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DC Salas’s label Higher Hopes returns for its sophomore chapter… ‘Male Tears’, a deliciously sleazy and wry take on the patriarchy from queer polymath, Kiosk Radio resident, visual artist, performer, producer and DJ Strapontin.

“I wanted it to be funny, sassy, with a drama touch,” he tells us. “The track ‘Angry’ is about a frustrated and lonely angry man. ‘Male Tears’ is a sleazy club hit mocking a straight white male friend of mine who is unable to question himself and his privileges. ‘Divorce’ is a joke on marriage and its rules and ‘Teaching Drama’ is, well, about drama queens…”

Drama, hard truths and witty observations: Strapontin’s agent provocateur status is galvanised by the oily basslines, off-grid drums and loose, swathing grooves that prowl out of the speakers and flip devilishly into moments of pure euphoria… And moments of total chaos.
Strap up, strap in… Strapontin is taking us higher. We couldn’t hope for more.

Second release of the year already from the party music people of Abstrack. This time, it’s Brussels based artist Strapontin whose original production is on the menu, with re interpretation from several gifted companions. The multitude here is no excuse for genericity or easy recipes, rather a fertile playground for toying around with a wide range of vibes and moods.

Matches is a poetic, sensual spoken-word piece. The song feels like a flower about to blossom, though with plenty of hybrid DNA in it. In the end it leaves the way wide open for further emotions to get through. And they do.

Sasnal Park is the emotion of wander : looking for something forever, but for what? The drums make you believe that you found it but they turn out to be a mirage, and so does every tangible element of the track. A beautiful journey in the end even if you don’t know where you’ve been.

Family Diner … no ambiguity this time : a mystical roller as dark as it is trippy. Or maybe more trippy. Either way, not sure you can resist dancing to this one played out loud. Lose yourself to screaming halfway through, but only to fall back well rooted in those dancing feet afterwards.

On the flip, remixers put it where they’re expected to : A Strange Wedding takes the wandering “Sasnal Park” on the Edge of trancy club music, closer to the roots of Abstrack parties.

Feon turns the belter “Family Diner” into a road roller : sirens and massive subs engage into a memorable fist fight.

And home man Vidock choses the very dreamlike “Matches”, adding quite a touch of dancefloor but not removing one inch of dream.

Three years in the making only to be held up nearly another whole year due to COVID, this dark brooding monster of an EP by Brussels based Strapontin, aka multi-disciplinary artist Patrick Belmont, is finally seeing the light of day.

Clocking in at over 35-minutes the record is almost album length and spans a multitude of depths and moods with elements of techno, new wave, rock 'n' roll, house and tribal…...all glued together with a sleazy atmosphere reminiscent of the electronic body music pioneered by Strapontin’s Belgian forefathers Front 242 and their German peers DAF.

Add to this a heads-down-no-nonsense darkroom beast of a remix by techno maestro Sascha Funke and the package is complete.

Strapontin provides us with some insight:

“It started with a desire to move away a bit from my 'dancefloor' side and go into more undefined fields, I wanted to work with blurry sensations that I can't understand. I like mixed feelings. Dramatex 300 is made of that ambivalent mood. The voice is saying 'I'm feeling empty' and 'I'm feeling healthy' at the same time. I like that paradox. Eunuque is a song but is also a character I will develop in a short movie (which will act as the 'music video' of the song). The Eunuque is a character full of anger yet he doesn't want to fight nor has he a target to aim at. A restrained aggressivity is boiling inside him/it that has no opportunity to escape from the body and gain release. The song is the fever he feels from these inner battles. I think Le Bain d'Huile and Anti-sceptical have the same slow and angry feeling. I'm proud of these tracks because they are a bit mysterious to me and it feels like they controlled me more than I controlled them.”

Getting plays from Monika Seta & Alexis Le-Tan

The specially designed game and accompanying music video pertains to the overall theme of the EP, which shows an absurd society obsessed with social media descending into a dystopian world. It is a paranoid graphic vision, set in Brussels, Strapontin’s hometown, that puts you in control of a role playing game as you march round the city collecting social points with scant regard for others.

Besides being a dancer, performer and on-and-off “Madame pipi”, French-born, Brussels-based Strapontin is also a DJ and producer who mixes up slow and rough techno with thrilling soundtracks and groove driven disco. He has released on Nein and I’m Single amongst others and marks this 10th Hard Fist release in fine style.

Opening up the EP is ‘Nervous Days’, a gallivanting techno-disco groove with rugged loops and jumbled percussion that sounds like a rampage through a cityscape, as per the video. Then comes ‘But The Nice One!’, a stomping and rough and ready ride on lumpy drums and bass that is dark but playful. The quality continues on ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, with some brilliantly heavy and reverberating drums making you jerk your body while sci-fi effects float and drift about up top.

Blindetonation label regular and esteemed modern disco man Thomass Jackson remixes ‘But The Nice One!’ In his capable hands it becomes a melon twisting workout with spangled synth lines, psyched-out synths and percolating drums that are finished with a vulnerable and eerie vocal. Last of all is a Damon Jee remix of ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, His music can be heard on the underground’s most sought-after labels including Roam, Hafendisko, Suara and Sincopat to name just a few. His version is a more direct affair, with searching laser synths and a hypnotic space-techno vibe that carries you off to the stars at increasingly high speeds.

This is a fittingly brilliant EP from the vital Strapontin on ever-excellent Hard Fist.

Creative offspring of Tushen Rai and Cornelius Doctor’s musical fantasies, Hard Fist has been a non-profit project encompassing producers, graphic designers, djs and dreamy party worshippers since its inception in 2017.

“We would never have thought that this collective story would bring us this far, that it would take such a place in our lives and that it would bring us so many beautiful encounters. It was only possible to celebrate our 5th anniversary with the unreasonable idea of making something out of the ordinary.

So we thought big, a digger’s dream: a double vinyl in limited edition with 20 artists from 17 countries gathered around exceptional collaborations: producers who have marked the history of the label these last 5 years, friends, but also peers, people who inspired us and gave us the desire to create Hard Fist.

In this Unidentified Noisy Object (U.N.O), you can expect borderless music flirting with Nu-Rave and No Wave, Cosmic Dub and Post-Punk, a slice of Psychedelic Electronica, a lot of Acid and a bit of Slow Goa Trance. As well as some beats of Krautrock played with an Afrobeat groove and a few Darkwave’s synths. But not only that. It’s never only that. But what is it then? Just a label without label, to dance and to explore.

Red Vinyl

Almost 10 years already….Just a short moment away from its tenth anniversary, the cutting-edge Label La Belle Records unveils the second part of its One Night Stands collection.

If the first part portrayed very warm, tropical tones, this second opus feels more like the end of a party or the morning after, with a selection of tracks at a crossroad between slo-mo, synth-pop, lo-fi, ethnic groove and nu-disco like few others have done before.

This is something you've never heard before! All thanks to the insatiable digging from the master curator and co-founder of the label, Antoine Harispuru aka Golden Bug.

From Rome to Bruxelles via Paris and Vilnius, this second edition hits hard with names like Get A Room!, Rodion, Ellis Island (a world collaboration between the Italians Bawrut and Hot Spell), Rodion, Front de Cadeaux, Claap! and some other electronic gems.

Elisabeta. Just hearing her name puts a grin on her face.

Originally released on Polychrome Sounds, "Elisabeta, the remixes" features a remaster of the original by Karpov not Kasparov and three truly unique and magnificent remixes.

The first one is Carrot Green, who gave the original the Brazilian Ritmo-treatment, with extra acid on top for a spicy touch. On the second remix, Belgian mastermind Strapontin created a smooth grooving tension-builder, slow rolling to a deep and beautiful introverted climax. Lastly, Pletnev took the atmosphere of the original and gave it a trippy ethnic-break beat twist, as only the Vilnius producer can do so well.

Optimo Music Digital Danceforce is the digital label of Optimo Music, an internationalist musical outlet designed to get dancefloor focussed music out there without the long delays that vinyl manufacturing often entails. So far this has been a very satisfying project and the first half dozen or so releases (with many more in the pipeline) have been very well received.

There will be a series of best of OMDD 12's taking a track from each release and compiling it on a various artists 4 track 12', cut loud for maximum club impact. Here is volume 1 featuring tried and tested club hits from Belgium's Strapontin, The Netherland's Perdu, Morocco born Bergsonist and Italy's Tamburi Neri.