Mystic Jungle is back with four slabs of stylish and edgy electronic Italo-Disco cuts by the head honcho of Periodica Records and Futuribile Record Club.
Author: hipodrome
Giraffe – Shine and Dark [MEA026]
“Dreams, as we all know, are very curious things: certain incidents in them are presented with quite uncanny vividness, each detail executed with the finishing touch of a jeweller, while others you leap across as though entirely unaware of, for instance, space and time. Dreams seem to be induced not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what clever tricks my reason has sometimes played on me in dreams!” says Fyodor Dostoevsky in his anti-hero novella “Notes from Underground” from 1864. Also, the three Hamburg based art lovers of the band Giraffe like to play on their dreams. Since 2017 the trio released their deeply collective reveries on one album called “June” and one EP called “Climate”. Both are featuring brief and epic sensitive shifting conversations between Charly Schppner on percussion, Sascha Demand on electric guitar and Jrgen Hall on synthesizers. “We compose and produce everything together. The ideas of each single member become better through the influences of the others.” they reveal about their meandering creative activity. The result is a sublime tension of itself: a psychoacoustic distillation of improvisation, composition and experiment in which clattering percussion, synthesized transcendence and dreamily electric guitar serialism transform into radical poetic journey music. For their new album “Shine & Dark” Giraffe built their music around acoustic drums, frame drums and electric percussions, that evoke spiritual jazz emotions and percussive ethnic vibes while dark synth layers and mesmerizing guitar microtonality dances around the rhythmic tension. Suspenseful wondrous story-telling, that opens a gate to an elaborated executed, multi-layered musical paradise, that is entirely induced by desire.
VA – DE:10.02 [ASGDE021]
De:tuned continue to celebrate their 10th anniversary with this second EP of the series and dive deep down into the ambient techno world. The A side makes you drift away on a rare Sun Electric get together, followed by a Higher Intelligence Agency piece of beauty. DeepChord’s dubbed lushness completes this highly intense journey.
Audiosport 8 – De Diepe Wereld [NW018TAPE]
This Animistic Beliefs & Legowelt collaboration tape started out as a scene in Anna Bogomolova’& Dammes Kieft’s upcoming full length ‘Stroboscopes & Smokemachines’ documentary – a film in which they research the Dutch West Coast electronic music landscape. The scene however soon morphed into its own mini film – documenting the entire process on how this tape was conceived. Packed with Animistic Beliefs & Twilight Moose style electro, amateur space jazz ambient with a touch of G-funk and a very intense trip-infused hypnotic techno track. Written and produced by Linh Luu, Marvin Lalihatu and Danny Wolfers at the North Sea Institute For The Overmind.
Vivian Koch – The Owleon [ARTLESS2177]
Mojuba’s sublabel a.r.t.less presents the debut release by Vivian Koch. Electro synthesizer dreams for days.
VA – Spiritual Jazz 9: Blue Notes Parts 1 & 2 [JMANCD103]
The Blue Note record label needs little introduction. Musically, graphically and sonically iconic, the label created and defined the golden age of modern jazz on record. Founded in 1939 by German émigré Alfred Lion, the label’s roster of artists is a litany of giants – Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock and many more. With peerless musicians in the grooves, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder behind the boards, and graphic design genius Reid Miles creating emblematic artwork for every release, Blue Note – ‘the Cadillac of the jazz lines’ – was outstanding in every way. Volume 8 of Jazzman’s Spiritual Jazz series takes a close look at the deeper side of Blue Note – from the experimental avant-garde explored by younger musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson and Pete La Roca, to the exciting new developments in modal sounds put forward by stalwarts Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean and Duke Pearson. The music we have selected shows how musicians working with the label responded to a period of dramatic social and sonic change, charting the route toward the esoteric and spiritualised sounds that would dominate the deepest jazz of the 1970s. As ever, Blue Note had lit the path, and this new Spiritual Jazz collection shows that the progressive and underground jazz sound of the 1960s was not only the preserve of obscure artists and private pressings. Blue spirits and heavy sounds on Blue Note – the finest in jazz since 1939, brought to you by Jazzman.
Unknown Artist – Light Touches 03 [LTR03]
Light Touches Records is devoted to shed a new light to hot rarities, unknown grooves as well as forgotten classics. The new 12′ brings three hot smoking tunes, from the killer acidic and hypnotic groove of ‘Flashed’, to the bass-driven funky roller of ‘Changes’. To round up the edges, ‘Do’ is a sweet conscious twostep jewel. All tracks have been carefully edited by Andrea “Passenger’ Di Maggio, without overdubs, in order to bring the spirit of classic disco manipulators to today’s dancefloors!
Eko / Georges Ouedraogo – Afro Funk & Disco Gems Volume Nine [MUKAT061]
Volume 9 of Mukatsuku Afro series kicks off with ‘M’Ongele M’Am’ from Cameroon artist Eko Roosevelt Louis taken from his early 1980’s self-titled album and licenced for this 45 from Nubiphone & Africa Seven. Driving brass funk fuelled afro disco does not really get much better than this. On the flipside Georges Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso gives us us the dance floor bomb ”Deni” taken from his 1978 long player ”Gnanfou Gnanfou” also licenced from Africa Seven and also the first time ever on a single. Punchy brass offset by those hipnotic vocals and funky wah-wah guitar has a deserved place on the flip.
Daniele Cosmo @ Lux Institut (Zürich) 22.02.2019
Le Stèle Des Pleurs – La Voix Des Vieux Temps LP [CAM015]
Despite sounding like an 80’s cassette only wave outfit La Stèle des Pleurs is a contemporary band from the north parisian suburbs. They’re mostly inspired by the underground tape scene of this period and use a 100% analogue set from synth and drums machines to tape recorders according to their unkwnown masters. The 7 tracks of this mini-LP are only instrumentals somewhere between the melancholia of Enno Velthuys and the heady sound of Stratis. Their music seems untouched by contemporary world and influences, recorded in order to compose their own enigmatic but familiar universe. Gloomy landscapes and feelings may appear but surrounded by a glimpse of hope.
Dirk Desaever – Collected 1984-1989 LP [MPD015]
The piece de resistance of the ‘Collected 1984 – 1989’ project, all the music on this LP has never been heard before, except for a single tune released on a rare 7” in 1988. The track selection and sequence is the result of Ducret & Isar closely listening to the many hours of unreleased material Desaever shared with them. Saved from oblivion and irremediable decay, the music on this LP is now just waiting to be played and listened as well as to inspire.
Dirk Desaever – Collected 1984-1989 [MPD014]
Musique Pour La Danse presents its latest “Collected” anthology. Side A is a reissue of the highly sought after Disdain EP from 1988 by White House White. Side B contains three previously unreleased tracks in a similar spirit to WHW’s sound with a dark and sleazy atmosphere.
Tevo Howard – Post Modern Chicago [CTX05]
Juliano – Chanmé [MOJUBA029]
Ron Maino – Give Me The Magic EP [HOUSEWAXLTD017]
HouseWax presents Ron Maino. Great atmospheric club tracks are the result of Ron’s debut on the limited series.
Boneless One – Dodgy Smiley EP [STX019]
For the 19th output, Snuff Trax welcomes Boneless One from Finland. On the ‘Dodgy Smiley EP’ he does some magic again with his dirty machines and delivers five rough banging cuts.
Jensen Interceptor @ Red Light Radio 02.03.2019
VA – Vortex Traks X EP [VTX010]
The Hacker – Lost & Found EP [KL-RR3]
Klakson presents a reissue release featuring four valuable electro remastered tracks by The Hacker.
Luxus Varta – Plastic Time [NN013]
Nocta Numerica announce the arrival of Luxus Varta on the label. “Plastic Time” is a 5-track EP that fuses electro and melancholic sonorities. The release includes a special appearance by Paris The Black FU (Detroit Grand Pubahs) on the track “Stilnox”.
The Hipodrome Of Music 