Marlon Hoffstadt is a rising star as both a DJ and producer, effortlessly joining the dots between classic rave and the future of techno. Taking a break from running his Retrograde label, Marlon has cooked up Observing The Known for Ransom Note Records. Over three tracks of warm synths, bubbly acid and emotional chord progressions, the EP sees Marlon reimagining house music for today’s dancefloor, taking the passion and energy of ‘80s Chicago and giving it the production heft of 2017 Berlin.
‘Redeemer’ is the brutally seductive debut album by Phase Fatale, a key player in the recent charge of EBM and post punk-informed industrial techno infecting ‘floors from his home city, NYC to his DJ residency at Berghain. In Dominick Fernow’s Hospital Productions, Phase Fatale finds a fitting home for his personalised brand of clinical, rictus rhythm programming and searing synth and guitar lines, adding a vital streak of black and blue electric energy to the legendary label in its 20th year of cultish operation. In seven parts, ‘Redeemer’ follows the direct, his deeply personal realisation of weaponised sonics, upholding a strong tradition of techno as a prophetic exercise or ritual to gird dancers and listeners for the onset of future war. It presents Phase Fatale as an ultimate emissary of electronic violence and domination in the process, steeling the limbic system and muscle memory thru a fine-tuned disciplinarian approach to pharmacokinetics and biomechanics.
The twelfth Modal Analysis release brings Athens based Morah to the frontline of the label’s roster, along with the New York based, Vapauteen on the remix duties. Voltage EP carries 3 original tracks by the Greek electronic music producer, along with a very special reintrpretation by the American artist, also known as Shawn O’Sullivan. Aesthetics vary from slow and hypnotic rhythms to driving EBM riffs and harshly distorted percussions. Morah approaches the sound of Modal Analysis while maintaining his distinct charachter as a producer, using here field recordings and processed vocals.
Jesse Pimenta is a Brazilian-born, LA-grown artist who has previously released on Nous Disques as well as on his own Private Selection imprint. Side A brings two slamming cuts fit for all-out dance floor annihilation whilst Side B delves into more psychotropic yet punkish zones.
Group Rhoda is the solo electronic music project of Mara Barenbaum, based out of Oakland, California, one half of Max and Mara. The project started around 2009 with a debut album ‘Out of Time, Out of Touch’ in 2012 on Night School Records. ‘Wilderless’ is Group Rhoda’s third full length and first for Dark Entries Records. Each of the these 7 songs draw forth tones of tropical darkwave and soft industrial, while negating the sound of conformity and control. The album explore themes of societal and spiritual displacement, contemporary serfdom, the depths of empathy, regeneration through destruction, and the tyranny of claiming recognition and power. Lyrics are poetically expressed through allegory and explore archetypes rooted more in abstract observation rather than hard line experience. Through transgression and imagination, Group Rhoda explores the arc of songwriting interwoven into stark electronic environments, and creates a bridge between the corporeal and the dream worlds.
Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records have teamed up once more to release the final volume of gay porn soundtracks by San Francisco-based musician and producer, Patrick Cowley. One of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of disco, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music, “The San Francisco Sound.” Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study at the City College of San Francisco. He founded the Electronic Music Lab at the school, where he would make experimental soundtracks by blending various types of music and adapting them to the synthesizer. Featuring 70 minutes of music never before released on vinyl.
Third release Mosaique Records MSQ003 is a dark electronic music experience, which includes new edit and cut by German musician and producer Mick Wills. Side A- super rare, almost unknown track by a Russian industrial project DMT (Dmitry Tolmatsky/1970-2009), grabbed by Mosaique label owner Alexander Moralez from DIY audio-cassette. Thereafter it had some edits on Mick Wills studio. Side B- Mick’s cut on never released track “Flexion” by Jasss.
Bionda e Lupo are like little you’ll have heard before, a boy/girl band like no other. Synth wave is fed a line of modern alienation, delusory disco to a disdainful drum beat, house emptied and ridiculed. Rhythms are stark, melodies are as mechanical as the lyrics. “Zug Der Vogel” is sparse, vocals intertwine in an empty embrace whilst bars sparkle. “Twoi Glasza” is more playful. Bright words shimmer against sweeping strings. The past is parodied across the EP but nowhere more so than in “Die Kinder Aus Dem Park.” A former classic dug out before being peppered by machine gun percussion. The stilted rhyme of “Eckstein” closes, a ballad of bittersweet images and lost hopes.
There is a sense of urgency increasingly infecting the human condition, fragmenting our attention span, accelerating our needs and often influencing our motives when making creative decisions. The result is a lack of dynamics, there is no ebb or flow, its “go” time, all the time. Electronic music is one of the clearest examples of a widening division between great art created in a deeply imaginative vaccum and the soulessly formulaic and branded product that serves the impatient masses. What draws the ESP Institute to Benedikt Frey is his ability to operate on the fringe, outside the constructs artists constantly channel themselves into—his art speaks a pure language that is realized by any means necessary, a process devised solely to articulate his own message, one delivered with patience, never rushed nor dictated by the outside world. Artificial was written and produced over two years, tirelessly sculpted into a sequence abstract pieces that are fiercely independent but accumulate layers of meaning when collaged. It is electronic and rhythm-based, but never reliant on any prescribed instrumentation, arrangement or expecatation. This is our idea of well conceived and executed album; not simply a collection of tracks but a complex narrative that unfolds over peaks and valleys, pulling the listener into emotional corners before leaving a residual impression. Some may describe music very well in words, but there is always something lost in translation—a story only the music itself can tell.
Studio 89’s second release is ready to spread into a clubhouse near you. A sizzling charge of hot and heady lust. Sexy beats for you fancy freaks. We are your ship master, cruise with us into the depths of your dreams.
A dervish bewt from Stefan Schwander’s Harmonious Thelonious for TTT, Apakapa catches the Düsseldorf-based explorer meeting the moroccan flute of Ghazi Barakat for one of the project’s jazziest, moodily hypnotic episodes.
Swedish producer Magnus Sellergren set out to expand his musical vision with “Test Subject 011”; a four-track EP that sees him injecting both Italo and Space Disco to the trademark Videogram sound.
Drawing inspiration from the Netflix hit series “Stranger Things”, the EP blends driving John Carpenter-esque rhythms with softer melodies, pulsating riffs with dance-friendly drum beats, and outlandish synth and sample-driven soundscapes with soothing, melancholic string arrangements – creating an exciting horror synth EP that’s simultaneously intense and lush.
Fortuna Records deliver a stellar compilation of real-life magic created by immigrants from Yemen, in Tel Aviv, from the mid seventies to the early eighties. Ranging from extremely rare to previously unreleased, these tracks are a result of a unique scene which blended funk, soul, jazz & disco with traditional Yemenite rhythms & sounds. It cannot get more obscure than this.
Prolific and always inventive live pair and studio wizards Juju & Jordash are back with another fantastic album on their home label, Dekmantel. Called “Sis-boom-bah!” it features nine tracks that once again showcase their musical maturity and free thinking. The pair say it is an album “steeped in traditionalism” and to us it sounds spiritual, musical and beautifully thought provoking.
Afro funk and Political Soul from Togo. Recorded in the beginning of the 80’s and self-produced by Itadi in 1983 , this obscure album contained deep soul and controversial rare grooves backed by the 5 band members called the “Afro Funk Band de Lomé”. Itadi’s music is unique, in his second album, he kept the same recipe: a mixture of soul, reggae, hi-life and Funk, with heavy lyrics which sounds like slogans and caused him big trouble after its release. He was obliged to escape the country to USA. A real definition of a revolutionary musician.
Africa Seven is on fire recently, and this new compilation of rare and untapped material from Cameroon’s Joseph Ekambi Tongo Mpondo has to be the pick of the lot. The talented multi-instrumentalist was famously studying medicine in Paris throughout he 60s, but it’s clear that down the music path was the only sensible option for this man. African Funk Experimentals brings together some of his most obscure material from the years 1968-1982…and some new gear from 2017! Aside from the absolutely killer artwork featuring on the sleeve, this is a ten-track masterpiece, reaching all corners of the afrobeat heritage, while still retaining something very personal and symbolic of Cameroon’s often underrated influence on African funk and boogie.
The first sampler from the new Funkadelic album “Reworked By Detroiters”, includes two reworks by Moodymann.
Dutch producer and live act Conforce is back with ‘Autonomous’, a fifth artist album and the latest in his long relationship with Delsin Records. Conforce is Boris Bunnik, a producer who explores the deepest realms of dub, house, techno and electro under many different names. His Conforce alias is where his most club orientated material comes from and this new nine track album finds the Transcendent label boss producing dark syntheses inspired by his hometown and harbour city, Rotterdam, and its automated industries. A masterfully conceptual album that really paints a vivid picture of a harbour as heard from deep down in the depths.
This marks the first vinyl release from Echospace [Detroit] this year. An unreleased classic from the vaults emerges with beautiful reshapes by CV313 (recorded and reshaped from 2007-2016). This is where the sound of CV313 was realized, culled from cassette tapes recorded live (1995-2000).
The Hipodrome Of Music 