Redshape’s visits to Running Back are a welcome recurrence and a soothing reminder that techno and house can still come in several shapes and sizes. Related and referring to earlier acid studies on Release Me and to a certain extend on Rise, the masked man continues to find new approaches to the 303 canon with Acid Leak.
Daniel Pringle aka The Jaffa Kid returns to 030303 with a heavy and versatile five tracker. Amazon is a futuristic cut, reminiscent of Gerald Donald’s Arpanet project, but a little faster and even more otherworldly. On Drum Mode, Pringle adds some dramatic melodic layers to a bare steadily rolling kick drum – making it a perfect track for a melancholic rave. In the Morning, the first one on the flip, is a beautiful, arpeggio-driven electro jam that should appeal to fans of early Legowelt. We then enter breakbeat territory with the droney, mid-tempo Etafe warming you up for Rudiman, where Jaffa Kid lets Lynn Collins’ famous Think sample run wild in a spooky way. Stunning stuff.
Pinkman’s resurrection of its Broken Dreams series is marked by a release of Dolphins – Benedikt Frey’s project with Markus Woernle and Nadia D’Alo. 40G evokes landscapes of doom, disorienting pleasure, and the surreal visions that occupy a sleepless night; the soundtrack to a Lynchian fantasy about the creatures that haunt the murky waters of the modern mind. It’s an album for finding yourself on a stranger’s couch, tearing at the fraying edges of another endless night, wrapped beneath a blanket of drugged-out kraut.
MTLP0012 ‘Transmissions’ will be divided into two separate releases – Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1, presented here, is released in June, while Part 2 will be released in the 2nd half of September 2023. The album was written and produced by Khidja over the last several years. Part 1 consists of 5 gems showcasing the diversity in the Romanian duo’s production – from shuffle to slow mow, to ‘chugging’ to new age 4th world…
Aufgang B never disappoint with their rough sound excursions. Finally they continue the infamous Demo series with three techno tools rich in mind-melting sound design.
Nonetheless come forward with another sound lecture in Intelligent Downtempo Music, this time with an EP consisting of four cuts well balanced in between the dancefloor and a high fidelity sound installation.
Another deep techno ride on Delsin’s Cameron series by Rhythm Büro co-founder Na Nich. The Ukrainian DJ and producer delivers four excellent vibrant, dreamy techno trips. From the punchy ‘Inlamint’ to the unstoppable flow of ‘Subway’. A darker twist appears on the mesmerizing ‘Black Soil’ finishing it off with a downtempo eyes closed delight ‘Argonaut’.
To relaunch his seminal imprint, Infrastructure New York, Function presents his new 12″, Green EP. Celebrating 27 years of Function releases this year and the label’s 25th anniversary, the label will serve as an outlet for his new material, reissues of out of print classics from Synewave, Sandwell District and Ostgut Ton (and of course, Infrastructure), as well as developing new artists. Green EP encapsulates the same raw power and hypnotic energy of his genre defining Sandwell District releases updated with a modern flair.
Anthony Linell puts a steely force at the foreground of his latest EP, Sheltering Skies. Blunt force tension builds, layer upon layer, as an anatomy of mechanistic torsion is worked in across an opening pair of tracks. Linell holds out the respite and oxygen for the EP’s closer, undercut by aching feedback that just threatens to go again.
Hold Me Recordings is Manuel Gonzales and Ryan Spencer and their objective is to maintain a constant flow of releases from local artists from Detroit. The first release comes from Manuel Gonzales under his MGUN guise. “From Time To Time” is an album with eight techno-electro tracks.
Dutch techno producer from Utrecht, Quince, makes a return with “Anthology of Interest”, his first proper record in eight years, a four tracker versatile EP on the illustrious Nowhere series.
As Jeff Mills returns to his third deepest obsession after 909s and UFOs, he presents an addendum to his renewed Metropolis Metropolis soundtrack which doubles down on three of the themes and gives them a different framework through the lens of a 12″. This is still the more cinematic end of the Millsian spectrum, but there’s some intensity which may well be of use to the more dramatic or daring techno DJ. Another great serving by the maestro from Detroit.
Second time around for Chez Damier’s superb remixes of Simoncino classic ‘Inga’s Creme’, which first surfaced way back in 2011 as part of The Warrior Dance Part 2 mini-album. On the A-side you’ll find Damier’s ‘Club Mix’ – a superb chunk of Prescription style peak-time deepness in which hazy, echoing synth sounds, ultra-deep pads and echoing spoken word snippets cluster around a locked-in, late-night groove. Side B opens with Damier’s ‘Morning After Mix Part 1’, an even deeper and more dubbed-out interpretation tailor-made for misty-eyed sunrise sessions. It’s followed by the ‘Morning After Mix Part 2’, a previously unreleased ambient house style interpretation built around gorgeous chords, bubbly melodies and slowly building percussion.
Heko Records welcomes Innershades to the fore for a new “dreamatic” house music EP that refreshes the style for the present, with heaters like ‘Summer Love’ seeming to take direct inspiration from the aforementioned track, while adding a modern flair. Things slowly get more bloopy and hard, as ‘Mutant’ squelches and hat-scratches away against a bed of yet more pads, while ‘909 Voices’ similarly lulls us into a hypnotic state with a slow tapering-off into ravier territories. Summer vibes guaranteed.
Perseus Traxx presents the second Secret Gang release, with a trio of dusty old tracks from his hard-drive, available now on Bandcamp.
The track “Visitors” from 1985 is probably one of the best songs of the Italo Disco era and is now going to be released in a new guise on colored vinyl in a strictly limited edition. An absolute must-have for all die-hard fans of the Italo Disco and Spacesynth scene.
The Hipodrome Of Music 