Konduku makes his first appearance on DJ Nobu’s label Bitta, presenting four highly energetic, deep hypnotic cuts. It’s the perfect collision between their characteristic practices. Konduku’s two immersive techno works, in the form of ‘Hayal’ and the atmospheric ‘Yakamoz’, compliment Nobu’s powerful and uplifting mountain-valley sound. Balancing out the EP are two proper mind-benders: ‘Damla’ perfectly represents Konduku’s take on twirling half-tempo rhythms and ‘Zifir’ is a freaky heavy-hitter in the low sub territories.
Bordello Travels presents the second volume of ‘Buone Vacanze’ with your tour guides Ali Renault, Señor Chugger, Back From The Wave & Umatik and CT Kidobo.
Vuta is back on Mélopée Records with an incredible body release. “Crystal Hero” & “Aerie” are two italo body tracks, perfectly representing the current dancing Italo. “Filta Poly” is a sweet track, more sensisitive, but always keepin’ the dancefloor bubbling. Includes a trancey remix by Plexi Glass and an EBM remake from Brazilian artist Neurotiker.
An intriguing and revealing hypnotic immersion from the enigmatic duo JUNA. “Archetipo” explores the landscapes of the unconscious. The word “persona” in Latin means mask: thus the personality, the scenery of the ego, is transformed into a theatre of archetypal images, merging word and music, like a rhetorical figure, a synesthesia. The aesthetic-musical research is a poetic-sound journey into the psyche, to tell and celebrate it.
The decade of the 80s is revived through recordings like “Eyes” that allow you to travel through the music and trigger those old emotions of innocence, joy and adventure. “Eyes” by Clio contains all the emotions that a dance-pop song should contain plus the essential element of mystery, a kind of magic that takes place between the chorus and the bass line, a shot in the dark drizzly night of the Italo-Disco.
Next up on Slow Motion’s ‘A UFO’ free edit series is Radondo’s rework of Art Fine’s arcane Italo gem ‘Dark Silence’. Careful to retain the original’s elusive energy, he re-arranges the track’s structure to focus on the dark, stormy lows. Building to the infectious synth line of the original, Radondo incorporates a few of his signature atmospheric tones and synth Arps, culminating in a respectful homage to the brilliant ‘Dark Silence’.
Polish Electro/EBM duo Pleasuredome FM, contributes to Barcelona based imprint Italo Moderni with a masterpiece EP with a collaboration with Silky Oolong. Selecting 4 pieces on a convulsive breaks and bleepy motifs, with a special Electro punch for club and with a few emotional sequences.
This fifth EP in the Steve Rachmad re-issue series contains a colorful combination of three tracks from different releases. Side A brings the sought after track ‘Teknitron’, originally released on his 3rd EP, originally released under his short-lived alias Black Scorpion back in 1995. ‘Transpose’ is taken from his first Sterac EP from 1994, while the last tracks ‘Alastria’ comes from his second album Thera, originally released in 1998. All tracks are re-mastered of course. Steve Rachmad’s richly melodic strain of techno has resulted in a huge body of work he has been growing since the early 90s. His sound is the perfect distillation of machine soul – dubby atmospherics and crisp, danceable dynamics balanced in perfect unison. Amsterdam’s Delsin Records gathers together some of the Dutch techno figurehead’s most important, sought-after works in a new EP series, all remastered from the original DAT tapes from Steve’s archives.
With Augustus Williams, Juan Atkins’ newly signed artist, Metroplex Records welcomes one of Detroit’s new generation of electro and techno explorers to the label. His debut, titled ,,Increaser EP” offers four tracks of celestial funk, deeply indebted to the classic sound of Metroplex. The EP starts off with ,,The Hook-Up”, a bouncy yet minimal electro permutation built around a propulsive bassline and a percolating synth arpeggio. On the other three tracks Williams flexes his techno muscle and shows his keen sense for deep and focused techno-soul with a futurist edge that has any dance floor heaving with energy. – most notably in the noisy abstractions of ,,Submission”.
Berlin-based American Jon Hester presents some fierce-driving techno tracks on his latest release on Odd Even Records, with a clear Motor City influence.
Josef Tumari is an artist from the Sublimation collective from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He produces a mix of breaks, electro and techno with oriental influences at times. MAQOL98 is his most substantial work up to now.
Curtis Electronix reaches its 10th drop presenting the second album from his owner and founder CEM3340, “Macchine”. The double 12” draws together 8 new tracks all made and recorded using only hardware. Spanning from pumped up machine-led cyber-funk beats, to darting powerful techno out-kilters, but always maintaining a stable focus on CEM3340 personal signature, it explores those ravines where techno and electro collide. ”Macchine” is pure dedication to the machines. With no compromise.
Entering the two-digit era, Clear Memory presents this carefully curated compilation. Oscillating between Dark Acid Rain and L-Town-(Ultra)-Funk. Six surprises, six boxes of pandora, six welcoming arms, six uncanny offers.
After her debut on Mannequin in 2019, Dissemblance now arrives on L.I.E.S. with her second full length of somber, cold wave and emotional bedroom pop infused songs. This time around we hear the Parisian artist add a new arsenal of instrumentation to her repertoire, incorporating live drumming and a wide array of synthetic instrumentation on top of her drum computers providing a backdrop to showcase her stark vocal performances throughout the album. Meticulously constructed, this record displays the full range of Dissemblance’s musical dynamics as she pulls the listener into her universe where dreams and reality tread a thin line, one blurring into the next with no beginning nor end. She expertly brings together a diverse group of styles and sounds from different areas of the electronic spectrum making them her own. An extremely unique and strong display of modern minimal synth pop that pulls equally from the past whilst propelling towards the future.
Veyl welcomes Blind Delon to the label with a new album, La Métamorphose. Founded in 2016 by Mathis Kolkoz, the band currently consists of Mathis Kolkoz (Vocals, Guitars), Coco Thiburs (Bass) and Thom Mayor (Synths, Guitars). Fueled by cold bass lines and synthesizers of yesteryear, French post-punk and black romanticism, Blind Delon shatters genres and styles to create an evolved strain of synthpunk that wears its influences proudly while mutating into something totally new. La Métamorphose represents a fresh direction – a heavy, post-metal sound that’s full of emotion and raw intensity. ‘Le Crépuscule’ opens the album with a hard hitting piece that commences the experience perfectly. Next up, the group kicks things into high gear with the speedy, heavy-synth play of ‘La Violence’ featuring vocals by Fivequestionmarks, followed by ‘La Mort’, a blackened post-punk cut featuring Curses. Label head Maenad Veyl makes a guest appearance on the fourth track, ‘L’Homme’, which drifts into deep experimental melancholy with a cinematic feel. Keeping with this mood is the powerful ‘L’Affront’ featuring The KVB, which descends further into darkness before resurrecting with the immense feelings of ‘Le Sarcasme’. Track seven, ‘La Noyade’, drills into the skull with growling vocals and menacing synths which bleed nicely into ‘La Foule’, slowing things back down with a subtle yet lingering sense of dread. French project Poison Point arrive on ‘L’Envie’ which moves guitars back to the forefront for a raucous ballad that sets up the final piece and title track, ‘La Métamorphose’, the glorious grand finale of an album teeming with emotion and begging to be played again and again.
The Hipodrome Of Music 