Dog in the Night staple Robert Crash gets back at it with a new EP of house madness. The Italian producer once again shows us why he’s the boss, clocking in with another four tracks of acid fueled beaters. Off kilter beat tracks that are sure to get the tweakers in a frenzy, this is what house is and should be.
On this installment of the long running Rave Or Die series, ever-present producer Umwelt is joined by prolific, mask-wearing techno misfits The Exaltics. It’s the latter, a German twosome headed up by Robert Witschakowski, who strike first, layering up bubbly electronics, hard-wired acid lines, muscular beats and spacey chords on the sweaty techno/electro hybrid “Endless Journey”. Umwelt goes a little deeper and moodier on flipside “Delusive Reality”. While the acid lines are sharp and occasionally intense, he contrasts them with bittersweet pads, yearning melodies and a pulsating rhythm track full of relentless kick drums, crunchy snares and hissing cymbals.
Echovolt expands its remit with the launch of a new series of mini-albums with the first edition coming from Templeyard Studios, a recently formed project of Berlin-based Greek artists Miltiades and Goolyk. Met for the first time in Berlin in 2014 and pretty soon started sharing sonic ideas and researching how they could affect the human brain, using hardware sound equipment.
Jamal Moss doesn’t mess around. The legendary Chicagoan is impressively prolific, and seemingly able to knock out a new album or double EP in a matter of days, rather than weeks or months. Cosmic Bebop is his latest set of no-nonsense jack tracks; an eight-track assault on the senses forged from dusty old drum machines, occasional blasts of distant melody, and all manner of mind-altering special effects. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from Moss, and for the most part sits in the folder marked “box jams”. It’s a proper past perspective of works (1996-2014) from Jamal Moss of obscure experimental releases of unique analog sounds reissued other his other popular known alias.
Official from re-edition done by Phil Weeks & Didier Allyne from Gene Hunt with released on Svek in 1996 Jazzy: Synth riffs with 808 bass drums. Get Freaky oldschool feel and toughen the tune into techno status like Robert Amarni Style.The Man: Candido sample like old moodymann house track.
Burbling basslines. Hissing hi-hats. Snapping snares. Soulful synths. Streams of machine currents meander and merge in The Red Hour, Mark Du Mosch’s debut EP for Pinkman. Four cuts of compelling and complex electronics, each track offering a different side of Du Mosch’s sound. Textured techno from the margins.
Following his acclaimed North Bend album of 2015, Chris Roman, known as 214, is back on Shipwrec with the third in their series of single sided odysseys. A haze of bass descends for “I See What You Did There”, a clipped drizzle of percussion falls before thick acid bars tremble into position. Echoes, reverb and decay merge, groan and bend as the preconceptions of ambient, electro and techno are pulled apart. In one breath dense and complex, the next grooving and future funk dipped. An epic example of 214’s talent. Single sided 12″ with a silkscreen printed B side.
Pinkman cast their net eastwards. The latest finding, Hungary’s Norwell, offers up four genre splicing cuts. Rhythms are from the golden age of electro, cold and prototypical. Around these sharp percussion patterns swirl a wealth of melting synthlines. Pads, deep basslines and a ghosting presence characterise the title track, that same spectral mood weaves its way through the sweetened strings and distorted judders of “Dissonant Division.” The frigid bars of “Nordic Nights” introduces the flip, arctic winds pierced by snapping snares. Emotional depth ebbs and flows as the rich and textured “Wasted Echoes” brings down the curtain on Norwell’s Pinkman debut.
It’s 2016 and Egyptian Empire Records is still going strong over thirty years form its first 12″. It’s creator and master, Egyptian Lover, is as active now as he was on the launch of his timeless and genre-defining 1984 LP, and this new remix of “Killin’ It” shows us that the man hasn’t changed a pair of socks since the mid 1980’s – the tune is a dirty, utterly on-point electro scorcher with twisted vocals and that eerie, inimitable sound of the Nile. “Tryin To Tell Ya” is another mean-spirited, highly strung electro dominator with a powerful bassline to blow your jaw firmly out of place. A huge 12″ and one that will become rarer and rarer as the years go by, so you know what that means…
Andrew Red Hand is someone who wears his influences well, turning in an EP full of the kind of sharp beats and wiggly electro funk that fits neatly within the Detroit ouevre, while still allowing him to explore his own emotional center as a native Romanian. Like many who found a connection with Detroit, he is far from it physically, but he has found his strength in the sound, fusing a fierce bassline with a tightly woven melody in “Fugitive For One Night”, while adding a quirky hopefulness to “Bass Agenda 86.” “VIP Club on Acid” heads straight for the dancefloor and the acid, minimal in construction and driven only by snappy snares. “ER” changes up the angle with a heavy kick and restrained percussion driving tense pads, hot string stabs, and a dripping acid line.
Aux Tha Masterfader may sound like a creature beamed in from a distant galaxy, yet he’s the latest homegrown talent to join the Bordello. But don’t be mistaken, there’s a definite space influence to his sound. Drums come with a southern flavour in the vocoder dipped “Ready To Dance”. Steeped in the rhythms of Rimini, this is a track that will whisk you away into happiness. It’s the laser light synthlines that capture the ear in the clean and shining “Tennis Record”. Bars glide against an iced background, chords gleaming amongst claps and warming bass.
Giallo Disco dark overlord Antoni Maiovvi delivers a sprawling italo beast that will conquer all your inhibitions. On the flip, Lucas Savidis of the Rattler Proxy delivers a remix reminiscent of Badalamenti on acid.
The second release of Disco Segreta – catalogue number DS M 002 – is titled “Stranamore” and comes after the successful release of the first label imprint “Andromeda”, already turned into an underground disco classic. Sung in italian by mysterious singer Brina, “Stranamore” and “Per Te” are two italo-disco tracks written in the ’80s by Mario Baldoni (aka Miro) of the “Safari of Love” fame: a teenage girl shares her heartbreak, then it’s just the instant magic of italo, italian language and those synthesizers, in a freeze-frame taking back to that spring of 1984 with the car windows open, listening to the radio, waiting for summer to arrive.
The Finnish artist Boneless One returns on Ride The Gyroscope with a 4 tracker of unfashionable acid.
For the second part of his “Connection Lost” series Massimiliano Pagliara teaches a lesson in how to translate Disco music in a modern language of sound. Without further ado “Trying To Hide But Then I Cried” comes across as pure dance floor material. Above a drum-fueled foundation various synths swell up and down while the bassline is pumping steadily for an irresistible groove. “If You Were Here” on the other hand benefits from similar ingredients but has a rather dreamy feel to it. Thanks to its elegiac pads and pensive synth melodies. “Ukulele Groove” takes its time to build things up but when the bassline and those distinctive synth stabs come in you can’t help but hope for a never ending summer. The final word here is “No More Love To Follow” featuring the vocal talents of Matthew Morris, a slow progressing, gloomy Disco ode to the ups and downs of love.
DimDj has no control over his life. Machines, records and noise boxes took over years ago. This is more than confirmed by this 5-track journey from acid techno to the old-school electro and further to Kuno’s dystopia, who delivers a complete acidic rework over PTN1.
Solo outings from Africans With Mainframes member Noleian Reusse are relatively rare. Here he dons a brand new alias, the Eddie Murphy-referencing Dexter St Jacques, and sets off on a techno trip into the ether. Opener “Laamb” [sic] is a curious but alluring beast, with undulating synthesizer and acid lines riding a fizzing, almost bubbly drum machine rhythm. It feels like electronic jazz with techno drums, yet it’s not overtly jazzy. There’s a similar feel about the more distorted “Temporal Understanding”, where rising and falling melodies lines and winding electronics compete for attention over a hissing drum machine groove.
Little is known about Konstantin Tschechow, the first and last time we met was around the turn of the millennium in the small city of Koenigsbrueck in the far east of Germany. It was during one of my regular night strolls through the countryside, when I ran into him accidentally. He was standing there in the middle of nowhere leaning on the fence of a train yard where he was, as he said “recording silence”. I found that very interesting and we got to talk to each other. After a long conversation about everybody and his dog we found out that we were both Grandsons of Afrika Bambaataa. We planned to hang out more often so we exchanged phone numbers and he gave me a CDR with some of his recordings before he disappeared. A couple of weeks later I called him up to ask if we could meet, but he told me that he had to leave the country because the local authorities found out that he illegally immigrated from Aldebaran. Before I could say “to hell with this fascist state!!!” the connection was interrupted. I tried to call again, but he must have dumped his phone to make sure nobody could track him down. That was the last time I ever heard from him. A few years ago, there were rumors of him being the sound man for reincarnated John Lennon on various tours around Galaxy Mt23, unfortunately I could never afford tickets to find out. One lucky day in 2015 I found the CDR that he gave me on our first and only meeting ever. I discovered 5 tracks and instructions to release them in the year 2016 during a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse.
Founded 20 years ago, Blueprint Records has remained one of the true driving forces behind British techno. To celebrate this special anniversary label founder James Ruskin and Blueprint friends have created a compilation of brand new music to celebrate this landmark. These exclusive tracks are released here as the ‘20 Years Of Blueprint Compilation’ limited edition box-set, with a collection of four clear vinyl records as well as poster and sticker inserts.
Function & Inland’s Infrastructure introduces its next milestone – Facticity. A 4×12” vinyl box set, CD and digital compilation featuring 15 tracks by key artists, label colleagues and new faces. Function, Inland, Campbell Irvine, Post Scriptum, Cassegrain & Tin Man, Rrose, Efdemin, Vatican Shadow, Silent Servant, Blue Hour, Steve Bicknell and Cleric all feature, spinning a narrative ranging from lush, ambient electronics and post-club diversions, to contemporary club techno and back again. Carefully curated as an album, Facticity represents the foundations of what Infrastructure stands for – a manifesto for 2016 and beyond.
The Hipodrome Of Music 