New EP from Alex Cortex in the Skudge Presents series.
Month: June 2013
Patrik Sjeren – WorkThat Body [VR001]
Swedish acid techno legend Patrik Sjern has experienced something of a career revival since an unexpected production credit on a FXHE 12″ last year; this EP for the newly minted Virgo Rising label is his second of 2013 following that excellent 12″ for the Fit operation out of Detroit. Not bad for someone who’s been seemingly absent since a ’95 12″ on the Fuck Pig Recordings label. The lead cut packs similar heat to Steve Poindexter’s seminal “Work That Mutha Fucker” with its hyperactive ’90s-styled acid synths weaving in between hardcore Adam X industrial strength sonics. Sharing the A-side is the cut up, percussive and broken ghetto techno of “Mannitj”, while Adam Rivet’s remix to the title track slows in BPM, opting for something much lighter in comparison, it’s equally jacking, with uplifting synths stopping the EP from becoming too much of a militant monster.
Steve Rachmad – Elektronic Force Podcast 128
Redshape – Red Pack II [101DSR/PRESENT010]
Almost exactly three years after the first, Redshape has readied his second Red Pack, due for co release by his own Present imprint alongside his frequent Dutch home, Delsin. Whilst the world is still enjoying the German’s latest album “Square”, the man himself has typically moved on once more. On Red Pack II he offers up six tracks new of hugely atmospheric and romantically industrial techno across two pieces of vinyl. First up, ‘Disco Marauder’ has raw, jangling beats, traumatised vocal cries and plenty of sci-fi ambiance all coalescing into a filmic techno tapestry, before ‘Path Dub’ goes deeper and more streamlined with rattling claps peeling off taught synth cables in hypnotic fashion. ‘The Source’ is a track slowed to a crawl that almost seems to want to collapse under its own weight. Machines gurgle and gargle, the beats march on with a heavy heart and widescreen synths all that ever present sense of cinematism that makes Redshape such a unique producer. Standout track ‘Daft Mode’ features a beautiful Reese bassline and rich layers of classic Detroit chords of the sort Inner City once championed. Redshape then pairs them with slicing percussion and loose limbed but tough edged beats and lets them roll on to a blissfully emotive oblivion. Last track ‘Bulp Head’ is one of Redshape’s more euphoric tracks thanks to the glistening and pixelated melodies which rise up and up through choppy, metallic percussion. It closes out another release from Redshape that offers six more classic pieces that are as idiosyncratic as they innovative.
Benjamin Damage – Delirium Tremens [50WEAPONSRMX003]
Following the success of his recently released album “Heliosphere” Benjamin Damage presents one of the most straight forward techno tunes of the year so far.“Delirium Tremens”, one of the more club focused tracks of the album, gets a remix treatment by Detroit´s techno legend Robert Hood.On the flipside Benjamin reworks his on tune into an extended long version for maximum impact.
Unknown – Common Series 1 [COMMONS001]
Nice first edition of this new series. Some beautiful techno tracks together with some darker frantic acid and some advanced electronica. All tracks good, despite their huge style differences.
Dez Williams – The Angel Maker EP [EAR004]
Dez Williams with a new release on Earwiggle. Starting with the melting frequencies of ‘Underground Persistent’, acid is in control, combining swingy 808 drums and masterful Detroit strings to a searing acid-line that keeps going and going. Switching things into more straight-ahead acid territory on A2, ‘Untitledacid 6’ has pretty much one intention and that’s to jack hard. ‘Freedom’ on the flip is a dense techno workout that joins a strong looped vocal and distorted percussion to swamping sound fx, in a rough but funky way. This time an expert pad progression brings the track to an unexpected but fitting finale. Finally, and showing what a complete supremo he is where dark floor-friendly electro is concerned, Dez turns in a blistering cut of sci-fi electro with ‘Courtesy Call’.
Erika – Hexagon Cloud [IT030]
While ‘Hexagon Cloud’ may be Erika’s debut solo release, this is by no means her introduction to the scene. For years Erika has been a member of Detroit’s Ectomorph and co-conspirator of Interdimensional Transmissions, but since these projects play shadowy games with identity and perception, she may just need that introduction. Composing without the aid of a computer, Erika’s system is centered around a rare highly flexible hardware sequencer. The ideas flowed quickly, and what began as an EP quickly blossomed into a double album with the aid of production from BMG. Science and music, dreams of space and microscopic organisms, mutation of plant life and the birth of stars, all come together effortlessly in her work to sound like post acid techno subterranean spelunking in a quest to return to the stars. Or at least to the northern “Hexagon Cloud” of Saturn.
Exium – A Sensible Alternative To Emotion [POLEGROUP016]
A sensible alternative to emotion is the second full length album by the spanish techno duo Exium. More than ten years in the bussiness confirm them as one the fundamental combos of european techno. We have the pleasure of presenting you this new step in sound design, ten tracks that show a new twist in their style, relaxing the frequencies and the tempos and departing from linear concepts, offering a well balanced tracklist with ambient or near IDM experiments, dreamy or even melodic techno and their traditional obscure feeling.
Dwig – Forget The Pink Elephant [GLGLP002]
Giegling homie Dwig presents his debut album and shows again his sampling art in all his facets. A very laid-back one.
Vita – The Ultimate Collapsing Remixes [FRMXS002]
We know it is spring and sunny and shit… but we got this new project going and yes,.. it’s cold.. it’s freezing cold. Loose them party shoes and grab those 40belows and don’t forget to put your insulation vest on. We got a remix pack for the Vita (infinity) project on a nice collectable limited colored vinyl 10”. Remixes are done by non other then Heinrich Mueller, Ovatow and Versalife as Hexagon. Also included on here is the beautiful and really deep Vita original ”The Ending” that will be exclusive for this release.
Somaticae – Catharsis [26192]
In 2011, we begin to think about doing a record label. We had been following Somaticae for some time and at this moment he was playing some art and punk gigs with a furious live of electronic improv, on the edge between hypnosis and noise. But Somaticae had already moved forward, and in a matter of a few weeks, he was sending us what quickly and easily took shape as Catharsis, a ten track piece which is to be the first album release on In Paradisum.
Metasplice – Infratracts [DOSER017LP]
Rabih Beaini’s Morphine imprint has undergone something of a renaissance in the past year to become one of contemporary techno’s most vital labels thanks to the recent material from Hieroglyphic Being, Container, Upperground Orchestra and Philadelphia duo Metasplice, whose two EPs for the label have provided some of the most alien sounding techno to emerge in recent years. Their debut album Infratracts appeared this week with no prior fanfare; it’s as exciting a journey into the duo’s uniquely desolate sound world as you could imagine; combining skull-shattering rhythms with brain-warping textures, the whole things recalls a seasick version of Container’s noise techno being transmitted via SETI’s long-range radio telescope. Essential wares for lovers of adventurous electronics…
Rabih Beaini – Albidaya [END07]
Exploratory Lebanese imprint Annihaya presents a stunning debut album opus by Rabih Beaini aka Morphosis under his birth name. As Rabih was born in Lebanon it is fitting he shares ‘Albidaya’ – meaning “The Beginning” in Arabic – with a label from his home country, who provide acute context for its mixture of electronics, psych rock, folk and jazz. Impressively it was mostly recorded over the course of one day in 2012, wrangling myriad rhythms, tones and shapes from Rabih’s famous collection of vintage analog synthesizers and sequencers meshed with Eko Tiger Duo organ and guitar, and some assistance from Tommaso Cappellato on drums and Piero Bittolo Bon on woodwind and electronics (with additional credits to both Mike Huckaby and Donato Dozzy), and post-production done in Berlin and Rome.
The Hipodrome Of Music 