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Essen's own Glenn Astro has called his first album Throwback, and the name is at once a perfect fit and not nearly the extent of the story. On the one hand, Astro has filled the double-LP with a wealth of old-school gestures and textures—the warm whoosh of analog synths, the rattle of Rhodes tines and the sizzle of jazzy drums,all held together by the comforting glue of tape hiss and vinyl crackle. If you're used to the clean sonic lines and stylistic streamlining of so much contemporary house music, then Throwback is sure to feel less like a record you just pulled out of plastic wrap than a well-seasoned one salvaged from a flea market or unfinished basement. And yet like so many Tartelet releases—particularly the label's last two full-lengths,
Max Graef's Rivers of the Red Planet and Uffe's Radio Days—it feels fresh and keenly contemporary no matter how vintage the fabric. Rather than throw back to any one moment, he's given us a collage of styles that's quite literally timeless. Astro makes brilliant work of his influences, drawing on hip-hop, house, funk and soul in such equal measure that it's hard to argue that one impulse dominates the other. The sound certainly flirts with the dance floor, with Astro applying highpressure
deep house pads on the title cut, gliding on shimmering keys for "One For Viktor," and taking us on a vibraphone-fueled workout with "Kilometer Disco," one of a pair of cuts featuring Max Graef. But Astro obviously relishes the time he spends on the sidelines absorbing the atmosphere, or at home head-nodding to the dustiest corners of his record collection. For every house beat you hear, you'll also dip into juicy, 90's-style beat science, toasty ambience and buttery chord progressions.
Expertly paced but never hustling you along, Throwback begs to be heard as a whole but explored at your own easy pace—a record for hazy mornings-after, vibey
nights in and endless summer afternoons.

"Aquatic System"" is the second installment of the series, written and composed in two remote geographical places - namely at waters in Finland and Fuerteventura. Inspired by the complexity of water, its movement, various forms, inhabitants and hidden energy, the album was assembled mainly using synthesizers and processed field recordings of the ponds, streams, lakes and oceans of the different locations. With a vibrant story and conceptualization the focus lies in taking the listener on a observing, thoughtful and reflective journey through the aquatic system of our waters. Aquatic System opens with an impression of a frozen surface imagining icy and calm underwater movements underneath. Soon a slow process of melting begins and while the water starts to move in tiny streams of sound, small lifeforms evolve, curiously sending out small pulses in their flowing and constantly moving habitat. The aquatic nature awakens. Zooming out to larger waters high frequencies arise and colliding forms become audible. Larger marine life forms can be faintly heard when entering a much wilder environment, sensing sound-swirls of wind, foaming water tops and impressive large waves crashing on dark rocks. Finally ending at the shore, where the great ocean appears on the horizon, the environment is surrounded with moisture. From the calm reflective landscape derives an inward moment, recalling the organic and atmospheric quality of the sound journey. ""Aquatic System"" has been developed into an audiovisual performance together with visual artist Emilia Kwiatkowska and was performed several times in Spain and Finland, before the music has been finalized for the tracks.

"...don't ask if there will ever be a Volume 2. We don't know yet. What we do know is that if we ever come across a similar tour de force as Don McCaslin's composition, Praise Poems, then there will certainly be one..." These were the final words of the sales notes for Praise Poems Volume 1 - which we proudly released earlier this year. And indeed, since then, we have discovered a tune which led us to continue to curate this series of obscure, soulful, jazzy and spiritual sounds from back in the day. The song to which we refer to is Abraham Battat's jazz-samba masterpiece, Fly Away. Fly Away is a righteous combination of sonorous jazz guitar, crackling drums and warm acoustic piano. Floating through the tones as if in a private concert for you in your very living room, it is an earnest, honest vocal performance bringing a rainbow message of freedom and liberty to the world. This is the standard by which we judged the entirety of this compilation. Though they may be known in some circles, selections by Richard Martian, Larry Covin, and The Gingerbread Express are in the same category of pure beauty. Of course, good luck finding a copy of Larry Covin's Masquerade or the Portis Brothers' Summer Love. The single hit you receive while doing an online search is the exact same copy from which we took the master. To find a needle in a haystack is a cakewalk compared to turning up a copy of some of these gems to be found here.

Repress!

"Il corpo" is the last one of Luigi Scattini's trilogy, which started with "La ragazza dalla pelle di luna" (1972) and then continued with "La ragazza fuoristrada" (1973). Umiliani's music privileges jazz and funky moods, dominated by the Hammond organ and wah wah, alternated with languid and almost "sleazy" instrumental ballads. This soundtrack finds its strength in melancholy, but also in drama and tension.

This is the story of C POWERS. To understand OYSTERS, you must understand the man behind it all...
THE UNITED STATES TERRITORY OF GUAM, ca. 1989
Abandoned at the island nation's only beachfront techno club as an infant, young Christoph (C POWERS) was adopted by the club's owner, Geraldo Powers. During Geraldo's time as a naval officer, he traveled the world throughout rave's formative years, secretly going to the underground parties when arriving to European ports after having originally fallen in love with early house music as a teenager in his native Chicago via roller-rink parties and the legendary Music Box headed by Ron Hardy. Rear Admiral Geraldo, outed as a gay homosexual during the discriminatory days of Ronald Reagan's U.S. military, was forced to retire, but spared a dishonorable discharge thanks to his roster of medals earning during his exemplary leadership for the invasion of Grenada in 1983.
Throughout his three year stay at the local naval base, the now 30-something Gerry Powers had been struck by the natural beauty and unsettling mysticism of Guam and its peoples and made the choice to permanently set up shop on the island after his unexpected retirement. Taking his partner and newly-crowned Supreme Butch Queen of the New York vogue circuit--Amadeus Lector--with him and financed with $6669.69 in prize money, the new era of DAS POUNDHAUS LTD. was to begin.
In 1990, Gerry founded the notorious Guamanian club DAS POUNDHAUS (the name of which was strongly influenced by a two-week long ecstasy and Polish speed-fueled bender during 1989's inaugural Love Parade in West Berlin). Located inside a decrepit lighthouse originally built during Spain's reign over the island, the club played host to a steady stream of closeted, Pacific-touring U.S. military personnel and later, the party-craving barons of the dot com bubble. Outed in private usenet circles for its off-the-charts hedonism, the club's infamous parties would inevitably lead to its perilous demise, and the eventual deportation of Gerry Powers and his family to the mainland.
But there was one thing that could never be taken away from them...
...synesthesia...
You see, young Christoph was diagnosed with the "disorder" as a pre-teen after having been exposed to nearly a decade of DAS POUNDHAUS first-hand and at such a young age. The youngster was like a fish in water during his childhood in Guam, but when the family was deported in 1999, he began to show signs of anxiety and depression. His ability to hear colors and see sounds had simply turned into a stream of incomprehensible, uncontrolled static. He was now a pariah among his peers. Shunned and admonished. Assigned to sit by himself during school lunch. One of "those" kids.
By this time, his two dads' relationship was on the rocks and would quickly unravel. Amadeus, frustrated with Gerry's incessant ramblings about bunkering in Montana because of the Clinton-Illuminati conspiracy to enslave the middle-class, decided to leave Gerry in an attempt to become a backup dancer for Madonna during her "Drowned World Tour" in 2001 (which would have provided a significant sum of financial security to the family, considering their life savings had been destroyed thanks to the toppling of the NASDAQ from its peak of 5048 in March of 2000--and thanks to those dot com baron stock tips, the Powers were all-in). However, Amadeus' unflinchingly "authentic" vogue style was considered obsolete, and he would go to die in a Reno Motel 6, a victim of drug abuse and that kind of thing apparently.
>>>>Fast-forward to the year2012ish>>>>

*A tough tune from vocalist Paul Fox who has carved out a steady stream of new roots reggae classics over the last two decades. Boasting an instantly-recognisable, unique and distinctive vocal style, here he teams up with top UK roots reggae label Partial on a tough steppers rhythm topped off with some tasteful guitar licks.
* On heavy rotation on dubplate throughout the UK and Europe, with play on several sound systems.
* Produced by the Partial Crew and mixed at Conscious Sounds studio, London.

Requiem for a dreamstate. It's possibly somewhere between heaven, hell and high water, down the Thames Delta towards Eden. It may involve techno and a distorted state or simply mates sat listening to music together, drifting on the open sea of their minds. This is Jon Hopkins' world, not so much joining the dots as colouring the whole damn picture in.

After releasing his debut album 'Opalescent' at the rookie age of 21 in 1999, he's gone on to work with Brian Eno and David Holmes, produced King Creosote and via Eno, worked on three Coldplay albums. He released the breakthrough album 'Immunity' in 2013, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

The story arc with which Hopkins succeeded on 'Immunity' makes its appearance on Late Night Tales too with a perfectly sculpted excursion on this widescreen mix. . Opening with the unreleased 'Sleepers Beat Theme' by composer Ben Lukas Boysen, ghostly pianos skip elegantly hither and thither, among rising strings, as on Darkstar's 'Hold Me Down'. Nils Frahm is here, his sonic palette perfect for the job, while labelmate A Winged Victory For The Sullen contribute 'Requiem For The Static King Part I'. Sigur Ros offshoot Jónsi & Alex's heroic 'Daniell In The Sea' sends us forth towards the Baltic with tears streaming.

Beats occasionally appear, as on the Grace Jones-sampling 'Yr Love' by Holy Other or the pair of Black Country acts Bibio and Letherette, whose 'After Dawn' is almost spry in comparison to the minor key symphonies on display here. The perfect contrast to this comes from Alela Diane's wistful 'Lady Divine' or even Four Tet's mesmerising 'Gillie Amma I Love You', with its enchanting kids' choir. Exclusive to this release, Jon Hopkins provides a startlingly vulnerable new piano version of Yeasayer's 'I Remember'.

Poet and fellow Brian Eno collaborator (their joint album 'Drums Between The Bells' was released by Warp in 2011) Rick Holland narrates the exclusive spoken word closer 'I Remember', underpinned with additional sound design by Hopkins.

"Putting this album together was a unique opportunity for me to present music that I have been listening to for years, free from the constraints of a club setting or from trying to stick to one genre. I chose tracks not just because they have been important to me but because of how they sit together, putting as much thought into the transitions and overall narrative as I did into the track choices. I mixed by key and by texture more than anything else, using original sound design, pivot notes, and often recording new synth or piano parts to link things together in a way that flows as naturally as possible." - Jon Hopkins, December 2014

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.

Poker Flat is gearing up to celebrate fifteen years strong, with a series of releases that will assure their standing as one of electronic music's best known and most loved imprints. Poker Flat's unwavering dedication to the finest underground house music has unearthed new talent, developed rising stars and welcomed veterans into the fold, and the first of the label's 15th anniversary compilations brings together four of the brightest leading lights of the scene. With four seminal labels - Raw Elements, Dessous, Traffic Signs and Poker Flat - to his credit, Steve Bug has little to prove, but the tireless artist has never been a slouch on the DJ and production front, as he's proven time and again. Tracks like 'A Shot In The Dark' showcased his musical chops, and tied together elements of classic warehouse sounds, deep and sophisticated production and an uncompromising techy edge. The anniversary reworking of the tracks made for 4 Jacks boasts the remix talents of Taylor, whose sleek approach chops up the old school piano chords of the original for a bumping, more streamlined result. Another smashing new remix features in the form of Boris Dlugosch's 2012 acid-disco-house hit 'Sweet Talk". Here The Organ Grinder crafts a bass-heavy monster with a walloping kick drum and syncopated handclaps that enhance Boris' acid melodies and make it rough and ready for underground tastes. Two brand new productions round out the Jacks package.

What do you do when you have a collection of Edits that have been working amazingly in your own sets and you're constantly being bugged by friends and fans about getting hold of them. Well, if you're Pets Recordings bosses Catz 'n Dogz you contact the original artists and agree an inclusion in a special new series of vinyl releases through the label... Welcome to PETS EDITS. 001 is the Catz 'n Dogz Edit of Blue Hawaii's 'Try To Be'. A track that has received an incredible response when played out and through their official soundcloud stream. Canadian duo Blue Hawaii have been releasing music since 2010 but it was their Untogether album from 2012 that really announced them on the world stage. Recorded throughout the Vancouver and Montreal Winter and Spring the album was said to reflect the vast world of self-awareness and delicacy. Try To Be instantly stood out for Catz 'n Dogz and became a firm ipod favourite on their global travels. A little tinkering and soon the guys had a version for their sets. The perfect blessing came from the band themselves who contacted the pair to let them know how much they liked it. Staying true to the original, Catz 'n Dogz underpin the Guitar line and beautifully melancholic vocals of Ra with a crisp understated 4/4 beat. On the flip and an exclusive vinyl only cut is the Catz 'n Dogz Edit of Shinedoe's 'Pure Groove'. Taking last years Bpitch Control original, the boys stripped it of its original synth breaks and sharpened it with a techier edge for their own sets. its been a fan favourite ever since and perfect track to kick off the Pets Edits series.

Hungarian producers duo 'Incident' present their first 12inch on Fokuz Recordings.'High Explain' is a piece of sublime and serene liquid drum and bass with its trumpets, rolling breaks, humming bass and blissed out atmospherics. On the flip 'Streamlight' provides a deeper touch to this EP with some bleepy beats in a sparse soundscape, glitchy FX and naughty synth play.

Hochwertiges Digi-Pack des Debut-Album !!!


A solitary shed by a lake. Surrounded by woods coated in ice. It's the deepest winter and the Pentatones quartet finds itself in the deserted nature of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern County. They are searching for sounds pulsating beyond instruments and machines. Inaudible Music this is, made sound by them only. By night the four move over the frosted lake, play the clarinet and put themselves in a chilly trance. Months later they will remember dimly these moments in the woods and cast them atmospherically into their album debut 'The Devil's Hand' with icy romance. Highly attentive to details, they have worked on it for 3 years. Since 2006 the Pentatones tinker with their tessellate electroacoustic sound, in whose center the voice of singer Delhia de France is floating. To friends of club music she might be known from her collabs with techno producers such as Marlow, Douglas Greed or Robag Whrume. With the Pentatones she combines her emotional timbre in various forms with the raw basslines by Hannes Waldschütz and the analog and electronic beats and samples by Julian Hetztel a.k.a. Le Schnigg. Albrecht Ziepert creates melodic moods on the keys, whose appeal one can hardly elude. Their kaleidoscopic arrangements dance between susceptibility and experi­ment. Enticing pop structures melt with crackling analog electronics - a mixture laid out to make dance at times, at times to chill. The ambiance of her compositions is gloomy, yet light-flooded in a certain way. It is most notably Delhias voice, which outshines everything, never standing still, meandering and spinning, opening up a new emotional space with every bre­ath. The computer with its infinite production possibilities is used in its function as another instrument. Together with the sampler it forms the center of action, processing everything, from voice to keys, which needs an artistic distancing effect. A contrabass is setting the pace at times, then again the brass accelerates the tracks highly emotively. In stylistic regards their compositions are never predictable. A touch of organic jazz here, a subtle hip-hop allusion there, accompanied by a moving club rhythm structure and Delhias captivating voice, which sings, then talks, and whispers in the next moment.
It's not only the infinite world of sound, which inspires them to their adventurously twisted compositions. For all members being equally active in the visual field, art plays an impor­tant role in the act of creating and in the overall concept of the Pentatones. This is being reflected in their life shows, acknowledged with much applause on festivals like 'Sonne, Mond und Sterne', the 'Fusion Festival' or 'Ars Electronica'. When they sample themselves during their concerts, modify their sound in real time and vividly interpret their songs, Delhia dances audaciously in extravagant, self-designed costumes in haughty reserve and effuses eccentric pop magic. Sometimes she takes the megaphone and by hereby altering her voice, she infuses her music with another exotic tone. With their self-produced videos the Leipzig residents by choice create an artistic universe, which stages the dramatic lyrics of the lead singer in a sublime way. After all they see themselves as an artificial band, operating beyond the conventional patterns of presentation, bypassing intuitively and creatively common pop stereotypes. Twisted-Pop which gets straight under your skin, without ever grooving stream­lined. You can dance to it, lose yourself in it or step into new worlds. There is only one thing difficult to deal with after you enjoyed 'The Devil's Hand' and that's to release yourself from its overwhelming emotional impact.