It has been quite some time since Sololust released something but he returns with fresh energy and a sound both familiar and with a new twist. His music has become less synth pop and more dance floor minded. Acid and elektro is the drill here, with some touches of techno. This five track EP features some crazy stuff which at times is reminiscent of Börft output.
TWINS (That Which Is Not Said) returns to Enfant Terrible. On the A-side you will find a synthpop / minimal elektro / cold wave tune with a metal beat reminiscent of John Foxx. The B-side features a harsh elektro piece. It is tense and uptight, could also have been fitting for a Gooiland Elektro release and should be a future dj favorite for sure.
Mirror Box is the solo analog synth project of Dallas musician Sean Kirkpatrick. Blending together elements of Giallo moodiness, dub texture, techno propulsion, a passing nod to your favorite wave music, and a flare for the kosmiche, Mirror Box’ debut release, Minimal Compliance EP, is a tour de force of the veteran musician’s exploration of a wide range of influences and experience.
South African disco release. The title track ‘Dance’, written by Belgian composer Frank Degrijse, was released by Night Force and became a hit throughout Europe in 1980. In South Africa the song was released with permission at a slower tempo (the original 45rpm was ‘officially’ slowed down to 33rpm). Added to this are four tracks by Music Team’s in-house production team the Tom Cats – including dub reworkings of recent Afrosynth releases ‘Burnin Beat’ and ‘Searchin’, here released as ‘Hot Stuff’ and ‘Search For Love’ respectively. Synth-heavy oddities ‘You Are My Fire’ and ‘Shake Shake’ make up the rest of the tracklist.
Next up on Bicep’s Feel My Bicep imprint is a fresh single from fellow Irishman Cromby, featuring two remixes from Electro stalwart DeFeKT and the ever-dependable Shanti Celeste. Cromby slots neatly into the FMB catalogue with Retribution – a single that draws from his experience spent on the floor and behind the booth at clubs in Berlin, with it’s stirring chords and frazzled drums. DeFeKT’s offers up a buoyant, 808-heavy take on the original while Shanti’s ‘Chill’ mix omits the kicks in favour of her signature sunny synth tones.
Dan Piu is releasing his first full album with unreleased tracks since 1999. A collection of beautiful Chicago & Detroit sounding pieces that he created throughout the last centuries.
Andrew Red Hand finally joins the Lobster main family. He takes you deep into the night with haunting synth lines, deep chicago grooves and proper drum machine battery on his latest effort for the LT UNDR sublabel.
Up next on Phonica White is Brooklyn based artist Justin Cudmore. ‘Twisted Love’ gets straight to the point, with firm and strong percussion joined to a fickle acid bass line. In addition to this, Justin weaves in some House-flavoured vocals to keep you hooked until the end of the track. A certified floor-filler of a track. On the flip is ‘About to Burst’, a track that starts with a powerful kick drum and grows with new emerging elements; punchy hi-hats coming and going in key moments and a simple keyboard arpeggio that added to an Acid bass line catches you instantly.
Adam X returns to his imprint Sonic Groove with his first album in four years, a 56 minute excursion into EBM and Cyberdelic Industrial Techno titled “Recon Mission”. The mission begins with beat driven hypnotic electronics that invoke paranormal illusions of Easter island mythology and Bermuda Triangle disappearances. Climbing forward the album crosses the line into harder industrial territories, conjuring visions of New York City’s dystopian past and CIA shadow government experiments. Adam has survived the ups and downs of the industry while continually raising the bar for production value and sound design.
Following a superb start last year with his edits of Mike Storm, Ben Sims’ Symbolism imprint returns with it’s second ultra-limited drop featuring Biemsix, Scott Franka, Stef Mendesidis and Raul Alvarez. Deep, hypnotic techno for the ‘floor.
Marking its ten-year anniversary Dynamic Reflection is set to release Continuum, a collection of five uniquely intertwined EP’s. The special series commemorates the label’s roots, evolution and establishment and honors its residents and friends. The Continuum-series will feature twenty exclusive tracks. The EP’s Sonos, Magno Hyacinthum, Fluctus, Luna Frigus and Terra Nova are planned as part of Continuum. Collectively they become the articulation of a decade of techno. Featuring tracks from Donato Dozzy & Mike Parker, Abstract Division, Deepbass & Ness and Ben Buitendijk, Fluctus represents the third planet in the Continuum-constellation, consisting of five exclusive releases in celebration on the 10th anniversary of Dynamic Reflection.
In the seventh EP to come out on his own imprint, label head Dimi Angelis serves up four tracks, each distinctively ANGLS: bare and unassuming music. Opening track “Live Chat Events” leaves little space for actual conversation and immediately hits home with some thorough techno that reminisces of a bygone rave era which refuses to be forgotten. Follow-up “Index” continues that feel but switches things up by delving off the deep, ever so slightly distorted synth end. On the flipside Angelis allows subtle percussion movements to do the talking in “Lotus”. Proper and powerful on its own, equally useful as a tool. “Cosmodrome” closes down #007 and is the most introvert of the four with a unique, submerged sounding pattern that gradually builds and falls. An EP that will fit and improve any collection.
Epic, brilliantly curated two hour collection of new and exclusive material celebrating iDEAL Recordings’ (1998-2018) 20th anniversary featuring JASSS, Stephen O’Malley, Jim O’Rourke (an epic 17 minute trance-enducer – honestly worthy of its own LP), Ectoplasm Girls, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Prurient, Puce Mary and many others…
Back in 2015 George Thompson AKA Black Merlin started a deep love affair with the remote island of Papua New Guinea. After his first album ‘Hipnotik Tradisi’, released on Island Of The Gods; George was intrigued to find a place drenched in culture and untouched by the western world. In 2016 George planned his first solo expedition, venturing out to meet the Kosua Tribe. Over the course of the next two years George would record the sounds of the Kosua people. From their daily lives, ancient dance customs and wildlife. During one of these trips he spent 14 days alone in the jungle, getting in and out of the Mount Bosavi crater and further 3 days inside recording and filming his experience. These recordings and experiences formed the basis of his second album, Kosua.
Sone Urbia is a collection of improvisations recorded live during the period of 2011-15. A grainy meditative voyage into layers of field recordings, old sampled records, synthesizers, acoustic and non acoustic instruments. This album works as a mixtape separated in two sides, two journeys; two soundscapes.
This is the 5th album by the nine-piece instrumental collective from Amsterdam, Jungle by Night. After almost a decade of heating up dancefloors across the globe, Jungle by Night have reached manhood. In the process of creating their 5th album, the nine-headed collective melted years of passion, friendship, and influences from krautrock, dance, jazz, afrobeat together into new instrumental prose, fluently speaking the language of their instruments. The band is an oddball ensemble within its own cosmos. A danceable and thundering live-act, connecting with crowds like no other, with beaming fun and energy along the way.
Habibi Funk co-founder Jannis Stuertz first came across “the Holy Grail of Sudanese funk”, Saif Abu Bakr and The Scorpions “Jazz, Jazz, Jazz”, while browsing eBay listings a few years back. His interest piqued, he took a trip to Sudan to track down the musicians who had made a ridiculously rare LP that was changing hands for thousands of pounds online. Some four years later, his wish to reissue the set has finally come through. It was originally recorded in Kuwait in 1980 and brilliantly joins the dots between American funk, soul and rhythm and blues, traditional Sudanese vocals and rhythmic arrangements, and even a dash of Congolese soukkous. It’s the first full album Habibi Funk has reissued, and with good reason: it’s near perfect from start to finish.
Another sure shot double sider out the Now-Again catalogue, until now both tracks were album only and both pure club killers. Conrad O. Johnson of Kashmere High School, Houston Texas, created the Kashmere Stage Band turning it into one of the most fierce unbeatable high school bands in the national championships.
Shamal Wind, the celebrated second album by UK flautist and sax player Chip Wickham gets revisited by three producers cooler than the other side of the pillow, hailing from London and Berlin. Max Graef, Reginald Omas Mamode IV and Ishmael Ensemble get their hands on the tracks of one of the jazz albums of the year and come up with four epic remixes.
Conceived by vocalist Gerrie Brand, the band Life In Sodom was starting out as performance art, and quickly became more as Gerrie surrounded himself with some of the best musicians from the club and art scene in South Florida, including Mystic Bill, who was playing the guitar with the band in the early stages. Originally self-released in 1991, the single ”The Stains” became an underground club hit and charted on many college radio stations, in both the extended and the original version. The single was distributed as a hard to get promo only release. The repress contains also the title-track of the single “Phantasmagoria” – another cult tune for early 90’s goth djs – originally released in 1992 and a friendly dancefloor cut of the title-track by Alessandro Adriani.
The Hipodrome Of Music 