journaleiro' is a tearing funk track with tough drums and big vocals. Taken from his hard to find and expensive to acquire debut LP, 'BR-3', released by Odeon Brazil in 1971.

This track has never been released on 7".

Som Tres was a jazz ensemble formed by legendary Brazilian musician César Camargo Mariano, who also formed Sambalanço Trio.

Cesar's collaborations with many of Brazil's most important singers, notably Wilson Simonal and Elis Regina, have brought him worldwide acclaim; the historic 1973 album Elis and Tom, made with Antonio Carlos Jobim, features Cesar as arranger, pianist and musical director.

Som Tres recorded eight albums between 1966 and 1971. 'Homenagem a Mongo' is taken from the sought after 'Som 3' LP from 1969 on Odeon Brazil. It has never been released on a 7".

Hubie Davison returns to Leisure System December 1st, 2014 with the Khayyam Grey EP, his second release for the Berlin-based label and one that marks both his and Leisure System's funkiest output to date.Following on his 2013 debut of pastoral electronics and muffled house, Khayyam Grey highlights Davison's vivid production skills, drawing from a deep well of influences varying from Werkdiscs and Sound Signature to Bill Withers and Otis Redding. The three tracks here are also the strongest representative document yet of the 26-year-old Davison's DJing, which incorporates all manner of memorable house and assorted wonkiness and has seen him play in Panorama Bar, Corsica Studios, and Gaité Lyrique in Paris amongst numerous others.The title track takes cues from Daphni's stand-up-and-shout, sample-heavy house, while "Get On" is a comparatively restrained yet incredibly funky mid-tempo number. "Vowels", which first appeared as the opening track on the LSR-LSD1 compilation, appears here in extended and altered form, breaking down vocals on a syllabic level from smooth to percussive.These three tracks of addictive house have been on constant rotation at Leisure System for the past few months - it's high time everyone else joined the party

Poker Flat Recordings has been dealing out underground house music with a unique twist since 1999; from the defining debut 'Loverboy' through the Bugnology series, acclaimed albums and worldwide club hits, Steve Bug's essential imprint has unearthed new talent, developed rising stars and welcomed veterans into the fold. Steve Bug's reputation as an exceptionally gifted DJ, producer and music connoisseur is about to carry the beloved imprint to its 15th anniversary, which will be celebrated with its finest collection of raw talent yet, starting with this first installment of the anniversary series called 4 Jacks. Following the winning format of the series thus far, Part 3 boasts two slamming new remixes of classics from the vault, and two brand spanking new tracks from Poker Flat's stellar roster. Argy's 'Love Dose' of 2005 marked the debut of one of the scene's most fascinating newcomers, and defined the sound of minimal courtesy of an unforgettable remix by Luciano; now getting a 2014 update, the track has been taken to by the talented duo Audiofly, who makeover its identity with their signature sleek deep tech style. Two heavyweights go up against each other next, as Joeski tackles the Martin Landsky classic 'Reject

Producer CRISTIAN VOGEL, born in Chile and in raised in Bristol, England, represents an inner turmoil within the history of electronic music and techno. Like only a few other artists such as Aphex Twin, he personifies the second wave of techno during which authorship, previously pronounced dead, returned in full force. The former punk, who had completed studies in composition (20th century classical music in Sussex) conveyed a powerful force in his music, which now finds its place very naturally as electronic music; back then, it did more than just shake up the concepts of techno. Complex and intricate rhythms (Süddeutsche Zeitung) dig deep chasms in dark (listening) spaces.

In 1996, together with JAMIE LIDELL as SUPER_COLLIDER, he made a final attempt to breathe life into electronic music, which was still primarily seen as dance/rave/club music, and produced clustered break funk music that was so relevant to its time that many considered it more a music of the future: science fiction for the dance floor. Although the project was not a failure, it did not succeed even halfway in meeting the expectations of an artist who was rather perplexed by the lack of interest he perceived in others in music as art and research. Vogel believes that music has a will to unfold, like a jungle from the undergrowth of industrial cities where music is thought of as an attack and a defense.
Seemingly out of disappointment in the predictably declining hedonism of the scene, he moved to Barcelona and bound his explosive ideas to more accessible formats, founded labels, created networks (No Future, Sleep Debt) and, at the same time, revisited his early days by working more and more on formats such as music for ballet and similar concepts. He also sought freedom precisely in what was referred to as functional electronic music through conceptual and serious endeavors in the artistic sense.
Vogel went under for a time and lived in Vienna before arriving in Berlin nearly two years ago, where he made his first new and daring attempt to assimilate everything that electronic music represented to him on one album: 'The Inertials' on SHITKATAPULT. Shortly after that, his mystical, floating ambient work 'Eselsbrücke' was released, which already spoke the language of the new city.

He now presents a new album on SHITKATAPULT entitled 'POLYPHONIC BEINGS' - a true masterpiece in the inimitable Vogel style, as his fans will no doubt claim. 'POLYPHONIC BEINGS' begins, after two minutes of an irritating noise wave, with a surprisingly classic dub track and grows darker and more abstract from track to track, minute by minute. An eerie and unbelievable sound, with all as it should be: every reverb tail, every movement of the fader, every composed note takes the listener piece by piece into Vogel's own cosmos.
He foregoes interwoven elements for swaying towers of rhythm, powerful sound passages, spaces, roads, mirrors and pathways, leading to a stream of ideas that never wants to end. He aptly quotes Karl-Heinz Stockhausen in the liner notes: These are the "atomic layers of ourselves." And so it is. We are what we hear. This is the definitive CRISTIAN VOGEL.

Bell Gardens combines the musical visions of Kenneth James Gibson (formerly of Furry Things, now recording as
*Bell Gardens' origins began arguably as more of an experiment than the duo's current 'experimental' projects - McBride's drone- and string-laden ambient symphonies, and Gibson's ventures in dub and minimalist techno - as they sought to manifest their mutual reverence for folk, psychedelia and chamber pop in a traditional band structure without cannibalising any particular past genre. Bell Gardens' sound is less reliant on effects and studio trickery than the pairs' independent guises, laying bare as it does vocals and live instruments with emotional sincerity, and presenting songs imbued with an almost pastoral or gospel simplicity and timelessness.
Slow Dawns for Lost Conclusions was again recorded mostly at home studios, but additionally the band made use of a friend's desert cabin in Wonder Valley, California, and it seems this willingness to retreat from the city has lent an expansiveness to the tracks, in particular the spacious, ceremonial 'Silent Prayer' (written in a snowbound mountain cabin in Idyllwild, C.A.) and the crepuscular 'She's Stuck in an Endless Loop of Her Decline' (mapped out under the stars in the desert).
While the addition of strings (contributed by Lauren Chipman of The Rentals and The Section Quartet) and trumpet (Stewart Cole of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros) provides a double rainbow of tonal textures throughout, the nine tracks of Slow Dawns for Lost Conclusions are united by an understated elegance belying the newly expanded, communal effort in the studio: each instrument earns its place, nothing is overwrought or conspicuous. Moreover, it is McBride and Gibson's artistry in building stirring soundscapes from the barest of materials in their other guises that lends such assurance and sophistication to these arrangements.
The band is a result of the complimentary cross-pollination of Gibson and McBride's musical tastes - borne from a late-night conversation between the two that grew wings - and it is the universality of the sentiments and their restrained, reflective approach to writing and recording that allows the music to simultaneously straddle the past and the present. The music avoids pastiche, its pedal steel, sleigh bells and harmonies giving a nod to the ghosts of musical genres past, but never overriding or distracting from the emotional content of the sum of its parts.
The album ends with the glorious 'Take Us Away' - one of the first demos Gibson gave McBride when he was on tour with Stars of the Lid - neatly bringing their work to date full circle and exemplifying the band's mindfulness of their own serendipitous beginnings: the dawning of an auspicious, unique musical force.

Bell Gardens - Take Us Away -
Harmonies alert!! Actually, this is rather lovely. Slow-tempo, just the right side of 'twee' and packed full of strings, as if Air and Midlake had been taking balloon trips over the mid-West and sprinkling good-vibes dust across the land. From L.A. and subconsciously plugged into the '60s dream-pop scene, taking in a little bit of Mercury Rev and Brendan Perry en route, stopping off at Pearls Before Swine and Big Star's house for inspiration, before getting stoned with '70s era Brian Eno and Harold Budd.

This next release demonstrates exactly what can happen when you merge a formidable heavyweight with one of the genre's most promising talents. Jaguar Skills needs little introduction; he's infamous for his ninja-like DJing skills with years stacked behind the decks.

As a result, it was no surprise the artist tried his hands at production alongside Chord's impressive musicality. Already unstoppable from its conception, 'Lust' could only be released on an imprint known for its high quality. And RAM Records is proud to unleash this toe-tapping, catchy piece of sonic artwork on the dnb community...One that's already taken the radio airwaves by storm.
Opening with a rhythm that curls itself around your aural senses, prepare to be pulled into 'Lust' by its funky groove and well-chiselled hooks. The vocal delight of Matti Roots really brings light to the seasonal feel this track creates; an arpeggio of notes underpins each high-hitting voice crescendo. Bright but not without substance, Chords' production style is instantly recognisable. This debut from Jaguar Skills serves as a perfect platform for the high standards this mix-maker is about to set, as well as the benchmark which Chords has already carved.

On the flipside, Break holds onto the A-side's sunny disposition, yet throws down a riddim that hits as heavy as a freight train. The foundations laid by the producer are slightly different, as it rattles forward with clinking percussion, alluding to the kind of drop Break is renowned for. With his distinctive, boundary-pushing drum rolls and bouncy, booming and concise hits, there's no mistaking a sound which adds another dimension to the remixes' original.

You're also served up with another dish which is vastly different from house-guru Monstro. like the previous edit, the record's humanism winds up within the first thirty seconds, however the seismic impact of its drop rolls out into a house-bassline that thumps with every bar. A genre transition which doesn't fall short of the original's production prowess, prepare to hold onto your seats because this serves as the optimal way to wrap up two striking remixes of an already impressive track list.
Dominating playlists for years to come, this release from RAM is yet again taking the genre to another level. But considering the parties involved, there was no other direction for this record to take.

Slo -mo house at it's best deep shape, including the rare, sought after Maurice Fulton remix for Alice Smith 'Love Endeavour'. Compiled by Rainer Trüby.

We live in hectic, turbulent times. It seems season- and reasonable to slow things bit down. In fact: slow house down to what we calling now: SLOUSE. Implying down to earth club music, with a tapping foot under 116 beats per minute.
House music and its many sliding genres have ruled the clubs and charts, well, a special focus on the slo-mo house is well-deserved.
Rainer Trueby become a guarantee for vanguard soulful dance music and club tunes with such special vibe, which he had formidable approved not only as a DJ but also with sucessful compilations like - Glücklich', - Maiden Voyage' on Compost, DJ Kicks (K7) or compilations for Nuphonic, King Street, Talkin' Loud and other labels.
Rainer Trueby, an artist who spreads love like in the good old days, selected some of the best tunes on the planet, some rare, sought after like the rare Maurice Fulton Remix for Alison Smith - Love Endeavor', in demand tunes like S3A - Deep Mood Act2' or Ron Deacon's - Untitled', amazing discoveries like the Moonstarr tune, or a Laid Back remix, few underrated tracks, well all tracks are worth the grab and get played again & again. It's a full palette of slo-mo house flavors and moods as Rainer Trueby takes us on a magical trip into his imagination of Slouse.

The result is a future classic compilation with melodic and groovy masterpieces, made for your home-, garden-, car- , club listening pleasure. It works for the happy hour as well as the after hour.

Hope you love it as much as we do !

in the past ten years lots of little and big stories happened in the music culture. house literally disappeared almost from the scene in order to come back as strong as never before. 

minimal morphed back into techno while leaving the question mark why the term minimal ever got invented. some originators like frankie knuckles or romanthony passed away, while others like larry heard just stopped to perform. 

in-between countless new artists appeared, twisted dance music with new perspectives on the old, and released their fresh ideas on even more countless labels out there in the void called music market. 

one of the rare platforms that stayed solid as a rock in all these years is mule musiq, the tokyo based label that spreads miscellaneous sound vibes that long from jazz to disco, house, and unobtrusive ambient since 2004. 

with a versatile artist roster consisting of producers such as henrik schwarz, lawrence, dj sprinkles, dj jus-ed, kuniyuki, eddie c, roedelius, or new kids on the blog like barnt or lord of the isles the japan based record company developed a status of her own for being one of the most free spirited organisations in contemporary music. 

'if the music is good, any kind of music is welcome. i don't like labels which release one style music.' 

mule musiq's mastermind toshiya kawasaki once said in a rare interview. now he celebrates a ten years of freedom jubilee with the sixth instalment of his famed 'i'm starting to feel ok' compilation serial.  a real massive international anniversary celebration that is ventilating all what happened in the past ten years in order to form something that travels right into the future. and that is where mule musiq tries to be since a decade to tell some unheard musical stories that stay for good even when the future is long past.

From the ruins of the birthplace of techno ...
Detroit Underground returns with this, their twenty second release, in a catalogue that has come to define the outer limits of experimental electronics while still adhering to dance floor basics.
This edition sees DU label boss Kero return to the spotlight in collaboration with LA based sound designer and interactive director Drasko Vucevic, aka Drasko V of Los Angeles based DRASTIC Music + Technology. Drasko has recently created, among other things, sound design for a promotional featurette for the Academy Award nominated film Gravity.
Given the label's long time fascination with the intersections of music, art and technology the collaboration is as fitting as it is fruitful.


Side A ups the collaborative ante as this 12'' comes blasting out of the gate with two very strong remixes, Exponent is the subject of a relentless 4/4 treatment from LA techno exponents Drumcell while Superheavy gets an acid-style work out from Canadian producer Jesse Somfay's Borealis project.


It is not until the second side that we hear the original versions of Exponent and Superheavy, both of which reveal themselves to be undulating masses of hip hop tinged beats over dark, bass rich undertones, with the latter offering some brighter tones as well - in other words pretty much what you might expect out of a Drasko V and Kero collaboration.


Side B is further rounded out with a couple of remixes from England's Si Begg and Valance Drakes the former coming in with a super compressed, squelched out, electro inspired take on Exponent while Valance Drakes chills us back out with an impossibly mellowed out version of the same

For it's eighth release Apartment delivers it's first long player, by mysterious producer, VernoN (Dixon Avenue Basement Jams / Night Gallery). Little is known of this artist - what we do know is that his formative years were spent in Belgium, immersing himself in the emerging New Beat and EBM sounds emanating from the country's dance clubs. For his release on Apartment he has created 6 tracks that reflect these early influences, whilst also taking in other techno, house and electro influences. Pounding drums, rasping hi-hats, rave stabs, twisting acid lines and grinding synths all come together under the unique tutelage of this most skilled of producers, all the while watched by the experts...