Stylishly blending a powerhouse mix of EBM Machismo, New Beat Sleaze and Space Disco’s hot synth solos, ‘Revengers Of The Darkness’ throbs like a robot post-the singularity on a quest for alien sewer sex. Giallo Disco are more than honored to present the debut EP from this fantastic group. Five cinematic dancefloor bombs for the discerning listener.
This new Bordello A Parigi 12″ sees Machinegewehr on a solo tip with two killer Italo numbers, with the title cut “Carradine” seemingly positioned to look skywards throughout such is the soaring synth work at play. Complementing this, “Guarding The Frontiers” is a more supple and dare we say subtle affair that really highlights the artist’s talent for intricate melodies.
In the eight years since his emergence as a promising 19 year old producer, Argentinean Jonas Kopp has amassed a solid discography with a veritable clutch of 12″ material for the likes of Curle, Ilian Tape, CLR, Krill, Stroboscopic Artefacts and Tresor. Sensing the time is right to try his hand at the album format, Kopp’s chance comes via the later Berlin techno behemoth with Beyond The Hypnosis a weighty 12 track endeavour. This vinyl edition features only eight of those tracks spread across the two slabs but still gives a keen display of Kopp’s talent for crafting finely sculpted techno.
In-your-face raw techno attack from Philippe Petit on his own imprint, Decision Making Theory.
Lobster Theremin launch their first sublabel proper, heralding a darker, murkier and deeper sound on their newly minted Mork imprint. Retaining it’s mother label’s passion for championing newcomers, Mork launches with a debut release from young Netherlandic producer nthng. Cultivating a sound that sits somewhere between Prince of Denmark and early Claro Intelecto with splashes of Clone influence, nthng’s stripped-back techno walks fuzzy, shrouded paths through nolstagic moments in time.
Truncate is at it once again on his home turf, demonstrating something of a pinnacle for the US approach to stripped and raw techno. “Track 1” slaps out the handclaps with gusto, but the synths that bubble in the background keep a certain dubwise calm to proceedings even with all the energy fed into the drums. “Track 2” takes a more dense approach, working in more intense flurries of percussion and keeping the synth elements finely chiselled and nervous, before “Track 3” brings a more playful side to the fore thanks to a hooky melody.
The third release in the Black Opal series see’s Mexico City 2 Brooklyn expat Jeronimo Jimenez at his finest. The ghostly syncopations of his Opal Tapes debut are revisited again but this time the beats come charged with a new weight. 6 tracks of haunting techno, flickering metals and doomed synth set to probe into your skull.
AN-I continues his love affair with electronics offering us three distinct slabs of throbbing machine funk. The opening track ‘Gutz’ is a dense mutant high energy number, modern yet timeless. ‘Rut’, the first track An-i recorded whilst still living in New York and the first one to catch our attention, opens the B side with a massive dose of syncopated teutonic mayhem, spacier and sparser than the rest. ‘Save Us’ completes the release with an anthem of dirty warehouse techno.
Shatter Cone is a rare imprint that is only known to form in the bedrock beneath meteorites impacts or underground nuclear explosion. It is the eventual evidence that huge pressure has been applied and life as we know it has disappeared. So shaped and recorded, such pressure, has been pressed on vinyl and delivered to you.
Midlight’s releases may be relatively sparse, but they’re rarely less than excellent. Here, they wander off in a more robust direction, delivering a pair of twisted, acid-flecked rubs that should please all those who like their house music rough and dystopian. Rarely spotted Swede Peel MD kicks things off with “Calavera”, a pulsating fusion of rolling analogue percussion, warped electronics and heavyweight 303 abuse. Frak surprisingly calm things down a touch on “Rebate”, dipping the tempo for a hypnotic trip through deep-but-sparse acid house territory.
Berlin-based Dutch DJ and producer Steffi returns with her second album Power Of Anonymity on Ostgut Ton, featuring laid-back, melodic cuts like ”Pip”, ”Fine Friend” and the break-heavy title track next to more straightforward, hypnotic dance floor pieces such as ”Selfhood”, ”Bag Of Crystals”, ”JBW25” and ”Bang For Your Buck”. Besides her solo instrumental productions, Steffi’s collaboration with longtime friends Dexter and Virginia on the uplifting, percussion- driven vocal track ”Treasure Seeking” is the icing on the cake. Just like ”Power Of Anonymity” as a single piece of music, the album itself lives on an industrial-resonating structure of 808s, crisp synth stabs, pulsing staccati and dark, percussive drumbeats. With her second album Steffi recalls classic, landmark Detroit Electro, while creating her very own modern, retro-futuristic sound.
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Innershades is Belgium producer Thomas Blanckaert and now he is back with a new EP on Crème Organization, his third for 2014. Opener ‘CVS’ is a ravey mid tempo house cut with raw old school stabs, lots of percussive tension and drums that really make you wanna move. Then comes ‘Momentum’, a dramatic bit of thumping house with thick synth patterns, hooky melodies and emotive pads. The no nonsense vibes continue on ‘Dark Society’, with its ticking hits, thudding kicks and mysterious, snaking pads. Finally, ‘Oase’ marries more hefty kicks with classic claps, plenty of reverb and more ravey stabs that will really bring dancefloors out in a sweaty, 90s style. Modern house with a retro bent, this EP is sure-fire club dynamite.
The Zenker Brothers and their Ilian Tape venture get stronger by the minute, and here Marco flies solo with this latest EP, sounding in utterly rude health with it. “Geezin” is a distinctive opener, ditching standard 4/4 propulsion in favour of an airy drum machine arrangement infected with the slightest flurries of hardcore breaks and offset by wistful synth patterns. It’s a curious combination that works magnificently, but for those wanting something a little more direct “Splifer” is on hand to deliver a more classically Zenker techno mantra. “Darai” brings the swing back in fine style, throwing down a chunky stomp to match the sizzling hats, and then “Lubiana” wrecks the surroundings with its magnificent pummel of low end percussion and gritty production values.
Gunnar Haslam returns to LIES records for his second album, Mirrors and Copulation. Following a slew of 12″ releases this year, Gunnar delves deep into his darkest palettes for a return to his patient, haunted soundscapes that shrouded his debut LP, Mimesiak. Across eight tracks of ambient techno both brooding and tumultuous, Gunnar Haslam unravels a narrative on overpopulation and its potential environmental ramifications inspired by the Borges quote the album title references. “Meter By Me, Sybil” cascades arpeggios through a thick fog that never leaves Mirrors. “Ajapajapam Version” cuts through with a sluggish 3/4 strut and nauseated 303 bassline, but the rest of the A side is fully enveloped by the Gunnar’s peerless recreation of the wet ambience of a ghostly rainforest. “Cloud Castle Lake” offers an uptempo cut buoyed by a blasted kick drum and frenetic 606 workout. Still enshrouded, “Cloud Castle Lake” further explores Gunnar’s sonic terrain with the force of a freaked dancefloor’s momentum, much like the album finale, “In Argo Teurano”, which blasts forth from the mist with a weathered adventurer’s grit.
Heidi Lord is the wife of Rephlex/WeMe artist Jodey Kendrick. Three of Heidi’s tracks are featured on the famous “EDM” Compilation Albums This is the Debut album from Heidi Using a unique pallet of sounds from MRI machines to modular synthersizers to conversations in a super market to her own processed voice Co produced by her Husband “I could describe what the album means to me, But i would much rather leave it to listener to experience and feel and to interpret how they see fit”.
Andy Stott returns with his first new album since 2012’s ‘Luxury Problems’, straddling analogue club music and vocal pop songs. ‘Faith In Strangers’ was written and produced between January 2013 and June 2014, and was edited and sequenced in late July this year. Making use of on an array of instruments, field recordings, found sounds and vocal treatments, it’s a largely analogue variant of hi-tech production styles arcing from the dissonant to the sublime.
