Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, electro, in aeternam vale, minimal wave
Minimal Wave return to their self-professed “First French love” In Aeternam Vale with a second LP-shaped trawl through the band’s sizeable archive of cassette only releases. The Brooklyn imprint first introduced us to the work of the hugely prolific Lyon band with an eponymous LP of remastered material in 2009, and Dub Under Brightness proves to be just as important a release. The label points to an article on the band originally published by the Douche Froide magazine in 2002, where the journalist nails their appeal in the opening gambit – “There are bands that have been acting ruthlessly in the shadow for years, in a completely confidential manner, then one day chance (but does chance exist?) makes you find one of their recordings, listen to it, and at that moment you could kick yourself for not having discovered these soundscapes earlier and you try to find all of them”. If you haven’t indulged in the sounds of In Aeternam Vale yet, this eight track selection makes for a perfect introductory primer.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, degada saf, mannequin label, new wave, synth pop, synthwave
Degada Saf was a transgressive-dada-ist musical combo coming from Veneto, Italy. Degada Saf played a synth-electronic music, a kind of involved no-disco with no-sense lyrics in esperanto. Their music suggests a peculiar mixture of post-modernism synthesized electro assaults, new wave’s imaginative minimalism and pop art aesthetic vision. “No Inzro” makes constant interferences between rigorous avant-gardism, alternative music styles and colorfully plastic electro pop. The spectrum of musical imagination reveals a lot of good surprises, notably with the opening theme “La Rhumba de Shang Hai” which directly gives the tonality of the entire album: kitschy retro-popish ambiences based on dancing minimal hypno pulses and efficiently cold melodies. A groovy and captivating electro experience and a pretty decent introduction to the band’s very own musical universe.
Some warm and especially funky treats on Johannes Paluka aka Iron Curtis’ longplayer-debut on the Hamburg-imprint Mirau Musik. ‘Soft Wide Waist Band’ is Curtis’ entrance into the world of long players and the first of its kind for the Hamburg imprint. Of course, the man has earned his four-to-the-floor stripes navigation between deep house and soulful techno leanings, but he has also managed to steer clear of genre silt. Thus the task of creating a coherent, yet amusing album without blinkers is passed with distinction here. It streaks all the places and spaces in the past, present and future: the basic knowledge of engineering skills hones in New York, Chicago and Detroit left its traces here as much as a touch of British freewheeling mixed with the flow and indie poetry of a German country boy who has heard of electronic pop music before.
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Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: acid house, album, bunker records, chicago, mantra
From North Yorkshire, England, more classic ’88 UK dark acid house from Mantra, a full-length lp on white vinyl.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, alden tyrell, chicago house, creme organization, fre2k, orgue electronique, robert owens
A double album by Orgue Electronique aka Brian Chinetti on Creme Organization. What lies here before you is sculpted out of the blood and tears of 5 years of life, and all the dreams, imagination, tristesse and longing that goes along with it. A mesmerizing double album: wholly matured and further enhanced by collaborations with luminaries like Robert Owens, Alden Tyrell and cult hero Fre2k. It’s warm and generous, made up of real emotions, of moments frozen in time and of the impassioned cries of a soul on the run. To finally let it go after so many years is – for all the parties involved – a strange yet exciting moment, not unlike the birth of an elephant baby…. out of a human female.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, drum & bass, fabric of space, prplx, tempo
PRPLX’s entitled Fabric Of Space explores the deeper side of the Breakbeat spectre. Clever drum programming as well as going in a bass shakin’ direction, it reminds us of early Bluenote & Speed days but definitely with a modern touch. These tracks are another testament to PRPLX’s love for the Breakbeat. Also included here is the roadtested Taiga track which starts of deep and hypnotic but surprises you with the harsh amen drop, raw synth and dark male reggae vocal.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: acid, dubstep, album, r&s records, lone, power house, matt cutler, machinedrum, anneka, breakstep
Matt Cutler is back with his fifth album, which is an impressive feat in just five years of releasing music. Galaxy Garden starts off on a more esoteric tip with the tropical electronica of “New Colour”, in its sunshine chimes. By the time we get to “Lying In The Reeds” we’re up to a house tempo that harks back to the softer side of early Detroit. It’s when “Crystal Caverns 1991″ starts up that we reach the most blatant distillation of old-skool; kicking off a breakstep beat with sweet but punchy 90s synths, the track cuts into a deadly rave motif without so much as a pause in the beat and it’s like being back in, er, 1991. Every track reeks of originality, whether it be the surprising track structures, the superbly detailed production, even the evocative imagery that the music conjures up.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, dub, dubstep, shackelton, woe to the septic heart
It’s entirely typical of a revered producer such as former Skull Disco boss Shackleton that some new material from the Berlin based producer should arrive without the necessity for PR fanfare that far too many musicians require. It’s even more typical of Shackleton that Music For The Quiet Hour is just so damn epic in scale and execution. Whilst this digital version doesn’t convey the full brilliance of Zeke Clough’s artistic contribution in the manner the vinyl or CD versions do, it does allow you to focus fully on the music. Largely formed of mesmerizing material produced on an Italian drawbar organ module the producer has been experimenting with for the best part of two years, theses 16 tracks are bristling with the sort of all consuming basslines and unique percussive melodies that Shackleton has made his own and true fans need little more reason to indulge.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, alessandro adriani, dark wave, desire records, mannequin label, minimal synth, minimal wave, newclear waves, oksana xiu
Hailing from Rome – Italy, Newclear Waves is essentially the solo project of Alessandro Adriani, mind and boss of Mannequin Records, one of the most important synth wave / cold wave labels around, with contributions from Oksana Xiu, an academic russian musician devoted to analog synths. Deeply influenced by the works of the early minimal electronics sounds on Mute Records and 4AD, Newclear Waves is exploring droned out electro pop territories with an interest for a refreshing hyperactive 80s New Wave. Having turned out releases on Mannequin Records, the duo is now presenting a full‐lenght ten tracks collection of caliginous pure analog minimal synth on the way on Desire Records, french Cold Wave and Electro Wave label, focused both in new artists and stunning reissues from 4AD like Mass, In Camera and Dance Chapter.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, ambient, minimal wave, pye corner audio, pye corner audio transcription services, synth pop, the head technician
Right then, our Head Technician has sworn that he will have the next instalment of Black Mills Tapes ready for us by the end of January. Volume 3: All Pathways Open comprises a further twelve tracks lovingly transferred from those now fabled 1/4″ and cassette tapes. The Advisory Circle kindly lent a hand and retransferred ‘Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen’ for which we are very grateful. Our Head Technician tells us this particular segment had been giving him a fair bit of trouble, so the help was appreciated.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, blakeandrew, electro, electronica, industrial
Debut album for BlakAndrew, released on his out bandcamp page. Awakening seems to trudge through an epic tale about good and evil – the inner struggles of light and darkness and how each power tries to defeat the other yet exists solely as a symbiotic balance. The album’s genres can be tough to pinpoint but “Awakening” definitely has a dark, electro-techno-industrial sound. The tracks wouldn’t be considered ‘dance floor anthems’ by any means, though most of the tracks have deep, pounding beats with undeniable techno roots. “Awakening” also pans into stretches of ambient, hip hop and electronica.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: acid, album, automatic tasty, electro, house, wil-ru records
Jonny Dillon is gracing WR with a brand new full length album as Automatic Tasty! “Speech and Silence” is a 10 track album loaded with bouncy acid hooks and bubbling hyper-color melodies.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, annechoic, audiofugitives, electro, schizolectric
Great album featuring some hot electronix! Hailing from Spain this is the first release on the Audiofugitives label! Intense uncompromising tracks of which the a side is rooted in Classic Detroit Techno and Electro. the B-side takes the listeners into orbit with some amazing spaced outed tracks.
Cosmic electro futurism from Photodementia, the devious offspring of Canadian, Victor Beaudet, one-time collaborator with Richard Davis of Cybertron, and American, Bernard Davies. Evoking comparisons with the legendary production projects of the then emerging Drexciya and Dopplereffekt, as well as Kraftwerk and AFX, ‘Figure 3′ is mind-altering material, ear worming electro dynamism that realigns the elements of the brain like a true listening experience should.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, delsin records, delta funktionen, detroit, electro, techno
After four years of techno EPs for Delsin and Ann Aimee, Niels Luinenburg aka Delta Funktionen has finished his debut full length, Traces. Though still very much couched in techno, the album sees the Dutchman explore plenty of new sonic territory, as he often does in his long ranging DJ sets. It’s adventurous, basically, and is an album that doesn’t loose itself in intricate sound design, but instead pairs a raw, machine made aesthetic with plenty of real human soul and palpable earthly emotion.
“Traces is about my long time research into electronic music. It covers tracks that make reference to my favourite subgenres within electronic music: techno, house, electro and (Italo)-disco. There was no specific idea behind it because the album contains tracks made over a long time. Some are 3 years old, others were made this year, but in the end I think it sounds like a coherent piece of work.”
Made using a mixture of drum machines, FM and digital synthesizers, various bits of hardware and digital FX units, the whole thing was sequenced in Ableton with plenty of sample use to finish it off. From the atmospheric openings of blissful electro joint “Frozen Land” through the sultry and searching acid of “Enter” and on to more forceful cuts like “Redemption”, this is an album for listening to as much as it is for dancing. Mood driven landscapes like “Onkalo” prove that, but you’ll have to check it out for yourself to get a real appreciation of the story Delta Funktionen is telling.
Mike Dehnert marks a quarter century of releases on his own label with Fachwerk 25, a full-length album comprised of 13 tracks. This new album sees Mike experimenting somewhat. Away from the dubbed out, functional and raw techno funk of his usual output, Fachwerk 25 shows some concession to the album format, with more mysterious tracks of ambient buried amongst bits of acid, rave and plenty of unhinged sound design. After the dystopian and scene-setting intro, there’s the chugging house and nagging synths of ‘Fraction’ that are both dark and beautiful at the same time. From there, there’s slowed, melancholic dub in the form of ‘Modulat” and the beat-less, underwater sounding ‘Courant’ with its icy pads and wide lateral spread. The title track is more what you’d expect of Dehnert, with well-swung kicks and grainy synth chords rolling along like basement techno should, before the squelchy industrial madness of ‘Grundform’ breaks the stride of the album once again, taking you off to a different place entirely. The second half is just as varied and unpredictable, ranging from raucous peak time stuff to more nuanced and cerebral fair that always manages to bares the hallmarks of Fachwerk: quality, invention and unpredictability.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, deep house, delusions of grandeur, disco, house, session victim
Delusions of Grandeur presents ‘The Haunted House Of House’ the debut album by Session Victim. Opening track Dark Sienna sets the mood and serves as a good taster of what you can expect from their highly accomplished debut. We’re talking looped up deep-disco territory here with a lovely mid-tempo rolling groove driven along by open hats and a square wave bassline, lush string sections and dubbed vocal hits all adding heat to the mix.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, aurora halal, cititrax, cold wave, electro, innergaze, jason letkiewicz, minimal wave, synthwave
Minimal Wave sublabel Cititrax, presents new music from Brooklyn based synth duo Innergaze, the musical project of Aurora Halal and Jason Letkiewicz. Their music, crushed and static, obscured by sound. EBM, coldwave, early techno fight it out for dominance of the drum machine. Casually brutal vocals force their way through from the Death Factory. Celestial synths coexisting with the industrial landscape bellow.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, electro, hard corps, minimal wave, synth pop
Minimal Wave is proud to present our 35th release, a full length LP release entitled “Clean Tables Have To Be Burnt” by UK legends Hard Corps. Hard Corps gained some notoriety for their unique and uncompromising live shows throughout the 1980s. It was the juxtaposition between their hard edged industrial sound and the fragile and enigmatic vocals of French frontwoman Regine Fetet that created an unusual dichotomy, lending to their strength of character as a band and thus allowing them to stand out from the rest. Now for the first time ever, rare unreleased versions of Hard Corps tracks from the 1980s have been remastered and are being made available.
Filed under: 001.Features | Tags: album, carlos nilmmns, deep house, lifeworld
Carlos Nilmmns knows all about delivering deep driving techno and house. It is time for a full album called Lune Eclaire in 2012. Lifeworld presents 6 of Nilmmns’ finest tracks to date on this beautiful dark red marbled piece of wax. The producer’s skills range from deep driving techno to electronica, from acid to pumping house.
