Metro Skim provides ‘Generator Of Thoughts’ on Steve Bicknell’s 6dimensions. Metro Skim, deeply rooted in the underground, shrouded in mystery, and adopting music as their preferred form of communication to convey their message. Metro Skim unifies symbiotic relations between technology and human form, preserving a pure and natural process guided by an uncompromising mode of production.
At the end of this month we will be heading to Barcelona for one of the most interesting electronic music festivals. Ombra is a project born from the hand of agency WeareWe and label Oraculo Records with the aim of creating a meeting place for lovers of analogue and avant-garde sounds that do not fit in the current cultural offer.
Minimal Wave presents a full length double album entitled “Further Strategies” by synthpop band Turquoise Days. Hailing from Jersey, Channel Islands, Turquoise Days was formed in 1981 by Luciano Brambilla and David Le Breton shortly after meeting at a nightclub in St Ouens called Waves. They used Roland synthesizers and drum machines, as well Yamaha synthesizers and Fender guitars along with tape effects and vocals. Throughout the 1980s, they self-released many cassettes, as well as the renowned masterpiece Grey Skies / Blurred 7” single. They were selected for the Radio Luxembourg song contest in 1985 and received press for their releases and appearance there. Their music can be described as melodic, emotive new wave. The music featured here includes the songs from the long sold out Alternative Strategies release from 2009, remastered, along with a a collection of previously unreleased material.
Self-styled “minimal synth duo” Boy Harsher has released some fine music over the last few years, though little quite as on-point and majestic as 2018’s “Country Girl” EP. Here they offer up a new-look “uncut” edition of the stylish set, which expands the original four-track set via a quartet of previously unreleased recordings from the same period. You’ll find the original EP – complete with the throbbing but picturesque “Motion” and dreamy “Country Girl” – on side A, with the bonus material on the flip. Of these, we’re particularly enjoying the gentle pulse of “Underwater”, and the “Please” era Pet Shop Boys flex of “Send Me A Vision” and “Westerners”.
After 1/2 GOTT comes GOTT. Once again, Sneaker from Dresden/Berlin and Scannoir from Zurich have locked themselves up in the studio to translate their love for EBM and dark synth pop into striking dance floor material. The successor to their debut EP on Uncanny Valley, which introduced open-minded dancers to the self-proclaimed New Swiss Wave last year opens up with TOTAL KOMMANDER, a hard rocking drum workout that makes you want to march ahead of a demonstration after you’ll leave the club. EN BLICK UFS MATTERHORN is a tribute to playful Minimal Synth and a declaration of love to the fun that two like-minded people have when producing music. And then we have PASSION, a 15-minute monster of a track, that carries all the qualities of GOTT to the extreme: unique arrangements with a surprising build-up, whipping drum work and an atmosphere that can be both intimidating and soothing.
Childhood Intelligence new release coming in form of a 2×12 Various Artist vinyl. The 8th release representing some of Planet Earths finest electronic producers. Sounds with no boundaries that unite Old School & New School as the Space Samurai’z. Global connectivity on the next level, ready to take on some serious Galactic Space Adventures. Born in 2019, made for eternity.
Here is some proper deep dishes of electro and techno finely served with tasteful nods to the old school straight from Propersound Italy and Reedale Rise, from Liverpool.
For over five years, Canadian artist Patrick Holland has developed an inimitable perspective on melodic, freewheeling house music. And the myriad tracks he writes as Project Pablo have come to embody both the sensibilities of the producer and the environs of his Montreal home. Inside Unsolved, Project Pablo’s dynamic four-tracker for Spectral, specifically looks to Holland’s local clubs and Canada’s dance music past for inspiration. The old records of labels such as Steel City and Map Music course through the lush synths of emotional roller “Pressure No Impact” and the light-footed swing of “Big Room Delusion.” While standing on the dancefloor at MUTEK two years ago, Holland dreamt up “Pill” in all of its billowy, percussive charms. Lead track “The Solution” cooly and confidently kicks things off with the kinds of earworm synthlines, rich atmospheres, and effortless grooves now synonymous with Project Pablo. Inside Unsolved is yet another classy and classic record from an unstoppable force of quality dance music.
Photonz is the alias of Marco Rodrigues a DJ, producer and driving force of Lisbon’s underground scene. For little over a decade now, he’s been crafting his own deeply personal style of Portuguese house and techno. As a DJ, Photonz grew a reputation for deep crates and intensely euphoric sets and in 2017, together with Violet (co-founder at his Radio Quantica) and Lisbon’s own Rabbit Hole collective, he started the now infamous Mina parties – a monthly, sex-positive, queer and intersectional-feminist techno party aimed at using the dissociative potential of intense raving to create a temporary space of suspension away from patriarchal expectations. ‘Nuit’ is Photonz’s debut album and a simultaneous reference the Egyptian Goddess of the Stars or Night. Marco was really swept away by the concept of ‘freedom of form under the night sky’, the accepting embrace of Nuit. Ancestral, but also socially advanced and utopian; a deification of the night time. These ideas manifest themselves as eleven songs spread across two LPs that wax and wane like the moon. Photonz channels early techno, Drexciyan rhythms, balearic & atmospheric house; layering sounds, creating moments.
Deep tripping acid tracks on the new Interdimensional Transmissions. Pervocet is the brand name of the psychedelic music project from Patrick Russell and Jasen Loveland and is used to induce moderate to severe psychosis.
Essential electro-techno classic. This is the second record from Ectomorph and second record for the label Interdimensional Transmissions, from 1995. This is the first time it has been repressed in over a decade, and its been done using the original masters — coming from 2 wizards of Midwest Mastering. The A side was mastered by Mark Richardson at Metropolis (who later founded Prairie Cat Mastering) and the B side is complete with lock grooves cut by Ron Murphy. Manufactured in Detroit!
Deep space electro by French producer Franck Kartell. Known for his releases on labels such as “Bass Agenda Recordings”, “Transient Force” or “New Flesh”, just to name a few. This time he makes his debut on Between Places the sublabel of SolarOneMusic. Enjoy his journey into dreamy electro and sience fiction worlds.
Essential supplies of lethal dancefloor munition on the first release on Artificial Horizon label. Opening up the compilation is Antoni Maiovvi’s android lullaby ‘The Wolf Void’ followed by the pulsating analog rhythms of Das Ding’s epic (almost) 9- minute synthetic trip ‘Insect Apocalypse’. On the flip, Itako carries forward the sinister momentum leaving us in a dark state of hypnosis with its spectral synth and acid lines. Last but by no means least, Timothy J. Fairplay closes off the release in classic Fairplay style with an FX laden soundtrack for dystopian dreams that ascends to ethereal heights.
The bandcamp includes a free download of a Mick Wills cut for M Track.
Banlieue Records presents Dupla Rítmica EP. On the A-side, Banlieue’s own Benoit B delivers a track entitled 100%. It’s a 107 bpm affair, between pristine drum programming, a bassline at the forefront, oldschool textures a-plenty, stabs galore and some digital pan-pipes added for good measure. Here’s a compelling tune with a constant and tireless groove, like one of those obscure B-sides created several decades ago that still sounds forward-thinking. On the flipside, a track by Buenos Aires-based producer Cándido, who is here joining the dots between the sounds of classic European EBM and of US freestyle under a common latinx thread. With hard hitting percussion, pitched and gated drums, triggered samples, slapped FM bass and Spanish spoken word, this 115 bpm tune is a skilful and dance-inducing nod to oldschool vibes that haven’t lost their dance-inducing power.
Vienna-based DJ and producer, Heap, lands on Mechatronica White with a radiant and hypnotic vision of forward thinking dance music, assisted by Gamma Intel’s menacing slow-burner on the flip.
Music From Memory’s latest release is a reissue of the lost Art record ‘Marea / Tide’ from Italian Wave duo Alessandro Pizzin and Piergiuseppe Ciranna also know as ‘Ruins’. Made to accompany and as a response to the works of painter ‘Luigi Viola’ the record was released limited to a run of 600 with original artworks by the painter included in the first 200 copies. A number of special showcases were performed at various galleries by the duo alongside Viola’s work, with records being available solely at those events. Due to poor management and disagreements with the label who produced the record, 300 copies were held for many years in storage and then in fact later even destroyed, the record disappearing almost without a trace. Finally now available again and with a bonus 7” including four beautiful unreleased tracks, the release is printed in colors true to the original work of Luigi Viola with insert.
The Hipodrome Of Music 