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New Finnish imprint VIENO, kicks off with 10 track compilation of Finnish ambient, electronica & experimental music. Selection draws an emotionally infused red line throughout.

Travelling starts with "Pumpuli". Beautiful soft opener for ears and other senses. However, more deeper agenda follows. For darker soul searching Roberto Rodriguez provides 80´s synth driven "Third Act" followed by techno producer Satoi´s melancholic journey "Unohda".
B-Side goes on with dubby triphop influnced "Heimo M" by Aleksi Myllykoski with Finnish saxosphone legend Tapani Rinne. Paving the way for young and gifted Sansibar´s spacey techno breathing "ISS". Last track of the compilation, ”Ukki”, is a very personal, intriguingly gloomy, yet unpolished piano composition dedicated for recently deceased great grandfather of the artist, Mierka.

”I was just asked what’s my reason to create VIENO and bring out this compilation just now? I’ve been exploring the Finnish urban music and club scene for more than two decades and I recognize the space and craving is now present. Now is the right time to recreate and bring life to this art of subtle melancholy we Finns have always carried deep in us. In a way i´m tryin´to awaken the emotional energy more than just to paint insipid and expectedly ear friendly, atmospheric soundscapes.” - Jaako Hurme

Favorite Recordings presents Jazz Traficantes by LE DEAL, a new musical adventure from the finest French jazzmen with Florian Pellissier (Piano & Fender Rhodes - Camaraõ Orkestra, Cotonete,
Aldorande, Setenta), Yoann Loustalot (Flugelhorn – Bruit Chic, Old & New Songs, Aerophone, Lucky Dog), Théo Girard (Upright Bass – Pensée Rotatives, Discobole) and Malick Koly (Drums - The Wallace
Roney Quintet). Needless to say, they’re used to play all over the globe and quite often to New York. During one of these
trips to the Big Apple, they discovered that the legendary Van Gelder studio (where most of Blue Note, Verve and CTI albums were recorded) was still active and opened so they decided to book a few days session.

Here is the story told by Florian Pellissier: “The tracks had been written the night before. We were going to run through them and then record. A simple plan. Van Gelder had passed a while back, but he left the keys and secret codes with his faithful assistant Maureen before heading off to create the right sound up in heaven. Nothing had changed in the atmosphere or configuration, not even the way the mics were placed. The studio and its wooden beams still exuded New York’s sixties jazz, dimly lit streets and clubs where anything might happen past midnight. Maureen knew just how to capture the ambiance of the sessions and bottle the energy without spilling a drop, taking infinite care to collect each cymbal tone, drum roll and trumpet phrase, without losing a single vibrating bass string or the slightest keyboard pause.”

Indeed, the four contrabandists succeeded to deliver an outstanding album, filled with themes that’ll get stuck in your head, just like in the 19 minutes long performance “Mexican Junkanoo Suite” and its three
parts. But more than just beautiful melodies, LE DEAL truly managed to bring a sense of drama to their compositions, going into the deepest emotions through gutted arrangements, improvising with great attention to the articulation of their ideas. From the beginning to the end, musicians and engineers did their best to emulate the proper vintage sound. Jazz Traficantes could prove once and for all that
French Jazz can indeed cross the borders. The album will be available as Tip-On Deluxe Vinyl LP but also on CD & Digital with a bonus track, “Noche en la Carcel”

Timeless periods of industrial rhythm: Diarmaid O Meara and Kucera collaborate to release ‘Shadowmen’ vinyl on Gobsmacked Records

Nightclubs around Europe are shut. Even in Berlin, the clubbing capital of the world, nightlife has been reduced to a simmer. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time and connect via timeless periods of electrifying and industrial rhythms”, said Irish producer and DJ Diarmaid O Meara. Together with long-time Gobsmacked techno stalwart Kucera, the two have dropped their latest vinyl ‘Shadowmen’.

The collaboration has derived from long sessions in the Gobsmacked cavern studios in Berlin. The result: A 12” that is laid out in the style of the perfect rave – with a breakbeat electronica entry that promotes procrastination, freakish, and intensely introverted thoughts created through pulsating rhythms and ghostly frequencies, industrial rave sounds for those moments of release.

Partying is a huge part of Berlin’s identity

By listening to the vinyl featuring a dark rhythm, it becomes obvious that the duo has been heavily influenced by underground techno nights in Berlin, and also regularly sharing the stage together at international events. With the pandemic-mandated closure of clubs stretching through the summer, however, playing gigs and festivals is no longer an option. Hence, illegal parties have sprung up to fill the gap and infuriated some public health officials and politicians, also in Berlin.

“Partying is still a huge part of the city’s identity”, continued Diarmaid O Meara who has been living in Berlin for over a decade and also organising parties all over the city. “Raves are a much-needed way to blow off steam after a period of isolation but we have to consider a more proactive approach, for instance district authorities making public spaces available to party organisers under conditions that ensure hygiene measures are maintained.”

Although there has been no shortage of digital music events either since the pandemic began, clubbing is more than just watching a DJ set. “Rather it’s about the unique space that’s created by artists and the crowd that are pulled together by music”, said Kucera who has been destroying dance floors across Europe with his live sets since 2004. “In times when people are still feeling more isolated than ever, our latest vinyl with the accompanying music video aims to bring a sense of connectedness and community during the lockdown.” The video imagery has been recorded live using Kuceras machine pattern triggering whilst performing the tracks live.

Unwavering dedication to the culture of counter-culture

The name ‘Shadowmen’ reflects the work both artists have contributed constantly and consistently to the scene over the past two decades with unwavering dedication to the culture of counter-culture. The artwork, in classic Gobsmacked style, comes with a tip of the cap to the global elite who have been successfully driving humanity off a cliff. “We’ve thrown a little apparent illuminati symbol in there for those who’ve been confined too long at home and on YouTube for the past 6 months”, said Diarmaid O Meara.

Both artists are working on a multitude of new tracks and events for the post-Covid era. Of particular interest is Kuceras live visual show for Gobsmacked, with visuals triggered from his machine live-set patterns. This is something he has been wanting to experiment with for a long time now and it started to take shape in the form of visual hallucinations of industrial areas and trains he had been filming while traveling across Europe before the world stopped functioning properly due to Covid-19. Diarmaid O Meara has quite a few tricks up his sleeve, including a new politically inspired alias, where both artists will take centre stage in some wacky antics.

House and techno mainstay Loco Dice is stepping out with En Couleur, a brand new label reserved exclusively for his own music.

The first offering opens with 'Don't Run,' a twisted piece of afterparty techno. Weird fx and alien sound designs squirm in and out of a firmly rooted, rolling groove and pressurised hi hats add to the tension as the kicks grow ever more powerful. 'Nasty Train' explores high quality stripped back house grooves that ooze a certain sense of funk. The timeless hi hats are straight from Chicago while the crisp boom-bap drums, frazzled pads and muffled voices all add details that keep you locked until things grow more wild and unhinged at the mid point. Last of all, 'Ya Free Just Move' is a manic and pulsating acid workout that will leave the club in a frenzy.

Following a stellar run of recent releases including best-of-year EPs from the likes of DJ Plead and DJ JM, Nervous Horizon are back with their first record of 2020 — a unique new collaborative EP by object blue and label co-head, TSVI. Out on September 25th, ‘Hyperaesthesia’ details four sweltering new club tracks — described by the pair as “body music” — that mesh together object blue’s widescreen, experimental club tones and TSVI’s borderless percussive styles. “I was curious to see how TSVI and I could merge our sounds, whether we could supplement each other without eclipsing one another, and I'm so happy with the result”, explains object blue. “I never thought I could write with somebody else but this happened so easily. It's been a liberating process, just a pure pursuit of fun, yelling in our chairs when we dropped the beat.” Inspired by ‘ever-present conversations about machines and sentience’, the EP’s mechanical crux plays out in the narrative of the tracks too; from a sense of machines ‘waking up’ on near 8-minute opener ‘Thought Experiment’ to the frantic, processing energy of ‘Turing Machine’. The record also comes complete with a special remix by Loraine James and vinyl-only bonus track, ‘Syntax’. ‘Hyperaesthesia’ follows a fruitful 12 months for both object blue and TSVI: Following the release of her breakthrough debut EP, ‘Do You Plan To End A Siege?’, for Tobago Tracks back in 2018, object blue has since become one of dance music’s most crucial new artists. As well as releasing her third, critically acclaimed EP last summer (‘FIGURE BESIDE ME’), she’s turned in remixes for everyone from Murlo to Seb Wildblood, been invited to record a BBC R1 guest mix for Benji B and performed live at Paris Fashion Week, after composing the music for Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood SS20. object blue was also announced a SHAPE artist for 2020 earlier this year, alongside artists like Afrodeutsche, Rian Treanor, Jay Glass Dubs, Oli XL and more. TSVI’s upward trajectory shows no sign of slowing down either. From the release of his enchanting debut album ‘Inner Worlds’ in 2018, he’s since gone on to put out a series of game-changing records under his Anunaku moniker for both Nic Tasker’s AD93 label and Martyn’s 3024 imprint, including July’s ‘032’ — a joint EP written with DJ Plead. Alongside fellow co-heads Wallwork and Federico Ciampolini, he’s also overseen the rise of Nervous Horizon since the label’s inception in 2015, moulding it into of the UK’s trailblazing new-school dance labels.

Along with its sister imprint Fluid Electronics - dedicated to all things more muscularly 4x4 oriented, from house to techno via ambient, Fluid Funk will offer a platform of choice for creators and lovers of soulful house, hip-hop, jazz, funk, disco et al. The goal of the label is to bring a community of like-minded people together, cleared from the complexities that sometimes hamper the good course of the label-artist relationship.

First to grace Fluid Funk's dance floor-ready grooves is Rotterdam-based emerging talent Beau Zwart. Fresh off a choice inaugural sortie on INI Movements that hit the streets a few weeks ago, Beau steps in with his debut 12", "Beyond Two Souls" - an infectiously smooth and solarpowered six-track platter featuring Dutch duo Fouk on remix duty.

Expect lavishly orchestrated cascades of ankle-twisting breaks, prismatic synthwork and summer-flavoured melodies to wrap your ears around as your feet and body give in to the power of that funky bass. Brewing elements of fuzzy pop, pixelated soul and tropicalised rhythms, Beau Zwarts sound takes us on a wildly enjoyable ride across luxuriantly flowered scapes and fluttering cosmic house horizons. Interlaced with sugary Rhodes stabs and 8-bit harmonics a la "Floating Points", Sykes' warm vox intonations shows us the way into a pulsating heart of wonky, bop-infused boogie.

Expanding to further out-there, club-optimised bravura, Fouk's take on the title-track is the kind of track that'll make an impact in the sweatbox as well as in a more cabaret-like setting. Pulling out the weirdo harmonics and left-of-centre jazz aerobatics, "Ixodus" lets its free spirited sense of playfulness take over completely. Flip sides and here's "Marble Book" unbolts the spacious pads and whirling alien riffs as a sturdy sub-bass and gut-churning kicks beat time onto further estranged
dimensions.

A slightly more muscular but thoroughly sensuous workout, "Bustin Out" fuses classical two-step-indebted breaks with lascivious "P-Funk" tropes into one compelling club heater, before the EP's sluggish closer "Illustrate My Way" sends us into orbit for good with its slowed down romanticism and otherworldly piano fantasy.

After the success of the 2 Late 4 Love EP, Roy Of The Ravers returns to Emotional Response with a double LP with a deeper perspective, experimenting in ambient and drone textures, lucid techno travails and acid interludes.

Recorded between 1997 and 2017, the album was pieced together over the last six months after Roy's archives were first feared lost and then found. Approached by the label to release a follow up with something more introspective and personal, it was discovered that a recent move to a new studio had led to over 20 years of music being misplaced after it was believed they were mistakenly dropped at a local charity store. However, deep in a box of what were thought to be patch cables were in fact the decades worth of hard drives and here presented, is a sample of those lost recordings.

The nature of the music is introspection, eschewing the acid beats and white noise for a personal encounter between man and machine. The orchestral opening of the title track gives way to the submarine beats, pulsing TB303 and gliding hats of Robinson College 10 to set the outlook to come. Even with the scattering A Dim And Distant Past waking lulled senses, the melodies and feel all lead to a pause and reflect rather than jump and shout.

This is continued with the haunting drives of Bounce Erec and Oriental X0X-Press; the twisted, warped jams of The Weber Traum Boat Pt.3, Ichi and Roland Corp Labs 05; and the beautiful, heartfelt odes in Sade Lost Theme, The Clock House Pt.2 and closer, Nemesis '01. The album's melodic nature hums and shines as CS (6x8) appears as much a centre piece as a alternative consideration to the acid tinged, club bangs of Roy's releases to date.
A surprise package maybe, but in the rolling, word of mouth phenomena that was Emotinium II, all this and more was sensed and so White Sunrise Music II, spreading across 12 songs of contrasting moods, is a further affirmation that there is something good and worthy of exploration.

In terms of "legendary" House records, it doesn't get any better than LNR's "Can't stop the house".
Originally released in the golden year of 1987 the Chicago duo of Larry Thompson and Rick Lenoir (with a helpful production assist from the mighty Adonis and a dope remix from Steve "Silk" Hurley) crafted this anthemic slab of chunky, funked out jacking House. "Can't stop the house" is a straightforward, stripped back club track, no special FX - just straight up party music for sweaty dancefloors. This official 2016 reissue contains 4 mixes of this stone cold classic - The vocal mix, basement mix, house of trix mix and the rapid edit, all culled from the numerous pressings that came out in 1987 - 1989. In a sense, this is "the complete" collection of this cornerstone of Chicago House. The full set. All audio has been lifted from Rick Lenoir's private collection of reel to reel tapes from his basement and remastered accordingly. This reissue has been realised with the full involvement of Thompson & Lenoir and is 100% legit! Don't snooze, this one deserves a spot in any self respecting House heads record bag or DJ set, classic material made available again for 2016 - You can't stop it!

NYC's legendary West End record label has contributed a fair few classics to the disco cannon and continues to influence dance music today with it's forward looking releases. 'When you touch me' is no exception, recorded and released in the golden year of 1979 and featuring the breathy, sensual vocals of a young Tanaa Gardner who had previously worked as a backing vocalist for numerous other projects until the label released her (other) stone cold solo classic 'Work that body' the same year on 12".
Both cuts featured on her self titled debut LP and boasted the combined production and studio talents of Kenton Nix, Bob Blank and of course - Larry Levan. Now, that's a serious line-up to have behind the boards (& in the clubs!) and of course 'When you touch me' was a classic with it's slow, elongated intro that calls to mind a sleazier version of Donna Summer's 'Love hangover' before launching into a full-on disco assault that you won't forget in a hurry! Yes, the record surprises you, Tanaa leads us into a false sense of a 'slow jam' and then - Boom - We're off!
Backed with the incredible instrumental version the 12" is repressed here in it's original 1979 glory, an essential classic that has stood the test of time for the last 30+ years & is now available again, remastered & repressed for 2017 in conjunction with West End Records, NYC.

Amnesia Scanner announces Tearless, the Berlin-based duo’s second LP. As Amnesia Scanner founders, Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala watch their icy home country of Finland thaw, the staggering scale of political recalibration and the worldwide climate crisis to come blows open old norms. This album reflects what it feels to experience Earth at a time when collapse is emerging as the prevailing narrative.


The musical scope of the record is expansive, with guest vocalists—the Peruvian artist Lalita and the Brazillian DJ/producer LYZZA—descending into a vast uncanny valley of sound. Tearless follows the 2014 AS Live [][] mixtape, 2015 audio play Angels Rig Hook, two EP’s for Young Turks, and their 2018 debut album, Another Life (PAN).



“There’s a looming sense of radical change,” they note, connecting the present to a fin de siecle horror and curiosity regarding what new world is being ushered in. Someone called Tearless a “breakup album with the planet.” To which Amnesia Scanner responds, on the LP’s closing track: “Youwill be fine, if we can help you lose your mind.”


With the crossfader on Tearless sitting closer to pop than abstraction, so too does the audience for this record widen in scope. Listening through: Opener “AS Enter” sets a sombre tone until the fucking riffs of the second track(the titular, Lalita-helmed “Tearless”) make clear there’s plenty of roaring to come. A feature from metalcore band Code Orange on “AS Flat” follows, along with “AS Trouble” (feat. Oracle, the third, machinic ghost-member of Amnesia Scanner) and together they hit as black-metal-gaze dirges. At the album’s midpoint, Lalita returns for the beautiful, operatic breakdown of “AS Acá” (released as a single in 2019), before “Call of the Center” guides listeners through three club ready tracks—the grain-processed dembow of “AS Too Late” and “AS Going” with LYZZA, and then the ambientheadbanger “AS Labyrinth.” Closing “Tearless” is the sadboy grunge of “AS U Will Be Fine” with a clear statement of intent: doom, despair, insanity, absurdity, it’s all natural, all cathartic, and all OK. Refuse like the ‘90s and party like the ‘20s—if that seems senseless, you are doing it right.

Smooth acid injected edgy house cuts on this new Klasse Wrecks! For the last 3 years SJ Tequilla (Naota Matsuda) and Aaty Matoba have been a regular but hidden fixture in Berlin's underground music scene. You may have caught them at their regular spot in a dark tunnel next to the sprawling Ostkreuz station in Kreuzberg, lucky to sneak a quick listen before the cops came in and shut things down yet again. Armed only with an electrical generator, a 606, 303 and various dub echo delay units the pair have slowly been refining their Teknobusker project into quite a special thing. Proving that creativity blooms best when using a limited set of tools, the SJ Teknobuskers music is gritty and dark but also retains an important sense of humour. WRECKS029 was recorded between the years 2018-2019 and does a deft job in capturing a flavour of the rhythms, tones and squelches that echoed down the tunnels during Berlin's endless summers.

Long-time collaborators, longer-time best friends, lifelong analog appreciators; the German duo Iron Curtis & Johannes Albert join cosmic forces once again for another LP mission 'Moon II', a heartfelt voyage through the sounds, movements, styles and machines that created this music in the first place.
Think late 80s New York, early 90s Sheffield and the perennial sounds of Italo and Detroit, 'Moon II' is a lunar safari that celebrates the deepest foundations of house, techno and electronic soul while resolutely refusing to get nostalgic. Written and recorded during an intense two-and-a-half month session in Berlin last autumn, there's a consistency and tangible narrative running throughout as the pair play inspiration ping-pong over the course of 10 tracks.
A little Drexcyian glacial nod here, a hazy Boards Of Canada wink there. The Other People Place, Kerrier District, Environ Records, the Hacienda, Sub Club, Heaven 17, classic electro… All these ingredients are constantly bubbling in the mix for both Curtis and Albert (as individuals and even more so as a duo) and the end result is an album that works as a proper album should. Peaks, troughs, dreamy departures and all beautiful things in between.
Taking off where their debut collaborative album 'Industrie & Zärtlichkeit' (soon to be retitled 'Moon I') left us three years ago, the opening modem sounds on the intro track 'Canggu Laundry Club' dial us into a special sense of time and space.
It's a space where anything feels possible; Visual-inspired acid lines on 'Tiger Trek', lino-spinning body pops and windmills to the street sounds electro style of 'The Ultimate Seduction', the club-focused, Traxx-style Cutie Schamuthie collaboration 'Hurting', the melancholy plucks and struts of 'Feingold', the provocative, slinky, smoky finale piece 'Nektar'… The list of intergenerational and cross-genre landmarks on this adventurous body of work go and on, each track complementing the last as they fuse to create a bigger collective picture. A picture that's charmed together through the consistent use of key classic studio machines.
They call it Introverted Electronic Body Music, we call it warm, free-spirited and ultimately timeless. Perfect for your sets, your afterhours or your headphones alike; it's time to let Iron Curtis and Johannes Albert take you to the Moon and back… Once again.

Los Angeles based artist Evan Caminiti returns with the follow up to 2017’s Toxic City Music.

Living in the wrong timeline, dreaming of possible utopias; Varispeed Hydra beams in like a collection of broken transmissions, terrestrial sounds melting into the abstract and rising again as vaporous specters. Three years in the making, Hydra was recorded utilizing a variety of electroacoustic processes and honed in live performances ranging from the sound art setting of NYC’s Issue Project Room to the future-club environment of DOMMUNE in Tokyo. While thematically following Toxic City Music, it moves past that album’s emphasis on superfund sites and the proverbial rat race to turn an ear towards more rural environs.

With a focus on some of the sounds we stand to lose if we continue on our current trajectory of ecological destruction, birds, insects, and water are most often found among the glowing synthesizers and warped electric guitar that comprise the album’s melodic and rhythmic core. Connecting a thread between musique concrete and dub, these sounds are atomized and diffused before being woven together with a sense of urgency, a colorful and restless haze. Phasing percussion and blurred melodies are wrapped in a fog as they tumble and glitch, occupying a space where ominous rumblings and bucolic bliss blur together. An offering of cautious optimism in the age of anxiety.

Written and produced by Evan Caminiti, featuring electronics by Lisa McGee.
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios.
Artwork by Michael Vallera and Zane Morris.
Vinyl cut at Dubplates and Mastering Berlin.

**LP FORMAT IS VERY LIMITED - PLEASE BE AWARE THAT UNFORTUNATELY THERE MAY BE CUTS TO ORDERS**

For Los Angeles' The Black Queen, the depths of isolation and loss have always functioned as a gateway to being born anew. Much has transpired since the band released their cold, cutting debut album Fever Daydream (a record that Revolver described as 'a haunting exploration of the darker side of pop music'). But throughout it all, the trio of Greg Puciato (former frontman of the now-defunct The Dillinger Escape Plan), Joshua Eustis (of Telefon Tel Aviv, Puscifer, and Nine Inch Nails), and Steven Alexander (a tech member for Nine Inch Nails, Ke$ha, and A Perfect Circle) have emerged as triumphant and intense as ever, documenting their journey via the synth-streaked industrial anthems of their sophomore release, Infinite Games.Formed in 2011 after a chance meeting between Puciato and Eustis backstage at a Dillinger show in which they both realized they were huge fansof each other's work, The Black Queen became a labor of love for its members to explore sounds and emotions that they couldn't quite fit into their full-time projects. Injecting a pained, twilit edge into slick new-wave tracks as fit for the dance floor as they are for some imagined dystopian skyline, the trio have managed to channel their scattered, eclectic influences into a surprisingly cohesive vision. 'We've got a pretty weird cross section,' Puciato says of the band's musical chemistry. 'We can go out for food and listen to Power Trip on the way there, then Baltimore club music on the way back, and then talk about how killer Maxwell's Embrya album was, and then get sidetracked and talk about the Celeste video game soundtrack, then all have to be quiet so that we can grab a voice recording of some weird sounding radio interference. It's all over the place and unusually far reaching,and there's a lot of passion for discovery.'After releasing their 2016 debut album Fever Daydream to critical acclaim however, the trio underwent several major upheavals that cast the project in a completely new light. Puciato's main project The Dillinger Escape Plan disbanded. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden killed himself while Puciato was on tour with him. Eustis put out music under his beloved Telefon Tel Aviv monikerfor the first time since his former bandmate Charles Cooper died in 2009. Thetrio's storage space was robbed. Puciato suffered a relapse into crippling anxiety and paranoia. Once again, in the face of tragedy, The Black Queen had to rebuild everything from the ground up.The first step was acquiring a new studio space, which immensely helped the band get back into the rhythm of freely collaborating with one another, and experimenting with sounds for as long (and as loud) as they wanted. The resulting album, Infinite Games, marks a massive leap forward for The Black Queen. Not only are the band's icy R&B instincts more sharply pronounced; they've also rendered their morbid electronics in more lush detail than ever before, filling out the corners of their songs with chilling ambient passages
that create a wide-screen backdrop for Puciato's eerie, tortured vocals. 'I think this album is actually hookier, but more insidious in that it reveals itself over time,' Puciato says about Infinite Games. His choice of words says something about the album's creeping, pitch-black approach to pop music.With this release, the group have also announced a new undertaking in the form of their new label, Federal Prisoner. Resisting the more marketing-centricapproach that feels standard at this point for the record label game, the goal of Federal Prisoner is to provide an outlet for projects that emerge naturally from The Black Queen's own creative endeavors and collaborations with otherartists. In a way, Federal Prisoner solidifies TBQ's commitment to creating music on their own terms, following the same organic sense of inspiration that led them to forming in the first place. As Puciato puts it, 'It's just an expression of passion and individualism in a way that opens more doors for us to create and to own what we create with minimal compromise. It's as much an act of refusal as it is a statement of intent.'Infinite Games, the second album from experimental Los Angeles synth-pop trio The Black Queen, comes out on September 28th

2x12"

Having made initial waves on Cold Recordings and Osiris, Eric Baldwin returns now to Tectonic to release his eponymous album ’Cocktail Party Effect’, bringing his South London roots to Berlin for an all-weekender, under strobe lights.

Drawn by his appetite for powerful rhythmical forms and inspired by the likes of Daphne Oram, The Residents and Captain Beefheart - Eric takes uses background in sound design, knowledge of hacking VST software and adapted spring reverbs and other hardware, to create a truly unique vision of contemporary electronic music. It sits somewhere between Jeff Mills, Aphex Twin & Squarepusher - held together by a connective UK Bass Music spinal chord. A weird but intriguing beast.

We open the track with Japanese cocktail recipes, before moving into the only vocal track of the album, ‘Talking To Bricks’ featuring Bristol vocalist Redders on fine form - charged with disjointed energy and run ragged across a technologically charged dancehall style beat. The LP progresses through the rolling breaks and bleeps of ‘For The Memory Exchange’, into an IDM side-step in the shape of ‘Brutalism’, moving into the gentle, beautiful flickering glitches of ‘PDA’, before we get to the hyperactive twitching alien charge of ‘War On Codex’.

Taking a leap in another direction, we reach ‘Cause For Bad Shelving’, which sounds a bit like Squarepusher when he was on late 90s, immaculate form - taking the tempo up a few notches, while building melancholy. ‘Lack Of Wrong Format’ then gives us a moment to breathe, before diving into ‘Deerhorn’ which brings us right back to the dancefloor. Things are then turned inside out with the jittery wonder of ‘I Get It (Lost Banknote)’, redirected via the industrial clangs of ‘Low_Rise’, before rounding off our sonic adventure with the ponderous tones of ‘Loner’ - which leave you glowing and drifting off into space.

A bold album that’s just brim with a strong sense of originality, direction and grand narrative. From international dancefloors to post-clubbing ear-worms, Cocktail Party Effect is just getting started and you’ll be hearing his name more and more now.

Self proclaimed "DJ from the sticks in Ireland", Ceili breathes diabolical energy to unforgiving imprint, Techno Is The Devil's Music. Following his "Rough n Ready" release on Obscuur, and a heap of killer sets - many at Techno institution, Jaded - Ceili's discerning ear, honed skills and sense of self shine through in this release. TITDM02 blends hardcore club vibes with melodic, euphoric elements for a sound that's heavy-hitting, yet fresh and exciting.

TITDM002 drops March 13th, via Techno Is The Devil's Music. Frantic opener, "Stern Morning Shake", is a transcendental thumper - booting off hard with an ethereal overlay, note Ceili's tempting dancers into a trance whirlpool. "Straight Off The Plane" offers tripped out acid lines upon ominous rolling thunder. On the flip, "2000 and Ded" goes far beyond the rabbit hole. Rounding out the EP, "Time Is No More" is hard hitting, with little room for respite despite Ceili's mesmerising, robotic interludes. Strobes, dark corners, incentive to dance - TITDM02 is for the ravers.

The consistently innovative Catch Recordings is back with a new EP from Leipzig based producer U+00C5. As always with this label, the music is right from the cutting electronic edge and finds this stylish producer blur the boundaries between ambient, dub and techno in evocative new ways.

Cult favourite U+00C5 is focussed on new musical forms, on modern sounds and redefining the European techno sound. He consistently pushes forwards and is a master of the interplay between hypnotic repetition and otherworldly abstractionism, all while drawing on dark ambient and drone. Once again here the producer who also works as Åmethyst is in fine form across all five tracks.

Atmospheric opener 'Blutdruck' is a deep techno roller that fizzes with a sense of post-industrial dystopia. The shadowy grooves are eventually backlit by subtle chords that bring real warmth and soul. The excellent 'Empfinden' is more high tempo but just as cavernous and absorbing thanks to the rolling rubber drums, distant synth drones and sci-fi motifs that add the all important details which keep your head as engaged as your heel.

The beautiful 'Taumel' is another slice of hypnotic and tunnelling techno embellished with gorgeous ambiance from the outer edges of our galaxy. 'Nichts Ist Wahr' closes things out with suspensory pads giving you the feeling that you are floating in space before the firmly rooted drums rumble on and take you into the next dimension.

This is another fascinating EP of club ready but seriously heady sounds from Catch Recordings.

Another win for the Glowing Pin as Müller & Wandt drop a fresh new age groover on a killer club dub tip. Elsewhere Phazer Boys, Suzanne Kraft, Philipp Otterbach and River Yarra remix the pscht out of their favourite tracks from ‘Instrumentalmusik..’. Expect Goan hits, cosmic trips, loved up rave and chilled out wave on this flawless five tracker.

Growing Bin becomes Glowing Pin for the most anticipated rematch of the century. Back at the beginning of 2018, Wolf Müller and Niklas Wandt went head to head for a box office smash, throwing a high school percussion tray, wall of hardware and voodoo skull into the ring for the tribal trip of ‘Instrumentalmusik Von Der Mitte Der World’. Now the multi-instrumental duo face off once again, but this time it’s a royal rumble with Phazer Boys, Suzanne Kraft, Phillip Otterbach and River Yarra all bringing the noise to the Glowing Pin.

Müller and Wandt dominate the action on the A1, playing loose with sampler vox, serene pads and future primitive rhythms on the unreleased ‘Fun Dub’ of the also unreleased ‘Dub Dub’. Imagine Ferris Bueller’s trampoline tumble trading Chicago to the Weissenhof and you’ll sense the mood of this New Age groove. Germany’s number one party dudes, those freaky Phazer Boys take a break from dropping killer Candomblé cuts to reach for the lasers on the A2, taking ‘Ahu’ to another dimension. Dripping in neon body paint and armed with fire poi, the Düsseldorf duo power up progressive house sequences, didgeridoo bass and thumping tribal house percussion for a wall-shaking, speaker-breaking remix.

The B1 belongs to synth whiz Suzanne Kraft who revels in glistening, gliding glory on an expansive remix of ‘Auflösung’. Sleek, serene and futuristic, the track shimmers like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, free from inequality and rendered with the 5D(ub?) majesty of a DMT breakthrough.
B2 hears Salon associate and serious talent Philipp Otterbach take over on a stripped back and psychedelic post punk dub of ‘Expedition’. Angular bass by Süne Große and a stuttering rhythm underpin astral flourishes and the hazy vocals of Lucas Croon before the African elements begin to move to the forefront.
Last man standing is Australian outlier River Yarra, who leads us into the Krautback with a chugging dub of ‘Weltraumsandalen’. Lent a lysergic sparkle by a percolating one-note bassline, this slow motion stunner masters perpetual motion amid the eerie echoes of the bush, organic percussion and electronic animal cries fading into the night. Let the pins glow again.

Patrick Ryder

B-tracks, the duo of Soren Jahan and John Barera, return with their first release together in many years. Unfolding across these six tunes is an extended EP of hard rocking, raw and rough house trax in the immutable b-tracks style – with no weak links. This loop digging, spliff making, track building duo have always been trying to channel the vibe of “real” and “proper” house and techno. B-Tracks are known for very successful and out of print club bombs like ìSpecializeî and ìCome Backî – as well as many headier and more techno oriented tracks. Here, they make their much welcome return to producing together.
Recorded in New York City and Berlin across a period of five years, these musicians were in no hurry to make this record. Rather, as always, they sought to make something timeless and classy that will make a lasting contribution to listeners and dancers. This record is a celebratory occasion, centered around the energy that could only come with two old friends working together, having fun and letting loose. ìWhat a Shameî is the B-Tracks vocal club bomb for 2020, hardwired to go off, catchy and bursting with energy. ìAlwaysî is vintage B-tracks – thumping, goosebump inducing house that expands and contracts. “What You Areî closes out side A with an introspective, yet still bumping slice of music.
On the flip, “Earth” unpacks their refined sense of melody, drama, and groove. ìSend Cashî is a pure beatdown for the DJs, and “Witness” closes out the EP in high style, with a soaring leads and strings, a celestial tune and a perfect end to this chapter. Don’t expect new releases to come very often from this Transatlantic duo, but when they do – it is something to really savor.

Visible Spectrum is the newly launched creative playground of Yuri Boselie, also known as Cinnaman. Since donning the Cinnaman alias nearly two decades ago, he’s become a well known figure of the Amsterdam nightlife scene with long running residencies at the city's most lauded clubbing institutions like Club 11, Trouw and most recently De School. Next to his DJ sets, he's made early moves in label curation with A&R work for Rush Hour and Kindred Spirits offshoot Nod Navigators, and with his own Beat Dimensions compilations in the late 00s. With Visible Spectrum — defined as the electromagnetic frequencies visible by the human eye — a new chapter is born. It is an outlet for electronic music in the widest sense. Each sleeve will have its own unique screen printed artwork by Marilyn Sonneveld.

The first EP comes from Mor Elian, the Berlin based artist and owner of the Fever AM label. Here she offers the loose and hypnotic rhythms of 'Clairvoyant Frog' which is deep and atmospheric, like some sort of primordial techno soup. 'Shoshana's Roses' then picks up the pace with layers of rumbling drums, wooden hits and snaking synths taking you into a steamy, humid jungle before closer 'Planet Kismet' is a much quicker and more urgent bit of enchanting break-beat techno with pummeling minimal drums and warped synths and perc getting you under their sci-fi spell. A fascinating first outing that sets a high standard from the off.

Kicking off 2020 in style, Life And Death welcome Madrid based groove maker Bawrut for some of his distinctly off kilter brilliance.
Italy born Bawrut makes warm, heartfelt electronic music that crosses the musical spectrum, doing so with a true left of centre perspective. He imbues his productions with weird and wonderful sounds and an exquisite sense of craft that make them both unusual and engaging. He has done so on the likes of his own Silencio label as well as Ransom Note and PETS Recordings and has become a mainstay of the DJ circuit as a result. Next to high profile shows at places like Nuit Sonores he has also toured as far afield as Vietnam, and here he brings some worldly perspective to this latest for DJ Tennis’ always cultured label, Life And Death.
First up is 'Rollin'', almost ten minutes of synth based excellence that takes you on a real sonic adventure. The drums are firmly rooted and hypnotic while the various pads up top unfold like aural fireworks. It's a tense track that never lets up and keeps you locked for the epic duration. Equally fantastic is 'Terza' with its twisted, tortured synth lines and vocal yelps all bringing real drama to the deep and rolling drums. It's a turbulent track to bring real edginess to the club. Lastly, the grinding 'Drum Beat' has a menacing bassline and tribal vocal stabs cut up with rave sirens. It's a sweaty, strobe lit monster that takes you to the heart of the dance floor.
These are three perfectly slow-release but high impact tracks from this ever more vital talent.

The hyper talneted Stellar Om Source (NOT NOT FUN, RVNG, NO 'LABEL) blowing up new styles on this one!

"If there is one thing that leaps out from Stellar OM Source’s music, it is the sense of a highly active mind at work. There is an indivisible feeling that a real person is behind this dynamic flurry of tones, waves, vibrations and modulations. On I See Through You, the first full Stellar OM Source release in over four years, the spark that first LP piqued the interest of so many listeners is glowing stronger than ever.

In the 2010's, Christelle Gualdi carved a name as one of the most essential live electronic musicians around, dazzling dancers and home listeners in kind with her bombastic, acidic hardware jams. Circumstances outside her control forced a stop for the Stellar OM Source project. It was touring, including two shows in the summer of 2019 at Dekmantel Festival and Listen! that Gualdi credits as year highlights, which proved to be the integral jump-start to the engine.

Inspiration came rushing back thanks to the human connection of performing. Seeing a younger generation connect with her put fresh charge into the circuitry of her gear. All this accrued into new material on the road, and thus I See Through You was born.

The spirit of 2013’s cult favourite Joy One Mile is alive and well on I See Through You. There is once again immediacy, urgency and lust. But Stellar OM Source stepping into a comparatively more poppy and playful mode on these four tracks could also throw some. Fundamentally she says, it comes from a similar place, and ends with an enmeshed and positive outcome. Gualdi credits both “1995 rave” and “the clarity, bass and breath” of hi-def hip-hop productions as being twin northern stars for her to follow.

The artwork comes from friend and highly respected photographer & director Pierre Debusschere, whose work similarly flits between arresting close-ups and, well, the widescreen luxe of Beyoncé videos. “I’m definitely not a purist anymore,” Gualdi laughs – and with club-ready impact meeting human warmth, this shows in abundance.

“Night Alone” wastes no time in getting the listener up to speed. Is that an LFO sample running through “Night Alone”? Is this a lost Metro Area classic? Is that Stellar OM Source taking a diversion into searching Ibiza-rousing vocal for a moment, or did we imagine that in a heat haze? Where are the kicks? Oh there they are. How many elements are buried and revived within just over five minutes?
It’s hard to tell. Before we know it, “Lost Codes” is up and away, keeping pulses racing. A pitter-patter of baby kicks feel like a pre-tremor before a welting electro-Italo lead crashes into play. With fizzing energy, rasping synths and a frisson of danger, fans of Unit Moebius and The Hacker will be doing somersaults of joy.

“White Echoes” wastes kicks off the flip side with low gurgles descending briefly like a UFO reverse parking into the spot SOS had vacated. Soon, 303s are twisting like Chinese burns while warm chords offer a salve. The mood maintains on “Wild Palms”, the only song on this record not to feature additional mixing work from Peaking Lights’ dub-wise sensei Aaron Coyes.

True to form, the B2 is all Stellar: elements switching up and out, with all the fun and frenzy of capital-L Live action. Kick drums and bassline darting back and forth like a synchronised swimming routine, all elements in concert. The momentum of a runaway mine cart that you can’t help but strap yourself to. I See Through You is one for the dancers who have given Stellar OM Source the motive to move forward once again."

ALTA’s debut release, 'Reasons' is the product of many long nights making music together in a back room at Hannah and Julius’ Brunswick home. It was self-recorded over 10 months, from January 2018 to November 2018, using midnight sessions, tape delay effects and a literal room full of wall to wall synths to carve out a world all their very own. "It's a collection of songs written together in our home studio - No cowriters or anything, just us two experimenting making the music,” says the band.

The album was later mixed by Seekae’s George Nicholas in Sydney and mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound (Rihanna, Janelle Monae, Chvrches).

Thematically, the album’s title alludes to the sense of complacency that often sets in when people start making excuses for themselves.
“It’s this internal thing,” Julius explains, ‘always coming up with reasons why things did or didn’t happen, or reasons why someone else did something. Often it’s self-preservation but it’s also bullshit.”

‘Push’ follows on from previous singles ‘Figured Out’, ‘Back On It’ and ‘Twisted’, which have just under 2 million streams on Spotify since their release and are receiving global attention, with spins on BBC Radio 1 and praise from the likes of The Line of Best Fit and CLASH.

At streaming, ALTA have seen huge support locally and internationally, with their 2019 releases featuring in Spotify’s New Music Fridays, Indie Arrivals, The Local List, Just Chill, Front Left, New Dance Beats and The Office Stereo, plus Best Of The Week on Apple Music.

Melbourne fans will witness ALTA performing tracks from Reasons for the first time ever at Northcote Social Club on Saturday 5 October. Tickets are on sale now via Northcote Social Club’s website.

Reasons is an intricate and emotional body of work that will see ALTA step out from Melbourne’s underground scene, and into the international limelight. Pre-order your copy today.

Derek Neal is a Turin based producer born in Vermont (USA). He started his DJ'in career as an undergraduate student at his college radio station and since then he's been cultivating his interest in house and techno music. Fostered by his brother's own producer career, who goes by the name of Motions and is 1/3 of the Montreal collective 00:AM, Derek pushed further his own interest in production to the point of proposing a set of tracks to Funnuvojere Records. Probably struck by the simplicity and effectiveness of Derek's sound, the Berlin label agreed on releasing Reason Machine, Derek's debut EP.? A comforting sound distinguishes this record, it is gentle and deep at the same time. If A1 - Sky City feels like diving in calm water, A2 - Jet Fuel could soundtrack a romantic date. On the flip B1 - October has a cinematic personality, envisioning a urban landscape, while B2 - Stereosense expresses a special dynamicity of sound.? Don't get tricked by my rather emotional introduction though, Neal knows about beats and you'll hear. From breakbeat to funk, Chicago house to dub this EP is all-round a delightful expression of contemporary club music.

Planning the imminent arrival of the 50th release on Touchin’ Bass, label boss Andrea Parker was digging through the warehouse during a stock take and it became apparent that there was something missing. There was a gap in the catalogue numbers. Where was TB036? Searching the archives it transpired that, for one reason or another (not least Parker’s inability to count), there actually wasn’t one.

So what better way to backfill this now documented gap than to welcome the multitalented guitarist and drummer, mathematician and multidisciplinary improviser Maria Gamboa Perez into the Touchin’ Bass fold with an updated focus for 2019.

Perez combines elements of rage, chaos, tension and anguish to form a visceral style. Her musical terrain and talent is shaped by dissonance and NO art. Under the moniker NonZero!, Perez brings Matrix Equation to the fore; a heavy 8 track EP with electro aesthetics from none other than Carl Finlow Scarletron/Silicon Scally/Voice Stealer.

Beginning her artistic career as a teenager playing as a bassist and guitarist in groups with influences from Noise, Avant Garde and the No-Wave, Perez was introduced into several areas of electronic music during the club culture years in Madrid and opted for styles such as Electro or Industrial, at which point she began to be interested in the introduction of rhythm boxes together with traditional drums.

Her passion for sound synthesis and musical exploration led Perez to introduce electronics into a solo project under the pseudonym NonZero!. Under this name she aims to make electronic music her field of sound research and for years has been continuously searching for existing relationships between sound and mathematics, focusing on the perceptual limit between music and noise.

Matrix Equation indulges in an evidential brooding angst, shifting between abstraction and the kind of elevated introspection carefully harvested over the years. With dramatic frontage in parts, blasts of boisterous energy and machine mayhem, its deployment of surprise, shifting focus and spontaneity operate in an assured statement.

Splintered beats and a foreboding sense of tension give way to a more DJ friendly logic of instinctive introductions and codas of gradual builds and breakdowns as Finlow further reworks the results to great effect.

Autarkic describe himself as first and foremost a songwriter but he has also made a name for himself as an international DJ. Over the past three years the musician based In Tel Aviv has, with great success, played clubs throughout all of Europe. One extra memorable gig was on last year's edition of Convenanza in the amphitheatre in Sete, France. Rumour has it that the sea living mammals of the area flocked in large groups in the waters below during Autarkic's gig.

This 12'' record is his first release on Hoga Nord Rekords and the slightly psychedelic, sample- and synthesiser based club music that has become Autarkic's trademark sound is captured by an impeccable production. The music is playful, yet stripped down to the essentials and not overloaded. The vocal elements works more as percussive elements than the carrier of the storytelling in the music.

If you missed him live or just don't have the means to go see him, this record give a taste of Autarkic's hypnotic live performances!

Here we are with our 12th vinyl release. We're really proud of our back catalogue, and even prouder to be able to add more to it. And what better way to expand our portfolio than by inviting yet another exciting artist to join our 12" club. And this artist is Ricky Force - a man who's seen it all in the more breakbeat-oriented face of drum & bass, pushing his trademark intricate percussion programming since 1999, releasing quality music on labels such as Reinforced, Repertoire, Omni Music, Pinecone Moonshine, DSCI4 or 117, and now finding home with us.

Without further ado, here's Ricky Force and his latest single - a pair of not your usual 170-BPM masterpieces leaning heavier towards roots vibes, jungle, halfstep, and dub (Ricky's from DUBlin, so it makes total sense). "Ecstasy" starts with a looped vocal bit that leads the listener on towards a thick bush overgrown with full-bodied kicks, sharp, frantic breaks, and a bassline composed of massively booming bits that are bound to keep you on your toes, especially if you have the chance to enjoy it on some proper soundsystem.

"Firehouse Dub" is, in turn, a solid halfstepper strongly rooted in jungle revivalism. It marches slowly and steadily, unfolding some interesting stories on the way - a series of thickly-arranged broken beats, a pack of blares, some vocal bits here and there. Put together, they create an amazing mixture of classic sounds organized up to modern-day standards with surgical precision only Ricky Force is capable of. A true feast for all those into the less polished and more true-school shades of drum & bass.

Felix Lee has created a world for his debut album “Inna Daze“, a kind of post-human environment where the sun never really rises and everything is lit with a burnt out glow. These are survival ballads for the near future, whose vocals, mutated to fit into this setting, drift in a haze of dissociation. Musically, at first glance, it's sparse and minimal but with continued immersion, subtle iridescent-light shadows shimmer around grainy colour, sub bass rises through kicks and snares retooled from their surroundings, not so much refixed as decaying. Felix has been here before in his incarnation as Lexxi, making his debut appearance on Total Freedom’s 2012 “Blasting Voice“ compilation, and as a co-producer on Elysia Crampton's “Demon City“ album. He then went on to release his first instrumental EP “5TARB01” in 2016 on his own imprint Endless. He also runs an NTS show of the same name, along with previously holding raves, cross pollinating and interacting with the vanguard of the electronic underground. The punky crunch of those earlier releases is reflected in tracks like “Smoke” made with long time collaborator and southside resident Kamixlo. These club moments inevitably give way to the vocals, conveying a feeling of loss and renewal. Intended to exist both inside and outside the club, it's an electronic music that at times feels like a skeletal take on shoegaze, solidifying that feeling with the intense rising synths of the album closer “Slow Decay“.
Inna Daze's features include Drain Gang members Ecco2k and Whitearmor, Yayoyanoh, Quantum Natives' Oxhy, and Gaika, as well as Felix making his debut as a vocalist, his voice filtered through effects to give it a slippery, steam-like texture, echoing around the songs, giving them a second skin of sensed abstraction. One of the most thoughtful and interesting debuts of 2019, “Inna Daze“ beckons the listener into its simultaneously toxic and beautiful sound-world. Keeping enough distance to provoke more questions than answers, the album unfolds in a different way on every listen.

Will Saul is a key figure in UK dance music. Approaching his twentieth anniversary as a DJ, producer and label founder, Saul has helped break the career of key artists such as Leon Vynehall, Midland and Dusky via his Aus Music label, has himself played some of the world’s finest nightclubs and contributed to !K7’s storied ‘DJ Kicks’ mix series, which he also curates.

Finally returning to the production fold himself with his first full-length album in thirteen years, ‘Open Too Close’ is a condensed trip through the influences, discovery and sense of history that have helped shape his career and drive a forward-facing, unblinking passion for new music. The record’s concept reflects Will’s enormous skill and knowledge as a DJ, and as it’s title suggests, “"represents what I play in a club if an 8 hour set was condensed into 10 tracks.”

Having held residencies and made regular appearances at some of the world’s finest clubs including The End and Fabric in London, Panorama Bar in Berlin, Trouw in Amsterdam and Robert Johnson in Offenbach, Saul is uniquely qualified but this refreshingly straightforward approach. Eschewing the lingering, almost cliched expectations for a dance artist to create an album “that sounds good at home, as well as in the club”, ‘Open Too Close’ instead draws on the timeless futurism at the heart of the music that drew Saul into electronic music culture. Simply put, futuristic, melancholic sci-fi soundscapes meets stripped back raw sample driven house music, all executed with the precision and panache of an artist who truly understands how to move a dancefloor.

Clear Vinyl

BNJMN returns to Bright Sounds with Sensei; following on from the foundations laid by his "Final Network" EP released in the spring of 2018 he again showcases the melodic, yet hypnotic and pulsating side of his sound that he has become renowned for.

Starting with the almost house-like "Soared Above" synths fly over syncopated rhythms which build and then descend into something harsher and earthier.

"Intercellular" goes somewhat harder, yet still retaining the hypnotism and lightness of touch which will suit most hours in the club.

The title track is an exercise in restraint, one for the early hours when everything blurrs and only the space in between the sounds carry you along.

"Walking Into Yourself" showcases the dreamiest side of BNJMN, in slowing down the BPM the producer shows the intricate details of his sound, letting the listener in on a dense forestlike journey.

Back in stock!

Extracting a rich sense of emotion from an evolving analogue set-up, Hammer follows up his previous FMB outings Dahlia and C-Space with a similar tone and sound palette as he lays out a new EP with 3 tracks that capture the Feel My Bicep sound perfectly, striking the balance between delicate melody and power with aplomb. This EP follows what has been a heavy 2019 gig schedule, with stand out sets at many top festivals and clubs such as Glastonbury, Panorama Bar and Parklife, along with both an Australian and Indian tour under his belt. The lead track ‘Parabola’ manifested as a slow burning percussive experiment that, as Hammer explains, ‘quickly got fired up by an extra 10bpm for the dance floor effect, turning itself into an acid led epic’ and as a consequence accidentally becoming the A1 at the same time. ‘Parabola’ is followed by ‘Panoptic’ and ‘Entropy’; all three track names inspired by his recent love for physics podcasts. He describes how ‘they are based around types of curvatures and levels of order that, in my head, are the visualisation of the 3 tracks inside workings; the engine room of the time machine.’ All three tracks were created with Hammer’s much loved Yamaha CS1-X, ‘a spaceship in its own right’, he explains. ‘A Xoxbox and a Roland SH-2 did the rest of the hard work. Time to enter the twilight zone with this one’! Bicep continue to add substance to what has now become a distinctive and singular label with this new 12" courtesy of their long term friend and blog contributor Hammer. With their previous offering from James Shinra still in many roving record bags and with a release catalogue full until the end of the year, the development of the label has reached a certain zenith and here - as head strong and highly effective as ever - Hammer makes a welcome return to the label with another batch of machine-driven dance tracks.After 12 years of promoting parties in Glasgow, The Hammer Hits goes on tour inviting guests such as Sally C, Jennifer Cardini and fellow FMB signee Cromby across the UK, Ireland and Berlin.

Will Saul is a key figure in UK dance music. Approaching his twentieth anniversary as a DJ, producer and label founder, Saul has helped break the career of key artists such as Leon Vynehall, Midland and Dusky via his Aus Music label, has himself played some of the world’s finest nightclubs and contributed to !K7’s storied ‘DJ Kicks’ mix series, which he also curates. Finally returning to the production fold himself with his first full-length album in thirteen years, ‘Open Too Close’ is a condensed trip through the influences, discovery and sense of history that have helped shape his career and drive a forward-facing, unblinking passion for new music. The record’s concept reflects Will’s enormous skill and knowledge as a DJ, and as it’s title suggests, “"represents what I play in a club if an 8 hour set was condensed into 10 tracks.” Having held residencies and made regular appearances at some of the world’s finest clubs including The End and Fabric in London, Panorama Bar in Berlin, Trouw in Amsterdam and Robert Johnson in Offenbach, Saul is uniquely qualified but this refreshingly straightforward approach. Eschewing the lingering, almost cliched expectations for a dance artist to create an album “that sounds good at home, as well as in the club”, ‘Open Too Close’ instead draws on the timeless futurism at the heart of the music that drew Saul into electronic music culture. Simply put, futuristic, melancholic sci-fi soundscapes meets stripped back raw sample driven house music, all executed with the precision and panache of an artist who truly understands how to move a dancefloor.

This record contains: filters, singing, Polish railways samples, the right touch of big beat and melodies & it can help you clean the air of the club.

Solpara is an agile performer, both in sense of the nature of his live acts, background and tour schedule. Brutaż is also about nimbleness and acrobatics so it was only logical for their paths to cross. Both are connected with record dealing (Record Loft, Berlin and Halcyon, NY, respectively) and both are emotional and undergoing changes.

Contrary to his previous endeavours (incl. on Nicolas Jaar's Other People), Solpara's release does not quite want you to relax, it's fast and slow, it's emotional and rackety, it's fire and water. This Lebanese-American raconteur seem to have a similar goal to Polish complainers of Brutaż - records are not meant to wreak havoc, their purpose is to refresh the perimeter. Woda różana stands for "rose water" - it's about scent, touch & flavour.

Since completing his two-decade-long hip-hop trilogy as Dabrye in 2018, Ann Arbor-based artist and Bopside label head Tadd Mullinix has engaged his arsenal of aliases with renewed heat. First came the debut of X-Altera, a new project flexing a wildstyle hybrid of drum & bass and deep techno. Now, he returns to James T. Cotton, a moniker which dates back as far as Dabrye and helped define Spectral Sound, the dance imprint of Ghostly International. While historically tagged as Mullinix’s acid house alias, JTC has always expressed with a more pliable sense of genre, freely fusing an eclectic blend of classic electronic sounds; helpings of Chicago acid, Belgian New Beat, and the leftfield techno stylings popularized both in Berlin and Detroit. With Indigo, Flesh and Fire, Mullinix moves closer to the latter city, adopting a bright, optimistic tone informed by minimalism and futurism.

"I have been more withdrawn and introspective on a personal level, in a positive sense, and I think that fact has made my creativity reach toward feelings about peace, positivity, fantasy, wonder, and openness,” says Mullinix.

The EP is packed, but still playfully ambiguous; a club-ready set built to max out mixing boards with spacious and nuanced melodies and motorized percussion. Five tracks, each with roughly five-minute run-times, offering all but a few breaths in a quest for highly operative dancefloor hypnosis. The record wastes little time locking in; on the first track, “Innerloire Rendezvous,” a dense square kick plows through a brisk four-on-the-floor routine phasing over harmonious synth stacks of rubbery fifths and sevenths. The title track splatters a lenticular static spray between thumping kick, billowy melodic swells, and staticky clicks, snaps, and claps.

Mullinix’s distilled musical vocabulary, developed by his many years in the game, gives the set a misty-eyed quality without compromising its contemporary merit. This is music, inspired by history but fiercely forward-thinking, that feels both subterranean and airborne; in the grind on the ground and soaring above in an iridescent super-charged fog.

key selling points: - Debut release on Spectral Sound - Past releases on Firm Tracks, Nite Owl Diner, Sweat Equity, FCR, Clave - Limited to 300 copies worldwide.

‘One of our favourites’ iD Magazine

‘Mesmerizing’ The Guardian

‘Keep an eye on this guy!’ - Gilles Peterson


Catching Flies’ music draws from a wide-ranging palette of influences including jazz, soul, hip-hop, house and electronica and has previously seen him handpicked by Bonobo to provide support on his World Tour. Over the past few years, his music has gathered the support of Gilles Peterson, Annie Mac, Lauren Laverne, Julie Adenuga & Huw Stephens, critical acclaim from the likes of iD Magazine, The Guardian, Dazed & Confused, and Nowness, and a growing fanbase which has seen him perform both Live and DJ sets across the UK, Europe, the USA and Asia. This has culminated in over 60,000,000 streams to date.

Catching Flies is set to release debut album ‘Silver Linings’ on 5th July 2019. Containing shades of house and jazz, to hip-hop and electronica, ‘Silver Linings’ is a melodic mesh of bright electronics and intricate rhythms. It’s a beautiful, moving record, with sounds that unmistakably come straight from the heart.

Producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ George King began Catching Flies in late 2012, when he recorded and self released his first two EPs. With huge radio and press support around the world - including multiple #1’s on Hype Machine, BBC Radio support from Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Lauren Laverne, Tom Ravenscroft, Nemone, Annie Mac, Huw Stephens; praise from i-D, Dazed, The Guardian, Complex, Notion, The Line Of Best Fit, Clash, Dummy and more - he’s since attracted millions of listeners.

Against his instincts he signed with a big management agency and got talking to a label: it almost derailed his career. He explains “What I'd found so inspiring originally was the total freedom to make a tune on my own terms and just decide to put it out the next week. There was a hunger that came with that, and a sense of achievement from being the driving force, but as soon as I tampered with that ecosystem, it wasn't as exciting anymore”.

Touring with electronic music giant Bonobo - who also included him on his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix - allowed him to watch up close someone who had taken a slow and steady path from tiny clubs in Brighton to arenas worldwide, and see it was possible to do without any compromise. After being teased through a succession of warmly received singles this past year, and seven years on from that first EP recorded and released from his bedroom, his debut album ‘Silver Linings’ is now ready to be revealed.

“It's taken me a while because I didn't want to speak until I had something to say. I wanted to make something positive, hopeful and colourful...The world isn't in the best place at the moment, and the last thing it needs is another dark and moody electronic record. I wanted ‘Silver Linings’ to be a scrapbook of the last three years. It’s definitely eclectic, and it’s supposed to be. Over three years a lot changes, your perspectives change, your tastes change; and I wanted to celebrate that by picking tracks that meant the most to me. One of my favourite things about making music is that it takes me right back to where I made it - the keyboard I used, the chair I was sitting on, the room I was in. It kind of teleports you back to a certain point in your life. A bit like a diary entry.”

Recalling those moments brings back a range of memories: ‘Satisfied’ began by being tapped out on a £15 keyboard bought from Kentish Town Cash Converters, ‘Yǔ’ was made in the mountains of China during a few days off from touring, while an evening on Hampstead Heath inspired ‘Kite Hill Theme’. Also featuring on the album is ‘New Gods,’ a collaboration with London’s bright stars Jay Prince and Oscar Jerome and the beautiful and meditative ‘Opals,’ inspired by the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto.

Catching Flies is already looking to the future, closing the first chapter in an exciting and inspiring story, ‘Silver Linings’ is only the beginning.

“A few weeks after I finished the album, I moved out of my house I made all the music in, so it feels like the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another. I can’t wait to make the next one now.”

Canadian John Varuhin serves up the second tasteful EP on Clyde Records , a sublime minimal techno affair across 4 standout tracks.

This Vancouver artist is a techno DJ and producer who has also played a purely digital live set in the past. He has a clean, crisp style that comes back from the future and is rich in hi fidelity details that make it truly cinematic.

Opener ‘ Bunker ’ is a spacious track with gooey kick drums rolling deep as slithers of synth and tiny metallic sounds glint and glisten up top. It’s perfectly transcendental, while the excellent ‘ Retribution ’ picks up the pace with a sense of silky techno urgency. The unsettl ing sound of distant automation and darkened synths recall the best of Motor City techno and ensure this one will have the floor locked in.

The expertly designed ‘ Rainy Day ’ is pure minimalism, with icy hi hats and scuttling little details sure to find favour with fans of Robert Hood. Hugely atmospheric and absorbing, it’s the sort of deep and late night track that’s designed for intimate club rooms. Last of all, ‘ Detached Screen ’ is another deep, rolling, perfectly elongated groove design to melt your mind and trap you in the beautiful repetition.

This is a classy and timeless EP of meticulously crafted minimal techno.

Long time underground innovator Illja Rudman returns with "Sagittarii", a fourth fantastic studio album and his second on Bearfunk.

As boss of both Red Music and Imogen Recordings, as well as being a skilled DJ and diverse producer, Rudman has been an integral part of dance music for years. The Croatian effortlessly veers from electro to disco to house with his own colourful sense of melody and club-ready grooves and has done so on more than 70 releases on labels like Classic, Rong, Electric Minds and Is It Balearic Recordings. This superb new album lands just a year after

his last, "Paradigma", and is another subtle evolution in his style but one that continues to deal in authentic analogue textures with flashes of throwback funk and disco gold and a slick sense of boogie.

Things open up with the glistening future-retro chords of "Dreamscape Planet" a quick,upbeat cut that is ready made for dancing in the sun with its majestic strings and nimble basslines. "Cosmia (Regal Mix)" is another bit of engagingly urgent disco funk with clipped drums racing along beneath heart melting chords. The stylish "If I Keep My Eyes Closed (Mezzanine Mix)" slows things down, with a snaking bassline and wallowing chords making for more cosy and intimate listening while "Synthia 2000" is a more playful cut with wiggling bass and withering chords that bend space and time as you get down and boogie.

The gorgeous glossiness continues with another tight bit of disco-funk lushness on "6th Floor Entrance (Guardians Gate Mix)" and "S.O.S. Flight Theme" serves up some rugged bass lines and mad xylophone patterns on top of corrugated drums that will get any club in a spin this summer. Closing things down in the tropical tinged exotica of "Techniques & Tactics (Nocturnal Mix)" with its long legged drums, blissful Balearic vibes and superb sunset stylings.

This is an album that brims with cosmic disco energy, emotion and excellence from start to finish.

Calling Marcelle a DJ doesn’t wholly represent what she’s doing. (Three) turntables and a mixer is more the medium that she uses to create and share sounds, ideas and moments.

The same goes for her own productions. They don't have a fixed style, as can be heard on all five EP's released by the Munich label Jahmoni since 2016. They are free in attitude and music and cross boundaries between genres. Most tracks are a collision of ideas, a magically gritty, self-aware car crash as if Muslimgauze grew up in sunny Lisbon with the Principe crew as opposed to the grim North of England.

On her new LP 'One Place For The First Time' we find nine tracks brimming with ideas that ignore stale production norms. Sure, the pulsing drum 'n' bass-esque 'Hippies Use Side Door' is weirdly danceable, just like the cackling stomp of 'Respect Caged Animals', but can we dance to 'Technicians And Their Smoke Machines'? (Answer: We’d certainly enjoy trying). It's almost a jazz song, but like with everything Marcelle does, it's jazz from a different world and has proven to be a dancefloor smash when she’s played out the dubplate over recent months.

Marcelle's life-long love for far-out dub is clear in 'Dub (Dub)' and 'Respect My Snack Foods' is in the same 'educational' tradition as was the song about how to deal with constipation (olive oil!) from the 2018 'Psalm Tree' EP. Now we learn how to apologise. 'The Mother Of All Messes' (a UK newspaper headline about Brexit) introduces perhaps a more tender side, a comforting nursery rhyme plays while a muffled kick occasionally growls with distortion - as if it knows the importance of its place in the dance.

By the time the refrain of the intro track returns it seems to carry more significance, Marcelle has made her point quite clear. Defiant til the end… ‘Don’t touch the table!’ This particular sample is taken from Marcelle's legendary Boiler Room performance at 2018's Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda where the MC of the event repeatedly declares that 'She Plays Vinyl' and therefore asks 'Don't Touch The Table!'. It goes without saying that the latter song is full of banging on the table noises.

The sleeve - as always with Marcelle - is very colourful and features photos of knitted egg cosies and images related to individual songs. It's a bit of a puzzle to find out which photo connects to which song, an enjoyable challenge, just like the LP itself.

Shining on lineups whether they’re cutting edge festivals, big clubs, touring circus shows or DIY garage venues comes naturally given she approaches all with the same mindset ('always the same, always different'), these causes are adopting her rather than the other way round.

Marcelle is a genuine innovator who remains inherently relevant by not following trends, not focusing on technicalities, having a sense of humour, dissolving obsolete structures, being excited, defying others rules while creating new ones, eschewing #tagline posers and ‘tasteless A&R wankers’, supporting artists that need it, supporting places that need it, supporting people who need it and not giving a fuck for as long as possible.

And HUGELY welcome living proof that you can excel in doing things differently and having a bloody good time n all.

James Marrs, London, March 2019