Mutant Beat Dance is a collaboration between research scientist and vintage synthesizer enthusiast Beau Wanzer and pioneer of the jakbeat sound Traxx. ”Another World” takes you on a bass heavy psychedelic journey. Think old school psychedelic jakbeat with a bit of a Fingers vibe but more banging. On the flip is ”New News is Old News”, a deep and hypnotic analog track,sort of a more updated take on an 80’s industrial / italo sound.
Leskin, Massimo di Lena and Joseph Russel from Napels, deliver four outstanding deep & raw house/techno tracks, resulting in part 2 of the Early Sound Collective. Without falling back into cliché, their characteristic use of their analog equipment takes you right back into the ‘early’ days of hypnotic, raw & soulful machine music, competing with all Detroit/Chicago cats from back in the day.
Creepy Autograph aka Jimmy Edgar brings classic 90s house with a future funk production style on his new hit single “Curiosityyy” for Thug Records. Suspect takes care of proceedings on the flip with furtive vocal laden smooth electrotech business with “Inurface”. All vocals by Lace.
New release on Dekmatel by Vedomir. One deep & cosmic ambient track and one deep & cosmic house track that will raise hands.
Wurst presents two remixes of Native Underground’s boogie pop masterpiece, “Push 4 Love”. Runaway’s remix sees a return to form for the duo of Jacques Renault and Marcos Cabral, and a Wurst homecoming of epic proportions to the label that released their debut smash. A monstrous bassline drives the mix, signaling a different direction for Runaway one that we’ll hopefully see more of. Flip it over for an altogether alarmingly groovy remix courtesy of none other than In Flagranti. Tuff beats and nasty low-end form the rhythm section of this cyber-boogie jam, saving the vocals for the last bit, keeping them dubbed out and dreamy in the best way possible.
Fresh and crispy Electronic House with bags of soul from the Fourth Wave regular. ‘All By Myself’ shaves the drums to a slinky shift while keys and bassline are smudged to a hazy, hypnotic blur beneath hushed and jazzy vocal. Similarly the teasing Jazz vibes of ‘What A Mess’, with the sort of textural detailing and studied swing of a producer far beyond his years. Aces.
Matador aka Gavin Lynch is a new Dublin artist on Minus. All bleeping soft focus melody lines and cantering kicks, it’s a slowly building bomb. Elsewhere there is shimmying, suggestive minimal coated in warm tape hiss on ‘Mambo’ and brooding, heavily-weighted backroom sounds speckled with rasping, rising synth lines and glistening percussion on ‘Hitbox.’ ‘Nomans Land’ is a bouncy, with wispy hi-hat ringlets and a buried-in-the-mix, undecipherable vocal running through it. The little details around the edges are what bring the groove alive. Coming from a different angle altogether is Korrado’: its melancholic notes hang above firm, pulsing kicks and bittersweet overtones.
The second release on Outis Music is a collaboration between label owner Dino Sabatini and his old friend Gianluca Meloni.
Karat delivers vinyl extracts from his last CD compilation Katapult Festival. Abstract techno by Skudge, Portable and Phillippe Cam.
The third release on Sigha’s ‘Our Circula Sound’ imprint drops in the shape of three outstanding tracks from Shifted, hypnotic and textural, leaning heavily on his influences outside electronic music.
Marcel Dettman puts out some jacking analogue sounding techno tracks on 50 Weapons. This is a classic 90s techno influenced EP that shows that the purest sounds are at the core of each Dettmann tracks.
Outstanding, completely alienated and dark sounding Techno from Milton Bradley on his own label Don Not Resist The Beat.
Kowton and Tom Dicicco present a split EP on Project Squared. Tom Dicicco’s original is driven by a low-mid range thick stab and pounding kick drum, littered with intricate but not overbearing hi hat and snare work and some very atmospheric mid range. Kowton’s is subtle and sparse, low fidelity and plodding, with rattling percusion carrying the tune along. On the other side of the record, Kowton’s remix of Tom’s original is driven by an enormous bassline, with an off kilter dubby feel to the slow tempo and genre defying tune. Tom’s remix of Kowton rounds off the EP with a return to stab driven Techno, pulsating, dynamic and trance inducing.
Russian producer Unbalance continues to present his own vision of the many differing strains of techno for the third in an ongoing series of hand stamped clear twelve inches. On the A Side, “Legacy” jitters with peak time intent, as granite like textures collide rhythmically with the insistent jagged syncopation, with Unbalance deftly judging when to adopt an increase in pressurised poise. In comparison “Euphoria” commences in the deepest recesses, with the saturated bass throb becoming ever more viscous as the track bumps along, craftily accruing intricate sonic details which lend the track a woozy hypnotic narcosis. The mood gets drawn ever further down on the final, sludgy sounding “Violet’s Night” where fractured textures battle it out with the rattling percussion amidst swarms of cricket like atmospherics.
In spite of 3 tracks on the original Transmissions that fell a little closer to what the heads would expect from Detrot Beatdown man Norm talley, on Transmissions, Chapter 2 he serves up two techno tracks.
Kirk Degiorgio dusts down his Future Past moniker for a no-nonsense techno release. The title track typifies the EP, with a bubbly bassline and doubled up claps supporting whooshing, churning filters. It’s the same approach on “Sparta”, where a walking bass and warbling acid lines suggest a clean, pure sound, but then an intense filter pushes it into the realms of peak-time techno. “Skrunch” dispenses with the lighter, more playful elements in favour of a tunnelling groove that flows to the sound of arcing acid and a dark riff undertow, while “An Act of Modulation” completes the transfer from bubbly techno to a leaner-edged sound with squelchy tones tweaked against the backdrop of an insistent spiky rhythm track.
Beautiful EP by Marvin Beltin on KDJ’s Mahogani label. Warm rooted soulful Detroit house tracks.
Fine Art present a new release by Frank Booker, with the boogie / slomo-house groover ‘Hope’ and the irresistable hook and dub/disco feel of the more uptempo ‘No Delay’.
New release bt Ka§par for Groovement. Inspired by the great masters and their legacy, Ka§par pushes himself towards the future with his own galactic sound palette. The B side features a remix by Carlos Nilmmns.
