Jex Opolis Presents: In The Nite–“Look At My Car!,” a versatile new EP featuring three cosmic cuts from Jex and Ian D. Knight, a St. Louis-based performance artist. Knight features most prominently on the Compass Point-tinged “Look At My Car!,” a Paean to the joys of both consumerism and rampant motorism. On the flip, Jexy whips out the Strat for some Chic-inspired licks on the chugging “Guitar Sands,” with the Italo-bumping 120 BPMer “Rimini Nites” along for the ride, too.
The debut album from White Material co founder Young Male. A collection of dark ambient and textured experimental songs created as a personal soundtrack for life in uncertain times. Paranoia, lust, virtual experience, and tension/release are themes explored in this tour through a dystopian American landscape.
Konstantinos Soublis, aka Fluxion, and Subwax Bcn have decided to pick up the banner and release Vibrant Forms III. It contains everything anyone could hope for and more: The massive, booming basses, the clicks and hisses, the atmospheric thunderstorms, the opium smoke-scented streaks of reverb, dub echoes and the warmth. Yes, above all else the warmth: Sometimes moist and dripping as in “Safe Harbour”, sometimes blisteringly dry as in “Variant”. It’s no easy task, giving cold, dead machines warm breaths. And no-one quite does it like Fluxion.
The first new release in 15 years for Matt Thibideau under the Altitude name and it’s as if he never left. Just like his legendary 1998-2001 output on Blue Recordings, each of these tracks is a deep and dubby analog groove to get utterly lost in. ‘Integration’ could be a new addition to Maurizio’s classic M series, while ‘Harmonic Scan’ lays the reverb on even thicker over a dark pulsing bass. ‘Stabilizer’ provides a techier counterpoint more aligned with the deep and driving loops of Bluespirit or Driftwood.
DaRand Land gets to spread out and show off his unique brand of euphoric and uplifting deep house on his debut EP for Scissor & Thread label, ‘Discover You’. The title track is classic DaRand Land, with bright piano chords, buzzing organs and a thick Chicago house bass line. Siren-like pads fade in and out from the periphery, as electrifying percussion elements come into play. Frank & Tony take a turn and apply their signature style onto the former track, adding a chunkier kick with bright as day claps and hi-hats to propel the track through the opalescent haze draped over the melodic elements. On the flip, “Marcela’s Sense” is a blissed out, head down late night affair. Cosmic pads swirl around glistening keys and repressed organ chords, as toms bounce among the steady hi-hat ride, lulling the listener into a state of euphoria. The EP closes out with the atmospheric, peak time Detroit house cut, “Souls Awash”. A serpentine bass line runs the show amidst swelling pads and in-your-face kicks and percussion. As with all of his productions, the track shines in the smaller details that float in and out of focus throughout, lending the track’s weightier elements an even greater sense of gravitas.
Ride the river out of the darkness. Original piano lines lead on SaintJohn. Two Spirits, together forever. Be yourself and let me be myself. Music is forever, house forever…
Born from live experimentation, this inaugural EP from The Other Planet reflects the spontaneity of creation. Oscillating between club sensibility and an ode to late summer jams, RBDP play subtly between different styles.
Finale Sessions celebrates it’s 5 year aniversery with Luke Hess, Patrice Scott. Basic Soul Unit and label boss Michael Zucker .
Rawax welcomes Final Chapter label boss Sean Dixon to the family. The swedish DJ and producer presents four melodic and groovy cuts for the vinyl only series.
Italy-born, Dublin-based producer Leopoldo Rosa aka Lerosa returns with his second EP in 2016 and continues a string of excellent releases for Croatian label Barba. “Your Soul” comes as the 9th release of Barba, and is very much in the area of previous ones – heady, mental and diverse. Lerosa effortlessly manoeuvres between genres on this 4-tracker, while at the same time keeping the overall sound and vibe consistent. 303-reminiscent synth serves as an underlying leitmotif which appears in every track, but in a different manner. Blood is an obvious A1, direct and trippy techno with a misty mood. With Duelist Lerosa wears his electro suit, while maintaining the atmosphere sketched out by the first track. Ghost sits right in between the first two, with its 1/2 tempo serving justice to the track’s feeling of neither resting nor moving. B2, Your Soul, is a house track with an elegant Lerosa twist on the classic Chicago vibe.
The second chapter for the south Italian Cosmic Rhythm, this time with the classic Cosmic Garden’s italian deepness signature.
Copenhagen based conceptual music act Design A Wave returns with ‘Snakeface’, a document of surprise within the composition process. Specifically, Design A Wave uses the computer to create several beats and then utilises the mutated results as building blocks for several new compositions. Interest in computer-synthetic snakes, beyond all networks of communication and agency art, centres on placing these formless serpents into existing genres, such as music. Snakeface is a timely exploration of the infectious qualities of music, and how it too, as a carrier, makes it’s way through neural networks, irreducible to bits and designed to infiltrate and replicate.
The 6th reference of Clasicos del Ruido is the result of a collaboration with Aitor Arch and Femur Club (club of reference in Madrid), and it is exclusively produced by artists who have performed at this well-known parties. The record opens with ‘Utopia’, a luminous, evocative and fascinating track by the German artist Hyboid, the undoubted leader of space and cosmic sounds. The British artist Kid Machine replicates on the same album side with the track ‘Fighting fears’, which includes echoes of disco and Den Haag sounds. On the other side of this 12inch, we will listen first to ‘Monologues’, a hypnotic-percussive track signed by the renowned French artist In Aeternam Vale. ‘Non auro, sed ferro’ by Hesperius Draco closes down the album, fizzing among their usual coordinates: horror disco, retro wave and soundtrack sounds. An album that brings together different artistic sensibilities in which both Clasicos del Ruido and Femur feel comfortable.
Anton Maiovvi with a new release on Schrödinger’s Box . This Bristol born soundtrack virtuoso, italo disco savant and all round electronic guru has travelled labels far and wide with his smorgasbord sound. And that variety is plain to hear on “Will to Powder”. From the epic opener of ”Clocks”, Maiovvi leads you through his labyrinthine hall of shapes and sounds. Expect warming melodies, cold beats, shimmering synthwork, brazen experimentation, a decent dollop of slasher scores and a pinch new wave romance in this.
2016 remastered re-release of this essential dutch westcoast electro-techno classic, aka Interr-Fered Communications HM1202.
FlexiWave returns with the follow up to the acclaimed 2012 cassette 290.625”. This new 60C cassette boasts 14 freshly vetted tracks of finest obscure electronica. From the shimmering, pearlesque sounds of Lisa & Kroffes’ “Rönnbär” to the dark and pensive Colouroids banger “Shove” and a new moniker from Silent Em & Portable Morla, Alta Dosis, 3375.1969” gathers a new clutch of artists set to earn FlexiWave another round of praise for their stellar compilations. Also on offer are Scottish/Icelandic duo Revigorators’ Joy Division-inspired Post-Punk/New-Wave excursion “Black Out City”, Black People’s one-of-a-kind textures and caterwauling rhythms on “White Man Is The Devil”, and nine other handpicked, finely crafted sonic gems.
Atlanta’s That Which Is Not Said or TWINS returns for his fourth release on Clan Destine. Channeling the spirit of Joy Division, Bauhaus, A Certain Ratio and other post punk legends kicking and screaming with DJ Pierre and Phuture into the NOW.
Collins’ debut 12″ on Giallo Disco is dark as night and sharp as a knife. Twisted electro-nightdrive stormers for revenge fantasies and futurist cyberpunk sex dungeons, dreamlike replicant discotheques or if the Boccaccio Club existed in Liquid Sky. Remix duties come from Giallo Disco favourite Protector 101 who takes ‘Signature Ligature’ into heavy synth territory peaking into blown out electronic doom.
Population One delivers a stripped down auditory urban narrative full of the city’s industrial internal conversations. Haunting, compelling and raw; looming in the darkness.
The Hipodrome Of Music 