Space Ghost returns with hedonistic house anthems for your living room dance floor on his latest EP, Time To Dance. On this new EP, Space Ghost gets on the mic and takes us back to the early days of house music, effortlessly mixing the deep bass rhythms of Chicago with the Nu Groove-era of the East Coast.
The Norwegian House duo gets the remix treatment from Chmmr, Deep88, and Hugo LX while Fredfades & Jawn Rice goes OG on a demo version from their highly anticipated LP. Basking in the warmth of the duo’s analogue sounds, Chmmr transports Show me How to the farthest recesses of the galaxy with some spacy synths and cool reverbs blowing through Dreamcast’s sensual vocal before Fredfades & Jawn Rice tempers Travels through Air with an OG lean on the A side. Meanwhile on the B-side; Deep 88 carve a yawning a trench for Stimulator Jones’ airy vocal before Hugo LX puts a bounce in the step of Mutual Love to close out the exciting remix package. The sound of Fred and Jawn peek through consistently, with each artist putting their own distinctive stamp on the originals. Elements of Jazz, Soul and Hip Hop create a heady fusion of sounds breaking loose from the House foundations for this series of heavy steppers.
With their first LP in over three years, Californian psych-dub duo Peaking Lights offer an outlet from the mundane with a kaleidoscopic collection of lo-fi, escapist-electronic pop. Over their illustrious twelve-year-plus career, the husband and wife duo of Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis have set themselves apart with their characteristic dreamy, and melancholic sound that blends together elements of dub, and delicate-but-quirky electronics. E S C A P E, Peaking Light’s sixth album, and first for Dekmantel, finds them at their finest, replete with atmospheric landscapes crafted out of homemade-percussive loops, that sit alongside wondrous electronic pop and krautrock-like hooks, all tied together by Indra Dunis’ composed and hypnotic vocal charm.
Popnihil returns with an album of intricate postpunk from Daniel Holt’s new project Human Figures. Besides running Ardetha Records, Holt has impressed with dungeon synth and ambient projects, his dark synth duo Vault, and a mind-melting techno 12″ for L.I.E.S. Records. But Human Figures is a completely new and personal avenue of expression. “Footsteps” features hymnal, meditative post-punk from musical polymath Daniel Holt.
Polytechnic Youth return with the whacked out synth-punk mini LP “Es Una Bestia” by Wladyslaw Trejo. Trejo is a Spanish musician, and a key figure in the European underground electronic scene; and despite this being his first solo album since 2015’s self titled debut, he is eternally busy, especially as part of ‘avant-wave’ dueo Slovenska Televiza. Trejo says of the record: “Es Una Bestia is a settling of personal accounts with the ghosts and fears of youth. Digging through the wounds, exploring the cursed soul, inviting his monsters to come to the surface and they do so in the form of vitriolic and hallucinated synth-punk. For this bloody task he has aquired the best possible help, the complicity of the prestigious (and Nick Cave favourite) Polish painter Aleksandra Waliszewska, who provides vocals, as well as the director and musician Wiktor Stribog, the brain behind the ‘Kraina Grzybów’ phenomenon, who collaborates on the lyrics. In his solo project Wladyslaw reveals himself as a crooked line, a faustic anomaly that invites to a dark and psychotropic journey in the form of feverish electronics, industrial rhythms, and almost paranoid sound walls through certain life risks”.
KR3 first EP is an intricate labyrinth of sounds, curated by Japanese techno pioneer Takaaki Itoh with an additional remix by Claudio PRC. “Mutual Recognition” is a work of insistent raw elements that interweave with hypnotic segments, creating a sense of bewilderment. The A side keeps listeners on the edge with its insistent wobbling and repetitive sounds. Similarly, the B side builds a sense of high intensity; Stinging synths and mental hi-hats interact consistently, resulting in a mesmerizing conversation.
Essential CiM (aka Simon Walley) classic, originally released on Headspace Recordings in 1999. Now re-mastered and re-cut on Delsin Records. Crispy and soulful idm-techno in line with CiM’s Delsin debut Service Pack released later that year.
A year has passed since Cyan85 first graced the VOITAX catalogue with his successful summer debut EP – “Bay Of Sampieri”. His dreamy pads, avant-garde take on retro arpeggios and slamming 808 beats have been continuously conquering our ears ever since, making him a young talent to watch within the electro circuit. He now returns to the imprint with his very first album – “Lucid Intervals”, demonstrating his knack for crafting ambitious pieces to establish himself as a respected producer. The LP aims to explore a variety of dystopian atmospheres and energies throughout nine infectious and carefully crafted tracks that build on electro’s rich heritage without failing to infuse it with Cyan85’s very own remarkable, dreamy electronic signature.
Thief of Sanity’ is shapeshifting duo Animistic Beliefs’ debut on Brokntoys. The 4 track EP is an ode to the past, drawing inspiration from political techno group Underground Resistance, as well as ancestral pan-tribalist music. Without compromising their signature Rotterdream sound, the dynamic duo deviates from their recklessly violent live-sets, tuning into more introspective and earthbound frequencies. By means of hypnotic synthesizer and bursting drum machine workouts, Xakalele and rbf.linh take you through their melancholy filled world, sharing with you their worries, hopes and fears in the form of a tongue-tied protest.
In February 2018, Roy Ayers performed four sold out shows in Los Angeles as part of the Jazz Is Dead Black History Month series. It wasn’t until 2020 that fans of Ayers discovered that in addition to those shows, the legendary vibraphone player had also recorded an entire album of new material with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Over the course of its eight original compositions, written collaboratively by Younge, Shaheed Muhammad & Ayers and recorded at Younge’s Linear Labs in Los Angeles, the resulting album sounds both like an unearthed an unreleased album from Ayers’ classic period in the 1970s (which produced the oft-sampled “Red, Black & Green,” “We Live In Brooklyn, Baby,” “Everybody Loves The Sunshine,” and “Running Away), as well as something startling, new and unexpected. Joining Ayers, Younge & Shaheed Muhammad onthis musical journey are drummer Greg Paul, vocalists Loren Oden, Joy Gilliam, Saudia Yasmein, Elgin Clark & Anitra Castleberry, as well as Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison of the legendary Spiritual Jazz label Tribe Records. The 8 tracks on this album testify to the love not only of a legendary musician’s legacy, but to the vitality & necessity of this music and these sounds in the present era, a thread that will likely run throughout all of the upcoming releases from Jazz Is Dead Records.
Strut kick off a brand new deal with the seminal independent black jazz and soul label Black Fire in May with ‘African Rhythms 1970-1982’, a comprehensive 2CD / 3LP compilation of Oneness Of Juju, led by Plunky J. Branch. Tracing their career from the band’s earliest work in 1970 with South African exiled jazzman Ndikho Xaba in San Francisco, the compilation covers the band’s journey to New York’s loft jazz scene, forming Juju and releasing two landmark albums of hard-hitting percussive jazz on Strata-East. “I saw myself as a cultural warrior,” explains Plunky. “We studied about Africa and tried to infuse our music with an African spirit.” Moving back to his hometown of Richmond, Virginia during the mid-’70s, Plunky drew in a superb new group of musicians and vocalists and created the band’s new incarnation, Oneness Of Juju, retaining the African influence but fusing his sound with funk and R’n’B on the classic ‘African Rhythms’ album. “We realised that, if we put a backbeat to the Afro-Cuban rhythms, people in Richmond and Washington D.C. could be drawn into it; it didn’t change anything about our message.” The change would lead to a series of enduring soul-jazz classics on Jimmy Gray’s Black Fire label, including ‘River Luv Rite’, ‘Plastic’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’ and their biggest crossover international hit, ‘Every Way But Loose’ in 1982, later famously remixed by Larry Levan. The band received renewed interest in their music during the mid-’80s as Washington D.C.’s go-go innovators cited the band as a major influence and rare groove DJs revived their albums for London dancefloors.
Detroit composer John Beltran returns to Delsin with The Season Series. A collection of subtle and colorful compositions of beautiful synth melodies creating heavenly atmospheres. A blissful walk through breezy spring fields where the gentle sunrays thaw frosty winter scenes. Whether offering up club-focused Motor City techno, futuristic tech-jazz, bubbly electronica or sofa-bound ambient compositions, John Beltran always wrings the maximum amount of beauty and soul from the machines he uses to make music. He’s at it again on “The Season Series”. Variously fusing swelling, almost classical chord sequences, stirring melodic refrains, effects-laden shoegaze guitars, effected vocal snippets and beats (when used) that touch on many of Beltran’s main influences (think IDM and Detroit techno), Beltran has produced a simply stunning album that amply rewards those who give themselves in to its positive, emotion-rich charms.
Over the last decade, Kassel Jaeger, the moniker of the Paris-based composer, writer / theorist, producer, and director of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), François Bonnet, has meticulously sculpted a body of multidisciplinary work that rests at the forefront contemporary electronic and electroacoustic practice. This is his new album ‘Swamp/Things’ on Shelter-Press. Sound is abstract. When the source is elusive, narrative and meaning shift between the concrete and obscure. With his first solo LP with Shelter Press, Swamps/Things, Kassel Jaeger wades into this foggy, conceptual realm. From memory and metaphor – sliding fluidly through the imagistic and emotive – emerges an immersive, cavernous world that rethinks electroacoustic music on organic terms. ‘Swamps/Things’ was conceived as an opera without distinct characters or text. It draws Kassel Jaeger into his own history, experiences, and the unlikely double of the swamp, a landscape that has held literal and metaphorical sway over him since childhood. Merging 8 works as a total environment, abstaining from distinct shape or discrete articulation, across the album’s breadth, sound becomes a shifting mirror for the bubbling, ordered chaos of organic life.
Our personal mental health worker Reedale Rise is serving us his sweet medical blend of high hanging fruits. Making sure to keep La Familia Frustrada from going insane..
OPIA sublabel Euphoric State welcomes the warm and analogue sounds of evergreen producer, Dan Piu. The Swiss producer is known for propelling vital, and ahead of their time sounds since the early 90’s. The ‘Let’s Come Together’ EP makes no exception as Piu showcases some of his catalogue ranging from 1994 -2020. The aptly named ‘Bleepy at 5AM kicks off the EP, an early morning energiser with a spring in it’s step. Followed by and crafted in ‘94 is ‘El Viento De La Noche’, four and a half minutes of pure emotive bliss, a raw house vibe from the golden era. B1 ‘Angry Giant Machine’ glides you through its twists and turns, a glitchy and playful number ready to make you move. ‘Mimic Human Form’ is a cross between modern Italo and mysterious electro, a curious outing with its low swung bassline, and swirling synths. Out of ‘99, and still sounding fresh is ‘Q.H.’, a straight up hip-hop energy, with dusty broken drums and rap samples. A fitting ending to a spectrum of sounds.
Skylax Records welcomes again Michele Lamacchia, better known as Rhythm Of Paradise, with his Love island project. He’s very good at creating productions that are both airy & lush. This magic was already present in the Love Island titles but this time he’s pushing his art to new heights. a subtle and intriguing mixture of Italian dreamy house that will delight both fans of the purest house.
Outfitted with anthemic romps, tongue-in-cheek pastiches, and percussions that pivot from rolling adventures to rain hitting the windowpane, Intimacy’s ‘Across the Bridge’ marks the artist’s fifth release on vinyl and first release on Bouquet. A grab bag of fun, dancefloor-ready tracks written across 2019, the EP delivers his aesthetic of old computers, sci-fi movies, and science class educational videos configured into deep, spacey line-toting bedroom techno and melancholic house.
Filmmaker sharing some mythical and magical sounds on the latest Phormix release. Dystopian panoramas have been a recurrent panorama on Filmmaker’s tracks and for this work the direction focused on some core elements like the entropy and chaos magic to bring a musical tribute to the goddess Eris. Filmmaker’s birth name, Fauns (derived from Faunus) has surrounded his life with inspiration from greco-roman mythology so all the energy put on ‘Discordian Disco’ is fed by the multicontextual universe and synchronicities that shaped it into a memorable tape. During the days off his touring in New Zealand, Faunes stayed in Wellington, city where these 10 tracks were recorded using his Deluge, motivated by how the other artists on this tour developed various uses and styles for this instrument also crafted in that land. The result is a collection of wave grooves and lo-fi creamed melodies which also included a special collaboration with the Belgian producer Naomie Klaus (ex Laura Palmer) on the track ‘Golden Apple’ where she delivered both male and female vocals with lynchian tones and tribal vibes. Besides the symbolism of this release, Filmmaker wants to dedicate this album to his most eclectic listeners for highlighting the soul reflected on the music since the beginning. Discordian Disco aims to cause a unique remembrance on the auditory memory of anyone who listens to it from start to finish as is the last Filmmaker’s full-length on this 2020.
Veyl introduces a new series called ‘Still Life’ inspired by photographs by Tomaso Lisca. For the first edition we’re thrilled to welcome Jensen Interceptor, Cardopusher and Lokier for an electro-heavy A side, while Morah, Randstad and Empire State fathom the depths of the more leftfield side of the label on the flip.
The Hipodrome Of Music 