Dario Zenker on The Trilogy Tapes with some gritty techno tunes.
001.Features
Jeroen Search – Figure SPC T [FIGSPCT6]
One of the true masters of modern minimalism, and one of the central artists on Figure SPC, Dutch artist Jeroen Search is back. Over three exciting and urgent new tracks Search hones in his skills in programming and arrangement to create yet more exciting and unique club tools. A refined and trippy journey into the cleaner, more funky end of the Techno spectrum, ‘Magnus’ works an airy, bleep-era riff atop snappy, tight drums and frenetic hat and ride elevations. Constantly lifting the energy, dropping it off with subtle tension, and bringing it back again, its a masterful example of the producer’s talents.Drifitng into more edgy zones, the darker and more sinister ‘Renaissance’ welcomes back Jeroen’s jacking house influences, as this groovy 90s-vibed jam takes off. A rough and totally out-there synth riff emerges from the forward pushing percussion to take centre stage, creating a moment of wild abandon!’Formalized’ completes the EP with a more abstract trip into dark dance. Classic techno bleeps and pizzicato synth patterns revolve and hypnotize in this reduced and frankly killer slice of paranoid genius.
Cassegrain – Blood Distributed As Pure Colour [PRG036]
Since Cassegrain entered the techno consciousness back in 2010 with the final artist 12? on Kevin Gorman’s Mikrowave label, the Greco-Austrian pairing of Alex Tsiridis and Huseyin Evirgen have carved out their own corner in the world of foreboding, bassline driven, deep techno. The title track’s power electronics fall somewhere between a Regis, British Murder Boys and Donato Dozzy production, while the focus of “Hexagon Fifteen” is steely ambience, oblique drums and ghostly textures. The final track, “Yokai”, is what real Prologue fans will associate with most thanks to its floating hypnotisms and extreme feedback loops.
Sterac – Klockworks 12 [KW012]
Dutch techno legend Steve Rachmad, aka STERAC, joins the Klockworks ranks with an outstanding four-track EP. Funky minimal techno like he did a long time ago on Robert Hood’s M-Plant in an updated version.
D’Marc Cantu – Parisian Summer [DSR112]
Desire presents a new release, featuring 5 jacking tracks with sleazy 303’s frantic synths by D’Marc Cantu.
Roberto Clementi – Bonton EP [ECHOCORDCOLOUR028]
Heavy deep techno tracks from Italian Roberto Clementi on Echocord Color. The release comes with a Marcel Dettmann remix.
Charlton – Intelligent Life [MORD008]
Doing their own thing with a host of less-familiar names, Mord has worked tirelessly over the past couple of years to establish a distinct sound within more techno-minded realms. Charlton returns with a second release for the label that brings a range of moods to bear on his looped-up style, kicking off with the Robert Hood-isms of “Vulnerable” with its nervous cyclical chimes, before “Stand Behind A Line” burrows a little deeper into throbbing machine rhythms with acid overtones thrown in for good measure. “Unforgiven” opens things up with a mammoth, distorted square wave synth line that flinches not once in its quest to devastate the dance. “Simple” thing brings some 303 action back into the mix but balances it out with a dense base layer of industrial grunge to make for a nice and dirty ass-shaker.
Local Suicide – We Can Go Everywhere [BAP032]
Local Suicide are a Berlin love story. Having met across a set of turntables, DJs, producers and dancefloor all-rounders Brax Moody and Vamparela have connected as a German and Greek soundclash since 2007, and this release rubberstamps their partnership on what is their debut EP. ‘We Can Go Everywhere’, chanting into a Balearic underworld, is in the classic mode of synth-pop, disco-house and indie dance brought back from the future and into a past discotheque philosophy. The future-retro scale is further determined when you have the expertise of In Flagranti to truly quantize the boogie, looping the chorus just behind a mix of digital distress signals and road trip guitars until it becomes so- mething near an incantation of Bananarama. Inigo Vontier trains tracky, fractal-examining synths for a deep tech-disco hustle. Powered by low slung electro- house blips that cram and gang up on the dancefloor so that it needs water cannon fire to disperse it. Last but not least Tom Tom Disco’s Richard Rossa is another bringing sounds back and forward, putting spit and shine on mainframe sequences so a vintage glitterball can spin once more. With the ubiquitous synth shunts and bongo percussion not losing sight of the fact that there’s a still pop-ish party going on.
Helen – Witch / Zanzibar [DE066]
Dark Entries Editions reissue series continues with a double A-side of the first two Helen maxi singles, “Witch” and “Zanzibar”, as a 4-song EP. Helen was an Italo disco studio project that consisted of various producers, songwriters, and vocalists from Italy in the 1980s. The first line-up included popular Italo producers Piero Cairo and Massimo Noe, known for their work with Joe Yellow, Den Harrow, Pink Project, and Dharma to name a few. They were joined by prolific Italo session vocalist Elena Ferretti. “Witch” was originally released in 1983 on Out Records, a label distributed by Discomagic Records. Signature Linndrum and Simmons drums create the driving rhythm track while Elena’s powerful vocals tell the haunted tale of a witch and her magic. In 1985 the second incarnation of Helen recorded the song “Zanzibar”.
Art Fine – Dark Silence [DE065]
Art Fine was the duo of Fabrice Bellini (electronics, vocals) and Rush Blakemann (guitar, synthesizer) from Tuin, Italy. They recorded their only single “Dark Silence” in November of 1984, which was released by Discomagic in 1985. Fabrice programmed the electronic drums using SCI Drumtraks and added extra tracks on the Simmons SDSV. Rush played electric guitar and the Yamaha piano notes at the start of the song. Guest musicians Silvano Borgatta and Riccardo RosaThe “da da da da da” voice effect was done by engineer Gigi Guerrieri, who cut and spliced a tape rather than using a sampler, which was too expensive at the time. “Dark Silence” tells the love story of beautiful girl who Fabrice saw many times but could not reach. He called her Dark Silence, for her dark hair and eyes and the silence unwanted between them. The B-side features a remixed version with extended breaks and dubbed out bass lines and vocals.
Peter Richards – Walking In The Neon [DE064]
Dark Entries Editions celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Italo Disco club hit “Walking In The Neon”. Peter Richard was the alias first adopted in 1979 by producer and vocalist Walter Beinat. His best known song was “Walking In The Neon”, released as a maxi-single on Italian label Good Vibes in 1985. For this single Richard teamed up with the production duo of Gigi Farina and Franco Rago, best known for their projects ‘Lectric Workers, Decadance, Expansives, and Wanexa. “Walking In The Neon” was written by Rago & Farina with help from Chuck Rolando, member of Italian disco group Passengers.The track’s arrangement was done by Italian disco pioneer Celso Valli who wrote club classics for Macho, Azoto, Passengers and Tantra, to name a few.
Editions Haighton – Italia ’83 [EH001]
The first installment of a quarterly series takes its cues from the Italian disco scene of the early 80s, reworking Cyber Peoples Void Vision into a Hi-NRG burner fit for the early hours at a former power plant, and JM Bands Computer Monkey into a loopy tool with frills.
VA – Brasserie Heroique Edits Pt.1 [BH009]
Waldemar Schwartz – Taza De Oro [CHANNEL039]
This is the first project for new NYC native and Golf Channel signee under the new nom de guerre of Bogdan Irkuk aka Bulgari who did a bunch of celebrated stuff on Rollerboys over the last few years! It’s a heady duo of upfront modern Disco jams, all muscular bass lines, swirling atmospherics and tough drums.
Jaakko Eino Kalevi – Yin Yang Theatre [BIS015]
Part-time tram driver and full-time disco disciple, Helsinki’s Jaakko Eino Kalevi catalyzes street smart funk into heat stroke for Yin Yang Theatre, his new EP on Beats In Space Records.
Gay Marvine – Bath House Etiquette Vol.5 [BHE005]
More sickness from Gay Marvine. A side pure disco and deep funk reshaped as tools for today. B side total cult classics revisioned to devestate any dance floor.
Kline Coma Xero – Kline Coma Xero [MR036]
Medical Records presents the debut full length release of Kline Coma Xero. Formed in 2012, Kline Coma Xero is a group whose work embraces elements of early minimal synth wave with distinctively thoughtful lyrics and evocative melodies. Kline Coma Xero’s Tony Williams has had his roots planted in various projects in the past, spanning a realm of styles from experimental noise, tape loops and early industrial. Using a writing style that employs the use of hardware sequencers driving analog instruments rather than computers, Kline Coma Xero produces a uniquely oblique interpretation of past-meets-present in modern electronic music.
Severed Heads – City Slab Horror [MR035]
Their most varied, interesting work, City Slab Horror includes stark synthesizer workouts, several tracks of pure rhythm and noise, and, thankfully, little of the unambitious tape music for its own sake of Since the Accident. “Cyflea, Rated R,” “4.W.D.,” and the title track provide several examples of the best experimental synthesizer tracks of the mid-’80s.
Information Society – Insoc EP [MNQ053]
The ”Insoc EP” contains the first official recordings from the legendary Minneapolis music collective Information Society led by founder/producer Paul Robb. Originally released on vinyl in 1983 the EP became extremely difficult to find. Now, for the first time since 1983, Mannequin Records is giving it a new birth on wax, this time including a bonus track ”Charentiesm” never appeared before in any format, which is the first track ever recorded by Information Society in 1982.
Nine Circles – Number Not Available [EV009]
EE Tapes are more than honoured to welcome Nine Circles aboard of their 7″ vinyl series. A new line-up with new challenges, starring Lidia “The Rose” Fiala and keyboard wizz Per-Anders Kurenbach.
