Amir Alexander returns to New York’s Plan B Recordings with three dusty house trax. “Channeling” kicks things off with a sullen, funky bassline and intricate swings of percussion backed by distant piano keys, whereas “Deep Banger”, as the title suggests, is more of a straight-up house jerker, and “Nocturnal” fuzzes things out with its growling bassline and eerie background atmospherics.
While Larry Heard only ever produced two 12″ singles under the Gherkin Jerks alias, the ragged acid tracks featured in those EPs have been hugely influential. Certainly, they made a lasting impression on Jamal Moss, who earlier this year decided to record a bunch of tracks inspired by Heard’s infamous blend of rugged drum machine rhythms, twisted acid lines, and heart-aching deep house touches. 4 This Is My Gherkin Life Volume 3 continues where installments one and two left off, delivering eight more killer machine jams which temper Moss’s usual balls-out approach to Chicagoan acid with a few melancholic, melodious touches. The result is another impressive set of analogue box jams, from the bass-heavy bounce of the intoxicating “Track 8”, to the spacey electronics and Detroit drums of “Track 5”.
Neither L.B. Produce or mysterious production outfit Phrased give much away, aside from a few hints at their love of old music-making hardware. That trait comes to the fore on this third Phrased 12″. Musically, it’s pleasingly varied, moving from the fluctuating acid lines, Detroit electro swing and sci-fi electronics of “Star Making”, to the hypnotic, becalmed, ambient dub flex of closer “Morello”. Along the way, they also find time to squeeze in a dash of ultra-deep IDM (the blissful “Diatom”), and an impressive excursion into classic, dubby deep house territory (“What’s Good For You”).
‘Empty Patterns” is a collection of tracks named after empty, programmable user patterns founds in most modern sequencers, synthesizers, and drum machines. All tracks are DJ tools and is geared towards DJs and dance floors. Lots of Chicago jacking house style drum patterns and bass synth stabs, with added reverb and distortion for grit and color.
A Gathering Together is Ron Morelli’s second full-length for Hospital Productions: a ‘techno’ cacophony brought to its granular detail and reduced to its most elemental tonal depths. A cohesive fusion of surreal and feverish deja vu loops, brittle noise, fucked rhythms, scrap metal percussions, pro-one metal synths, and an injection of near-buried, Drano vocal samples, it’s a fearsome celebration of brokenness, of amplified surroundings. Stereo-shifting drones and driving rhythms that tell the stories of those now gone, more a soundtrack for a wake than 4/4 crafted for the dancefloor. There’s a naked anxiety at work that doesn’t turn away from loss, but runs with an excited melancholy that looks to a future that won’t exist. The boldness of the gestures are not to be confused with exuberance. With this effort Morelli has shown remarkable restraint and patience most notably highlighted on title track ‘A Gathering Together.’ An intense cut born from rapid-paced dead-end urban environments that force people together. It’s a calling to do more, include more, and celebrate the many forms within those inconspicuous places. Upon numerous listens, it’s clear the sound design is a reflection of heavy compositional themes that suggest a greater whole. This is hard, dirty techno–humid, reduced, bare bones, yet dense and dissolved to its electronic soil. Heavy without being oppressive, it is the culmination of many elements pulled from all spheres of modern electronics, eaten, digested, and spit back out.
The Contort Yourself continues the tradition of electronics pioneers, modern masters and new names. Enrique comes under that latter banner. The Hot Releases alumnus introduces the EP with the piston pounded belligerence of Dissociate. L.I.E.S. and Nation veteran Beau Wanzer continues this stroll into aggression. Weasels is an upturned work of techno. Nuts, bolts and the grisly inner workings are on show for this fast paced floor mangler. Spain’s industrial stalwarts Esplendor Geometrico open the flip. From 1988 the grit of the factory floor is carried into Rotor. A touch of the mystical is injected, chants looped through the hypnotic rhythms in this simmering classic. Broken English Club is on hand to rework Rotor into a guttering piece of Electro tainted machine music. If you’re hoping for some respite, think again. Prostitutes (Diagonal) closes with the cruel pummelling percussion of Cuyahoga Frankenstein. A brutal, beefy and brilliant 12.
Hailing from Brussels, Maoupa Mazzocchetti debuts on Mannequin Records with a killer 3 tracks proto electro / industrial single, anticipating his debut full length planned for the beginning of 2016. Deep, dark, stripped-down, Mazzocchetti’s tracks regurgitate the lesson of the 80s Belgian ebm/minimal synth legends in a new and fresh nervous musical urgency
Cosmin TRG’s Fizic label release its third EP, and a second missive for 2015. Once again it comes from the Romanian label owner and ever evolving producer, and this time features four more fierce cuts that take abstract inspiration from musique concrete or Ballard’s High Rise novel. Opener ‘Sever’ is an expertly stripped back bit of concrete basement funk with scurrying alien sounds, frosted lo-fi textures and firmly rooted, propulsive kick drums driving the whole thing along. It’s an absorbing affair full of distant menace, and then comes ‘Redus’, a hunched over, forceful dub track again riddled with abstract lifeforms, distorted radio frequencies and muffled sirens that all bristle and brim with sonic debris. ‘Sirena’ is once more built upon thudding, firm kicks but here synths howl and spray about like a UFO in a storm, a harmonic hook rocks back and forth and modulated lines add life and depth to the burrowing groove. Lastly, ‘Motoric’ goes arctic, with cavernous chambers of sound full of echo and reverb as kicks thump out a groove. It’s a fourth and final bit of physical music informed by the musical and visual noir undertones of Under the Skin, cementing a robust alliance between form and function. Music and artwork by Cosmin Nicolae Mastered by Matt Colton.
Elegies-in-waiting to the monotonous dread of exploitative labour, dosed with elliptical distortion, industrial noise and ear-crushing bass. Vexd veteran Roly Porter drops by with a sci-fi reinvention of Council Flat, trading in IFs mogadon footwork and megaton polyrhythms for a less apocalyptic, more introspective blend of modern classical, dark ambient and dirty stinking breakbeat.
Medical Records presents a hand-picked selection of home recorded demos from Stoke, UK’s Red Fetish. Armed with a Korg 770, Yamaha CS10, Korg Rhythm 55, a guitar here and there and a Teac 244 four track recorder, the band consisted of Neale James Potts and Mike Richardson. These tracks were recorded in 1982-83 and all culled from various cassettes that the band recorded. The songs are built from very minimal and sparse synth lines yet the overall feel is interestingly dense and warm. Standout tracks include the playful and futuristic “Modern Age” and “The Last Man”. A few of these tracks were previously released (different version) on a 7″ on Anna Logue (Germany) but most have been largely unheard until now. Sprinkled in amongst the catchy vocal pop songs are quite a few very warm and synth heavy instrumentals as well such as “The Immortals” and “Blaze”. This collection will absolutely be another piece of the highly intriguing and ever-deep well of minimal synth acts such as other contemporaries Oppenheimer Analysis, Twilight Ritual, Iron Curtain, and the like. Certainly fans of early Human League (especially The Future), early cassette culture wave and similar will enjoy this collection immensely.
Mannequin Records presents the rare dark italo 12” ‘Robespierre’ by the italo wave trio Effetto Joule. Originally released in 1989 on Top Sound Records, the reissue comes with extra demo tape material from their ‘Ultraviolet’ tapes and with a killer Flemming Dalum remix of the title track. Effetto Joule formed in Modena during the second part of the 80’s. The pulsating heart of the band were the brothers Flavio and Valerio Biagi with the collaboration of Valerio Tassinari. Deeply influenced by the British synth pop heroes like Tubeway Army and Depeche Mode, the Biagi brothers were able to merge that kind of epic sounds with the more romantic Italian vision of the electronic dark wave.
This latest release of Prego (a division of Vielspass records) comes up with two epic tracks reshaped by Mick Wills. The Wall – Fire on the A side is a bright disco-ish wave hymn raised with the M.W. style. The Stallion – Hope on the B side is a hypnotic floor killer with haunting lyrics and atmosphere.
Adam X is back with his third album release under his industrial guise, ADMX-71. Adam returns to the L.I.E.S. front with Coherent Abstractions, a brand new album of singular experiments that pull from every corner of electronic music’s landscape into a comprehensive and propulsive full-length. Coherent Abstractions pulsates with fractured rhythms, vacillating melodies and mesmerizing compositions that showcase Adam’s impressive history working in all aspects of the underbelly of electronic music. Noise and industrial elements seep into the album’s 11 songs, churning the cold and abrasive into feverish new territory. Though Coherent Abstractions operates primarily in sounds of solitude, guest vocalist Janina joins Bound and Broken for a rare vocal collaboration on an ADMX-71 track.
Through The Spirit Realm is Refracted’s first LP to date, and it comes Canada’s excellent Silent Season. “Enter The Jungle” quickly gives a picture of what’s to come thanks to the track’s abstract blend of animal sounds, a myriad of noises which is swallowed up the warm and dubby swings of “The Jungle Is Thick”. The whole LP follows a similar string of thought, one that binds stripped back techno together with deep ambience and slow-moving plates of drone; “The Ritual Begins” is simply hypnotic and we could keep it on for hours on loop. It’s tribalism at its most cutting-edge, and an altogether fantastic debut performance from this growing techno personality.
Long-serving Brit in San Diego James Clements dons his familiar ASC guise once more, for a typically atmospheric trip into deep, ambient-influenced abstract techno for Canada’s Silent Season imprint. As usual, there’s much to admire, from the sparse percussion, glacial electronics and icy melodies of “Deep Freeze”, to the minimalist, modular-sounding hum of closer “Raging Seas”. Arguably best of all, though, is “Immersion”, which sees Clements expertly combine early ’90s style dreamy ambient chords, textures and melodies – think Pete Namlook or early Irresistible Force – with scraped metal textures and impeccable IDM beats.
The second release on Sounds & Sequences, featuring two excellent deep, dark and dubby tracks.
New Powell (Diagonal) single continues to blur the lines between contemporary club music, punk and forward-thinking computer acid. Describing the music is a challenging prospect, but dancing to it isnt.
The Hipodrome Of Music 