Juan Atkins’ Infiniti project combines raw tactility and puristic elegance with Skynet, where slinking grooves mask chaotic frequencies and roughly-hewn structure.
Alongside fellow Detroit legend Terrence Dixon who appears on several tracks, Atkins exposes the life and emotion in machines, outputting a biomorphic atmosphere of industrial soul. The ongoing importance of this album is indisputable, essential both to techno and to Tresor.
This is the sixth release on Eye Teeth, the techno sublabel of Interdimensional Transmissions, by Berlin’s Pascal Hetzel. This EP effortlessly merges a modular and hardware approach to music making while fusing techno, industrial and electro influences. The opening cut “Incognizance” is a near perfect blend of all his influences, while the EP closer “Reformation” mixes these ideas into an energizing very techno take on electro feelings. We love this EP and really look forward to new music from this promising artist.
Last year, Spanish analogue freak Do Or Die impressed with debut album “Alien GF”, a nine-track romp through intergalactic acid, techno and electro pastures. “Imposible Materia” offers up his first new material since and is similarly impressive. Head first for “Lost”, a bustling, all-action affair rich in fizzing riffs, weird noises, classic Motor City chords and wiggly acid lines, before losing yourself in the hypnotic, minor key motifs, broken techno beats and unsettling stabs of “DX100”. Sci-fi loving acid freaks will devour the psychedelic TB-303 lines, rumbling Michigan bass and punchy drum machine hits of opener “Conciencia Sucia”, while closing cut “In Time” offers a warm, groovy, tactile and suitably shuffling conclusion to another superb Do Or Die release.
Polybius Trax present another three track EP from Mantra showcasing a variety of acid styles. Opening track, Blackout, is a solid, no-nonsense acid techno workout, perfect for a strobe filled warehouse, and features builds and drops layered with ethereal tones. Emanation is a maelstrom of moving synth sounds, bouncing delay lines and vocal-like klaxons that combine to disorientate the listener. Final track, Mirage is a classic bad attitude acid track with an unnerving acid line that weaves in and out of aggressive percussive lines.
Photonz is the alias of Marco Rodrigues a DJ, producer and driving force of Lisbon’s underground scene. Etheric Body Music is Photonz’s debut 6-track EP for Dark Entries and a simultaneous reference to hermeticism and EBM (Electronic Body Music). Marco loves that ‘aesthetic when 80s industrial and EBM bands split up and start to make trance in the early 90s and all the ritual magick pushes them to zen stuff and they do ecstasy.’ There’s this concept in theosophy and hermetic philosophy of the Etheric Body, which is an energy body superimposed and connected to the physical body, similar to the acupuncture idea of an energetic body. That idea manifests itself as six primal club cuts, which also channel early techno, Drexciyan rhythms, balearic & old school jack. Raw arpeggiated synth lines and bass blast jut against metallic stabs and highly percussive shakedowns to create mournful atmospheric warped house.
Tony ‘Addis’, the man behind the Warriors Dance label and No Smoke project (amongst many other things) is undeniably one of British dance music’s unsung heroes. That much is proved by this re-mastered reissue of 1990 LP “International Smoke Signal”, an album so ahead of the game at the time of its release that it still sounds like the future. Most will know acid house anthem “Koro Koro” (here in altered, slightly more downtempo form), but it’s the quality of the lesser-known cuts – the sub-heavy, UK steppas-influenced Afro-house of “East of Eden”, the bleep-meets-Dream II Science deep house bliss of “OAU In Music”, acid-fired “Anti Galactic Devotion” and “Pacific State” style E-rush of “Oh Yes (Freedom)” – that makes it such an impressive and essential set.
Born in Venezuela and based in Barcelona, Luis Garban aka Cardopusher has spent the last decade creating a wide variety of noisy dancefloor assaults. Although his roots lie in the breakcore scene, he’s slowly gravitated toward a raw, electro-infused take on techno that is no less compelling. Dark Entries presents a new 6-track EP titled ‘Muscle Memory’ that takes the listener on a deep and gritty ride through his diverse sound, from techno to electro, acid, rave and house.
When asked about the story behind the tracks of ‘Journey Through The Outer Darkness from the Inner Light’, Jamal Moss answered with a laconic “No story. No dogma. No Hype”. After all, his despise of extra-musical paraphernalia is proportional to his productiveness in the studio. But there’s always a story. On April 9, 2016, Hieroglyphic Being played a live show in La Casa Encendida of Madrid within the festival Electronica en Abril. Some days later, the recording of the full set was uploaded to YouTube. When we watched it, we were totally captivated. Those eighty minutes of music had the raw power of all of Jamal’s body of work, but with a heightened sense of transcendence. Cosmic, spiritual and intensely beautiful, it sounded like a lysergic reinterpretation of Detroit techno transmitted from a galaxy yet to be discovered. As most of the material was unreleased, we reached Jamal in order to try to press it into vinyl. The result is ‘Journey Through The Outer Darkness from the Inner Light’, a 12″ that reunites eight of the individual tracks that conformed that Madrid performance. When inquired about AUM, the sacred sound all the tracks are labeled after, Jamal referred us to a book by author and naturalist Joseph Bharat Cornell. A book that the author himself presents with these words: ‘The sound of the Cosmic Vibration is AUM, and listening to it brings the greatest bliss imaginable. AUM is the Omnipotent Force that propels each soul toward Spirit. It’s the sacred, inner fire. As you approach the cosmic blaze, you feel at first its radiant, soothing comfort; then, as you come closer – AUM’s liberating flames consume you – and bring you to God”. There might be “no story and no dogma”, but, suddenly, it all makes sense.
First full length from Posthuman in eight years. Named from, and created as a companion piece to the (completely sold out) Mutant City Acid series on Balkan Vinyl. Inspired by classic computer games such as ‘Syndicate’, ‘Flashback’ and ‘Beneath A Steel Sky’, it is written as the soundtrack to a journey through a near-future dystopian city, awash in the glow of neon skyscrapers. Digging into the weirder side of acid techno and electro, this is still an album for the dancefloor but with one eye on the darker corners of the room. Pressed on completely random coloured vinyl – red, green, yellow, blue -.some marbled, some faded, some solid, some translucent – the first time this has ever been done. The entire pressing process was video livestreamed from the plant with engineers answering questions in the chat (again, a first). Comes in a full colour gatefold sleeve adorned with retro pixel art.
Dark Entries comes with a 6-track EP from San Francisco based DJ, producer, and remixer Sepehr Alimagham. The San Jose native has been a fixture in the Bay Area house and techno scene for quite a while now, on the dance-floor, behind the decks, in the studio, or all of the above. In 2017 he began performing live PA sets, utilizing his immense production backlog to perform vivid and electric sets, from potent dance music to psychedelic and esoteric soundscapes. ”Body Mechanics” is six tracks of acid drenched dance music that ebb and flow from floor filling club thumpers to more cerebral soundscapes. Inspired by the new wave of the acid sound as well as nostalgia from his formative years in the San Francisco music scene, ‘Body Mechanics’ takes a functional, yet psychedelic approach to 303 styled techno and electronica.
The unreleased dark side of Zoo Folle! Recorded by composer and multi-instrumentalist Giuliano Sorgini between 1974 and 1976 in his studio in Prati district in Rome, a stone’s throw from Italian television offices, Africa Oscura is a set of tracks inspired by the wildest and most obscure secret s of those lands, intended to be the background of some TV documentaries. Some tracks were recorded during the same session of “Zoo Folle”, the album widely recognized as his masterpiece, celebrated today by the most influential connoisseurs from all over the world. Some others came right after, for a mysterious documentary whose title was supposed to be “I corsari della savana” (as stated by the credits written on the reels that we have found). All these tracks remained unbelievably unreleased until now, forgotten on some old and dusty ¼-inch reels, amazingly survived up today, then transferred and restored to compile this much-needed release. A sort of concept-album about darkest Africa, with a kind of eerie mood, nearly esoteric, to which Sorgini was very close in these years, working on horror and b-movies soundtracks or experimental libraries. All tracks are entirely played by composer himself, with drums, percussions and all sorts of analog synths overlaps, to create an afro-ambient soundscape, something halfway between electronic and minimalism, with a vibrant prog flavour. Among John Carpenter’s reminds, occultism, large prairies and Saharan landscapes, this amazing score truly reveals the creepy dark-side of “Zoo Folle”.
Originally released in 1981 via Elite / MCA records, ‘En Trance’ is a joyous album that arguably represents the pinnacle of the Brit-funk sound. The band consisted of bassist, and keyboardist Lester J. Batchelor, drummer Ray Johnson, guitarist Andy Sojka, saxophonist Stewart Cawthorne, singer and guitarist Tony Antonio and producer Jerry Pike. The album captures the excitement of these exceptional players demonstrating utmost originality in the studio.
Musique Pour La Danse presents this LP limited edition reissue of The Purple Universe, an album originally released in 1993 by Swiss duo Synectics (Marco Repetto & Stefan Riesen) on legendary braindance label Rephlex. Bearing CAT number 06, this early release is one of Rephlex’s best-kept secrets. The 2 x LP edition includes 3 tracks from the CD version, never available on vinyl before.
For the tenth instalment of Undersound Recordings we present a split EP from Dominic Dammer, under his MNVR and Omni Causa aliases. Dominic runs mindcolormusic, a collective active from 2010 releasing IDM and electro tinged music in tape and vinyl format and has been djing since the mid 90’s. The A side from MNVR presents a deeper approach with two emotional techno tracks whereas B side from Omni Causa takes a moodier turn with broken electro jams.
Three different takes from two different periods of time meet up in this acid focused 12”. The record features two Skudge originals from 2009, optimized into today’s standards. And also a classically trained Splice track, where a fierce drum patterngoes in parallel with the acidic bass line. A current take on a very classic machine.
Mechatronica drops another forceful electro release, this time with a diverse collection of new and familiar faces. The Moroccan Casa Voyager crew conducts the A-side in style, Kosh carefully manufacturing an expanding, fat and spacey electro drive while OCB laces old school electro flavours with breaks, acid and devastating groove. On the flip, harder and darker electro sounds evolve as decade-long French electro producer Jauzas The Shining drops a potent electro/acid track in ‘Machine’, followed by the relentless energy of Stella – a murky, ever-intensifying journey through electro, breaks and industrial soundscapes by French producer Ersatz Olfolks.
Carl Finlow’s Beckoned EP was the first EP on Craigie Knowes back in 2016, since then he’s seen a string of releases under various guises on some of the world’s most prolific electro labels. The Boolean EP is stacked with 5 UK electro tracks that embody a lifetime dedication the genre, untouchable technicality and superior sound design. This record is a trip through clouds of stellar dust with the power to rumble any dancefloor exposed to its radiation.
Djedjotronic Aka Jérémy Cottereau drops an icy 4 track Electro cut for CPU. There’s a clear Drexciyan influence here with plenty of dystopian drama but things are disrupted with the likes of ‘Tunnel’ serving up raw 4/4.
The debut record from Ectomorph that launched it all — the project, and the label Interdimensional Transmissions in 1995. This is the first time it has been repressed in over a decade, and it’s using the original masters complete with 3 lock grooves cut by Ron Murphy.
London based hardware specialist No Data Available joins the Null+Void family with a four track EP of rugged, playful and effective electro driven tracks for the rave – ending in a blissful introspective 7am moment with title track the night.
The Hipodrome Of Music 