Notorious HNS-X strikes back with two bangers. If you like good, plain club food without added fancy go for it. If you like it basic, juicy and straight to ze point go for it. You like basslines with a ravey touch? Go for it. You know what: go for it anyways.
The Opilec Music label has once again cooked up a very special new project for its next EP: ‘Dirty Talk’ is a remake of the classic ’80s Italo disco, proto-house tune by Klein & M.B.O. and has been produced by label boss I-Robots. The release comes with a Club Version made by I-Robots together with the Piatto Brothers, Alessandro & Davide, who bring a truly authentic Italo sound to the project and the cult disco soul singer, Donna McGhee. The Virgo Four original version is a more modern sounding, deeper and stripped back house cut with driving rubbery drums and bouncy melodies.
Knekelhuis presents a cassette featuring a selection of six industrial/EBM tracks from Beau Wanzer, Parrish Smith, Maekkot, Sige Bythos and Volition Immanent. The tapes are housed in a black library case clear front black back.
Dark Entries returns to the New Jersey basement studio to unearth another compilation cassette recordings by Smersh titled Super Heavy Solid Waste. Smersh was the duo of Mike Mangino and Chris Shepard, who began making music together in the late 70s. They were uninterested in traditional notions of songwriting or live performance. Smershs sound is a lush hybrid of techno, industrial, dance, and experimental. Sometimes easy, sometime not. Most songs revolve around driving EBM style beats, intricate industrial noise manipulation and synth melodies. The Smersh sound has so many faces it doesn’t fall into any one category. For Super Heavy Solid Waste we have selected 8 songs, focusing on the harder, harsher, rhythmic side of Smersh’s vast discography.
Jealous God present Issue Number 7, the latest missive from Planete Rouge regular Alexey Volkov, and a record likely to cause bouts of overwhelming paranoia in listeners of a nervous disposition. There’s something undeniably uncomfortable about the horror-fixated electronics, dystopian textures and spine-chilling freestyle vocals of “A Snake Falling To Pieces”. The more upbeat and metallic “Never” is a little less bloodcurdling, with metallic hits clustered round a modular synthesizer groove. Perhaps the standout moment – though it’s an all-round excellent excursion – is flipside “Ruins”, which adeptly combines both approaches on an undulating, skin-crawling techno thruster.
Hard techno advocate J Tijn is next up to supply Bedouin with a heavy hitting package of industrially charged techno entitled MOR. Lead track “Kanon VIP” best typifies that approach, a dense bassline throbs away unpredictably like an agitated wasp as Kuye lays down the drum machine pain. The title cut seems inspired by the Rotterdam school of sewer techno whilst “Shy” is anything but with Kuye going full speed ahead on the dirty synths and raw beats.
Gain Upwards from Orlando Voorn, part of Black Diamond double LP. From the twelve gems Voorn created for Out-ER, Gain Upwards is the cut we selected to be reinterpreted by Voorn’s long-standing friend Juan Atkins, dutch heavyweight ROD, Ostgut-Ton magician Efdemin and Inkblots and Raw Waxes label owner Haiku
HFP010.5 is a group of tracks taken from the HFP005 recording session, rescued from the cutting room floor and transferred to a very limited 10” pressing 100 copies only.
Warm, washy chords collide with bubbling, subterranean acid and crunchy drum work on this subtly epic debut from Swiss newcomer, Tissu, with his trippy delay-drenched synths giving everything an astral-aquatic quality.
Rhythm Nation with Terriers deliver three heavy and intense Techno tracks ranging from raw (without getting harsh) to deep intense string loaded Detroit rooted Techno. No peak time Techno tools, but tracks we’ll play over and over.
This is the second release on Eye Teeth, the new techno sublabel of Interdimensional Transmissions, a remix EP with interpretations direct from the peers of Israel Vines. Features an incredible peak time remix of “WWKD” from Silent Servant. It is followed by another powerful and surprisingly straight techno take on “WWKD” by the often more experimental and industrial Talker. The B Side features a version of “Relapse” by Eye Teeth founder and curator BMG. This is his first published remix created entirely on his modular.
It was a remorseless hatred that enslaved a people many millennia ago in the captivity of those who worshiped the sun and the moon and the gods in the stars and of the earth and beneath the earth. In toil and despair the people were flogged and cursed by the searing whip, scorched by the flaming desert sun above and burned by the abrasive sand below their feet. In agony, they cried out for rescue from the malice-bred bondage of the kingdom. “How long?” While ridden with anguish, their captors became plagued with disease and death, and so the enslaved fled. Within a day, they reached the edge of a vast sea from which mountains grew blocking them in on both sides, and as they looked back in terror they witnessed their captor’s army quickly approaching. A watery death spread out before them while a spear-pierced death raced in from behind.
Yet their cries for help were not unheard… billowing clouds rolled in and a tower of fiery blaze appeared as manifestations of the theophanic Glory-Spirit protecting and separating the people from the approaching wrath. With no where to go, the great sea split apart, and before them a narrow path was unveiled through the voided waters for the people to pass through to their deliverance. The army rushed in after them only to be swallowed by the raging sea that had just brought life for those who had been enslaved, but now brought death to the death that had held them captive.
Life for the people of God is a pilgrim journey through an alien wilderness under the shadow of death. So it was in days long ago. So it is in ours.
Boris Bunnik is back with a brand new album under his Conforce guise. Entitled Presentism, is his fourth under this alias and proves once that this most prolific talent is still very much an evolving producer. Presentism is more organic and less dystopian and mechanical than before, with a light hearted sense of joy and vivid musical patterns lingering long in the airwaves, and as such harks back to earlier full lengths like Machine Conspiracy, which leaned more on Detroit rooted techno. It is a collection of diverse musical compositions that leans more on musical structures than technical obsessions, and where his last effort Kinetic Image was a tightly programmed conceptual thing, this LP is a much warmer, more organic and aquatic bit of floating modern techno. As such, you get the sense Conforce is back and having fun with his music making once more, free from any rules and instead just crafting what he feels inside.
The expertly designed sounds of this album float and drift in subtly uplifting ways, right from the off. It is a diverse collection sounds with a fine sense of mood through, and that is what ensures it makes sense as a greater whole. At the same time it retains that signature Conforce sense of rhythm, underwater atmosphere and vivid seascaping that really takes you away from the world in which you live. Some tracks like ‘Realtime’ are slow and moody, others like ‘Erased Connections With The Past’ are more propulsive and physical and those such as ‘Monomorphic’ are heady, hypnotic affairs that make for beautiful electronic soundtracks
Since his emergence onto the scene in 2012, Acronym has carved a bold name for himself within the burgeoning sphere of techno championed by his Northern Electronics compatriots, with releases on Semantica as well as his own Dimensional Explorations imprint. ‘June’ continues to affirm the young producer’s reputation as a skilled craftsman of densely woven, atmospheric electronic music, whilst serving as a substantial contribution to the Northern Electronics catalogue.
Exclusive 4-track EP including 12-track LP via download code. Taking influence from music, art and culture from across the globe, Roland Klinkenberg’s organic approach to the creative process is a superbly unique one.
Circus Company welcomes a new character into the fold in the form of fast-rising artist Borrowed Identity. Across the four tracks on the XXX EP, the perfect balance is struck between powerful rhythmic commands and psychoactive decoration, combining everything needed for a memorable club cut.
The revered Halal Prepared series on boe extends to its fourth volume with four new acts fresh to the label. Hotly tipped duo, Invisible Menders, made up of outstanding DJ Jane Fitz and thus far underrated producer Dom Ahtuam contribute a stunning Balearic bass-heavy house cut “Fifth Time Lucky”. Fresh from his solo EP, John Shima slots in a deep techno workout “Thought Wave”. Toby Tobias of Rekids fame pumps out some raw basement lofi vibes with his jacker “Sword Art Arcade” and rounding off the EP on a delicate note is Tim Smith’s soft and melodic 707 jam “Graphene”.
Some three years on from their last collaborative outing – the Wayne County Hill Cops (Part 2) 12″ on FXHE – Detroit producers O.B Ignitt and Omar-S join forces for another trip into Motor City deep house territory. They wisely explore different moods and approaches throughout, starting with the fluid, dreamy hypnotism of “Seem Like You’re All Ready” – an exercise in luscious loops and dusty drum machine grooves. There’s a lovely early ’90s bounce to the evocative synth bass, classic riffs and cut-up vocal snippets of “Follow Me”, while closer “Hold The Line” owes much of its’ instinctive power to a deliciously rubbery acid bassline and vintage US garage drums.
Chicago based producers Chicago Skyway, Taelue, & Chicagodeep come together to form the group “Simple Machines”. Their debut release offers a peek into the group’s world of sound, offering elements of deep and experimental house & techno.
Dego, Akwasi Mensah and Kaidi Tatham’s 2000 Black project is back with three timeless pieces that blend the group’s love for soulful futuristic beats and organic instrumentation beautifully. Firing on many levels and sure to tear up a floor or two this summer. To most headz, the producers behind 2000black need no real introduction. Initially inspired by breakbeat, house and techno, 4heros Dego has been constantly moving since the early nineties, enriching the drum & bass, soul and London boogie scene in his own unique way.
