Shatter Cone is a rare imprint that is only known to form in the bedrock beneath meteorites impacts or underground nuclear explosion. It is the eventual evidence that huge pressure has been applied and life as we know it has disappeared. So shaped and recorded, such pressure, has been pressed on vinyl and delivered to you.
Midlight’s releases may be relatively sparse, but they’re rarely less than excellent. Here, they wander off in a more robust direction, delivering a pair of twisted, acid-flecked rubs that should please all those who like their house music rough and dystopian. Rarely spotted Swede Peel MD kicks things off with “Calavera”, a pulsating fusion of rolling analogue percussion, warped electronics and heavyweight 303 abuse. Frak surprisingly calm things down a touch on “Rebate”, dipping the tempo for a hypnotic trip through deep-but-sparse acid house territory.
Berlin-based Dutch DJ and producer Steffi returns with her second album Power Of Anonymity on Ostgut Ton, featuring laid-back, melodic cuts like ”Pip”, ”Fine Friend” and the break-heavy title track next to more straightforward, hypnotic dance floor pieces such as ”Selfhood”, ”Bag Of Crystals”, ”JBW25” and ”Bang For Your Buck”. Besides her solo instrumental productions, Steffi’s collaboration with longtime friends Dexter and Virginia on the uplifting, percussion- driven vocal track ”Treasure Seeking” is the icing on the cake. Just like ”Power Of Anonymity” as a single piece of music, the album itself lives on an industrial-resonating structure of 808s, crisp synth stabs, pulsing staccati and dark, percussive drumbeats. With her second album Steffi recalls classic, landmark Detroit Electro, while creating her very own modern, retro-futuristic sound.
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Innershades is Belgium producer Thomas Blanckaert and now he is back with a new EP on Crème Organization, his third for 2014. Opener ‘CVS’ is a ravey mid tempo house cut with raw old school stabs, lots of percussive tension and drums that really make you wanna move. Then comes ‘Momentum’, a dramatic bit of thumping house with thick synth patterns, hooky melodies and emotive pads. The no nonsense vibes continue on ‘Dark Society’, with its ticking hits, thudding kicks and mysterious, snaking pads. Finally, ‘Oase’ marries more hefty kicks with classic claps, plenty of reverb and more ravey stabs that will really bring dancefloors out in a sweaty, 90s style. Modern house with a retro bent, this EP is sure-fire club dynamite.
The Zenker Brothers and their Ilian Tape venture get stronger by the minute, and here Marco flies solo with this latest EP, sounding in utterly rude health with it. “Geezin” is a distinctive opener, ditching standard 4/4 propulsion in favour of an airy drum machine arrangement infected with the slightest flurries of hardcore breaks and offset by wistful synth patterns. It’s a curious combination that works magnificently, but for those wanting something a little more direct “Splifer” is on hand to deliver a more classically Zenker techno mantra. “Darai” brings the swing back in fine style, throwing down a chunky stomp to match the sizzling hats, and then “Lubiana” wrecks the surroundings with its magnificent pummel of low end percussion and gritty production values.
Gunnar Haslam returns to LIES records for his second album, Mirrors and Copulation. Following a slew of 12″ releases this year, Gunnar delves deep into his darkest palettes for a return to his patient, haunted soundscapes that shrouded his debut LP, Mimesiak. Across eight tracks of ambient techno both brooding and tumultuous, Gunnar Haslam unravels a narrative on overpopulation and its potential environmental ramifications inspired by the Borges quote the album title references. “Meter By Me, Sybil” cascades arpeggios through a thick fog that never leaves Mirrors. “Ajapajapam Version” cuts through with a sluggish 3/4 strut and nauseated 303 bassline, but the rest of the A side is fully enveloped by the Gunnar’s peerless recreation of the wet ambience of a ghostly rainforest. “Cloud Castle Lake” offers an uptempo cut buoyed by a blasted kick drum and frenetic 606 workout. Still enshrouded, “Cloud Castle Lake” further explores Gunnar’s sonic terrain with the force of a freaked dancefloor’s momentum, much like the album finale, “In Argo Teurano”, which blasts forth from the mist with a weathered adventurer’s grit.
Heidi Lord is the wife of Rephlex/WeMe artist Jodey Kendrick. Three of Heidi’s tracks are featured on the famous “EDM” Compilation Albums This is the Debut album from Heidi Using a unique pallet of sounds from MRI machines to modular synthersizers to conversations in a super market to her own processed voice Co produced by her Husband “I could describe what the album means to me, But i would much rather leave it to listener to experience and feel and to interpret how they see fit”.
Andy Stott returns with his first new album since 2012’s ‘Luxury Problems’, straddling analogue club music and vocal pop songs. ‘Faith In Strangers’ was written and produced between January 2013 and June 2014, and was edited and sequenced in late July this year. Making use of on an array of instruments, field recordings, found sounds and vocal treatments, it’s a largely analogue variant of hi-tech production styles arcing from the dissonant to the sublime.
Abstract electronic pieces on Phobos,the debut LP from Neel, well-known as the sonic mind behind the Voices from the Lake project, together with his fellow Italian DJ, friend, and cosmic joker Donato Dozzy. Neel is a young mastering engineer with golden ears, and through Voices from the Lake, he and Dozzy have brought a level of immaculate sound production to techno.
The second 12″ single from Echospace in 2014, engineered and mixed down from 1/4″ analog tape and mastered by the talented fellas at Alchemy Mastering in London; focusing and enriching every finite detail. “Fading Lights,”, a vortex of analog warmth provides a provocative synergy pushing the boundaries between synthetic and organic movement, a sonic illusion. These enthralling hypnotic moments lead us into the seduction of groove with, “Magenta” a lesson in space and bass. The art of restraint is clearly on display as one feels as they are floating in zero gravity for an extended 14 minute journey which leaves you feeling as though only a moment has gone by, sonic submersion of the highest order. This is music to drift out, to float in, to dream thru, to love to, the magic is in the mystics.
The Greg Foat Group are currently the resident band at the Playboy Club, located in Mayfair, London. Earlier this year a couple of nights were recorded for Jazzman, and the results are here for all to enjoy. Recorded live and direct onto 1” analogue tape the album captures the energy and atmosphere of the group at their regular gig. Awash with library-esque soundtrack-themed jazz grooves with a modal edge, jazz has never been so much fun! This is the 3rd album by the Greg Foat Group on Jazzman, and is the first album to be recorded live at the Playboy Club for over 40 years.
The group is composed of the key members of the Finnish funk powerhouse The Soul Investigators, who have previously backed worldwide success stories for artists such as Nicole Willis and the vocal duo Myron & E. This is an instrumental pressing of the “Lost Soul” album, which High Society Brothers did with New Orleans Soul Legend Willie West.
Born and raised in Louisiana, Willie West made his first recording already in the year 1959. While being backed by The Meters, he also had one release on Warner Brothers in the mid 1970’s, plus numerous singles produced by Allen Toussaint. Even though he was noticed locally and in the circles of soul music aficionados with minor hits such as ”Did You Have Fun” in 1960, Willie never managed to break to national success. During the past years, he has lived in Minnesota and kept himself busy in music. Lost Soul might be just the thing that finally gives him wider recognition. Lost Soul continues on the moody path laid by the 7” single recordings West has done with The High Society Brothers band from the year 2009. The group is composed of the key members of the Finnish funk powerhouse The Soul Investigators, who have previously backed worldwide success stories for artists such as Nicole Willis and the vocal duo Myron & E.
First release of a previously unknown album from the personal archives of ”clarinet bird” Rolf Khn, recorded 1962 in Hamburg. Outstanding modern jazz and hard bop session featuring Klaus Doldinger (ts), Ingfried Hoffmann (org/ p), Cees See (d) and Herman Schoonderwalt (b), with plenty of tunes made famous by Horace Silver (”Sister Sadie”), Charlie Parker (”Au Privave”), Miles Davis (”Solar”) or Thelonious Monk (”Bemsha Swing”) – all arranged by Khn. Comes as limited vinyl LP commemorating the 85th birthday of Rolf Khn, carefully mastered in 2014, with unreleased photos and new sleeve notes written by Khn’s biographer Maxi Sickert.
On his new release, Gavin Russom explores the possibilities of layering his homemade analog processors, trying to create an evolving and changing repetition. Pulsing and deep, this limited edition 12” will hypnotize you into a cosmic lull. Although not founded in religious beliefs, still excellent for starting off your Friday afternoon prayer.
Umwelt with a release on Shipwrec. This new EP deals mainly in moody electro that is tinged with nice acid lines, which slowly becomes a trait of this great label. ‘Somatogravic Illusion’ goes first and is a synapse-twitching bit of bulky electro with tough kicks, groaning synths and starry melodies. ‘Subterranean Bases’ is a little more stripped back, with sheet metal snares blowing in the wind and background pads adding a sense of drama. ‘A Tale Of Disruptive Science’ gets all liquid and frenzied like a prime era Drexciyan cut, with lashings of acid flashing about in the deep chambers of the track, ‘Realm Of Chaos’ explores slow, dragging ambiance that is pregnant with sense of end of the world doom and finally ‘Terraformation’ picks up the ante with pixelated melodies, urgent drums and lots of slapping percussion and gurgling acid 303s that really make you want to move.
2nd in the lost tapes series from a true boss in German Electronics,Move D. All taped between 1992 and 1996 at at KM20, Heidelberg. This second round of archival material proves to be just as rewarding as last year’s inaugural entry, with lead track “Willenlos” a killer 12 minute journey into classic deep dub techno. Flip it and you’ll find a young Moufang dabbling in some trippy downbeat manoeuvres with “Evil Track” whilst “Inside the Dollhouse” fizzes with alien percussive qualities.
Cultivated Electronics presents the first in new series of collaboration EP’s which see’s CE label head Sync 24 joining forces with other artists. The first instalment is with the the dark Electro purveyor The Exaltics. Together they serve up 4 moody yet diverse Electro tracks synonymous with the style you would expect from both of these producers.
Hashman Deejay’s Future Times debut, Tangerine, was something of an overlooked gem – an exotic, melodious gem that pinned Tangerine Dream style electronics to a restless techno groove. This surprise debut album has a similarly dreamy feel, even if the techno side of his output has been tamed a little. Instead, we get a range of eyes-wide-shut compositions that variously touch on Mood Hut style deep house (“Mercury”), ultra-deep electronica (the odd beats, spacey noises and relentless chords of “Mozaic”), swinging, Max D style drum workouts (the rich bass, dubbed-out synths and loose house grooves of “184”), trip-hop style downtempo beats “Statues PF”), and thrillingly loose, new age house anthems (“Xssential-3”).
