NYC experimental producer Neud Photo is up next on Eya’s Lonewolf series with a killer 5 tracker named ‘Echoes. The EP brilliantly oscillates between various inspirations with a strong machine sound; an incredible and hauting journey into electro, new beat, minimal and techno.
Sure Thing presents Well of Sand, its second compilation. Six tracks from label friends and favorites, each new to the roster and offering bold, untempered explorations of tempo and weight, a concise yet expansive collection recalling the deliberate cadence of rippling sand and the sheen of shimmering oases.
Cover versions of international songs have long thrived in South Africa’s music industry. Often unable to license the original tracks (until the early 90s the result of an international boycott of the country) labels instead hired producers and session artists to re-record them for the local market. Early house music in South Africa was no different. When Ron ‘Robot’ Friedman, former bass player for local rockers Rabbitt, was winding down his label On Record in the early 90s, he reached out for new inspiration as the popularity of ‘bubblegum’ disco waned. For one of the label’s final releases he hired young DJ/producer Quentin Foster, obsessed with the new soulful house sound coming out of the US, to take the reins on a studio project dubbed Citi Express. The result offers a glimpse into those early days of house, a uniquely South African take on a global sound that still resonates today — reissued for the first time on Afrosynth Records.
South African production duo of Emil Zoghby and John Galanakis were responsible for a string of high-quality disco singles in the early 80s, typically cover versions of international hits — Klein & MBO’s ‘The Big Apple’, Sly & the Family Stone’s ‘Family Affair’ & David Joseph’s ‘You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me)’ — backed with their own compositions. When Starlight hit the market with an album in 1983, it featured only one cover, the local hit ‘Picnic’, along with five of the duo’s original compositions, including their similarly styled response, ‘Picnicing’, which replaces the original’s sax with spaced-out synth stabs. Then there’s ‘Jah Jah Love’, an ecstatic disco sermon of dancefloor dynamite weighing in at over eight and a half minutes. Other tracks on this landmark album — ‘Let’s Go Dancing (Boogie Boogie)’, ‘Keep On Moving’ and an eponymous instrumental — offer a similar fusion of classic disco with newer Italo and proto-house influences: machine music with a human touch. Remastered from the original master tapes and reissued for the first time, Starlight is available on vinyl and digital platforms, 40 years after its initial release, via Afrosynth Records.
Recorded live at Hell on Earth (Winter Dance II), in Adelaide on 12th August 2023
Rome’s Andy Romano joins the Bordello family with his long-awaited debut release. These tracks were shelved for more than 10 years and floating around between a handful of DJ’s after Andrea Confrancesco chose a different path in his creative career by becoming a professional illustrator. The A-side makes space for the almost 10 minutes long monster anthem “Monday”. A killer composition in typical Romano fashion and on repeat at the Bordello HQ for many years. The flipside starts with the very catchy love ballad “Loredane” featuring the master himself on vocals, followed by the galactic journey “Cyber Black Spaceship”.
Antoni Maiovvi has made a name for himself for 15 years with a multitude of releases on Tusk Wax, Vivod, Omnidisc, Giallo Disco, Italo Moderni or even Bordello a Parigi. Emeritus producer, influenced by obscure disco, synth disco or italo disco, his sound is definitely analog. His magnificent EP is a concentrate of all his influences and more. This is his debut for Skylax’ sub-label dedicated to this specific genre, Cosmic Club.
Since 2014, Silas Schletterer has been part of the Bordello A Parigi family. Under his Machinegewehr guise, the Rotterdam artist released three show-stopping synth centred records. 2023 sees him put out his fourth, Life. Burbling arpeggios, a signature of his sound, are present for “Sans.” Clever inviting melodies, another feature of Schletterer’s style, mix beautifully with clean percussion and samples for a definite dancefloor favourite. The title work follows. Measured and meditative, “Life” employs a familiar sound palette with very different outcomes. The pulsations, the throb, of Machinegewehr is there, but there is a considered melancholy that brins a bittersweet balance to the piece. Steady kicks and vocal snippets introduce “Pills.” Shifting melodies, piano stabs, driving rhythms and spoken word come together to create a heady brew of sheer pleasure. Vocals are central in the closer. “Neurons” narrates a fantastical story of subdued sci-fi sorrows and wistful yearning, all to a silken synth-pop soundtrack. A welcome return from a multifaceted musician.
Argentinian producers Oscean return to Tresor with Chronium Radiance, their longest release so far, in which the duo continue the evolution of their sound, coalescing the elemental ideas explored in their first two releases and yielding sublime results. This landmark release will no doubt be seen as the point at which Oscean crystalised a trademark sound, balancing complex percussive rhythms with pulsing and cadenced music in which a universe of often oxymoronic ideas can be found, melded together with a deft touch to create a blissful sonic whole.
Unveil Sterac’s journey on Somov, immersing in a spiritual opening and euphoric soulful revelations that shape his unique sound. A dimension where Amsterdam’s electronic pioneer connects rhythm and heart.
A time capsule from the golden age of Balearic history opened for the first time in 3 decades. Ibiza legends Leo Mas and Sergio Portaluri generously give Sound Metaphors the honor of releasing historical material from a special time and place. Originally produced in 1993 these tracks have been sitting in DAT tapes waiting for an opportunity to tell us a dancefloor story from a golden era where there were no smart phones or social media. Furthermore, the cherry on top, comes with none other than Apiento (Paul from Testpressing) gracefully remixing “Vogue Mars” into a breakbeat DJ tool bound to inspire new energy levels on the dancefloor.
Following up on last year’s acclaimed Integration 12″, Robbert Heynen unlocks his incredible back catalogue for four acidic reinterpretations from Greek maestro Anatolian Weapons. Proceeds of the record will be donated to Legacy of Hope foundation, an Indigenous led charitable association which educates and raises awareness about the history and on-going impacts of Canada’s residential school system.
Youcef Debbihi continues to impress and surprise after already his 3rd volume as Sea of Disillusions, output on Sound Metaphors. This 4 tracker extends what was already started and established in the previous volumes, expanding his studio excellence into more break beat oriented directions, either at high speed in the form of almost Drum’n’Bass with “K2” or slowed down as a more trip-hop tempo with “Break Whale”. B-side slows down to upper 90BPM range of driving rhythm under atmospheric dubby hints of humidity “5deF”, and, finalizing with a beatless Ambient mix of “Loon River” which sounds like the slow motion intro to an epic trance anthem that never fully takes off, setting the stage for something heavy to be mixed in. Downtempo, triphop, tribal, dubbed out atmospheric nuances, grandly produced.
Ilian Tape co-founder Dario Zenker has consistently served up some of the label’s best releases and now he goes long on this double album, Reflection. He calls it “a Reflection through wild times channeled into 63 minutes of machine funk” and we call it 12 tracks of devastating techno on both an emotional and physical level. His tracks often fix with wispy synth lines that bring subtle light to the dusty drums and muggy atmospheres and on the likes of ‘Da Conducter’ he offers up thumping house with grainy lo-fi pads and muffled leads that hook you in deep. The vast rhythmic variation and switch-up in tempos and moods throughout this album is what keeps it so fresh.
Delsin welcomes Spanish techno icon Reeko to their Cameron series. Pushing his impressive take on techno for the past 20 years he keeps re-inventing himself, with a recent move on Berlin’s Samurai Music presenting a full drum & bass EP as perfect example of this. And also here for Delsin, it’s a fresh approach exploring new sides of techno. It’s broken and wiggly with dreamy riffs tying it all together. Uplifting mountain valley techno combined with stepping off-beat kick drum jams. It’s a flawless pack where Reeko shows he’s capable of creating playful heads down techno of any kind.
Nantes-based Tom Ferreira (Fasme) joins Analogical Force with his first and highly anticipated album titled ‘Bloom’. Well known in underground circles for an impressive live PA, Tom delivery 9-tracks (recorded live) where he deploys his entire arsenal of analog synths. ‘Bloom’ immerses us in a 303-powered world, crunchy machine drums with big emotive melodies, rushing piano motifs and swirling chords.
Funk The System! The recipe is simple: Dig deep, listen to your heart, record everything you got on a dusty old desktop computer, leave it to simmer for the time of a pandemic, and if it’s still fresh, serve it up on the finest plate of black wax! This collaboration started in Düsseldorf in the year 2018. Locked up for a week in the Flanger Studios, Wolf Müller and Credit 00 recorded everything: from the jaw harp to smartphone apps, chopping up GDR Jazz breaks and squeezing the Funk out of every synthesizer and drum machine at hand. You will hear the open mindedness towards all sorts of musical influences from the first note. Each of the five tracks showcases a wild mix of flavours: Disco Reggae, B-Girl Breakbeats, Protest Folk, Subway Funk, Tabla Rhythms, you name it… they’ll take it and shake it! It is obvious these two got sonically socialized and educated by the multiculturalism of Hip-Hop in their early days.
After making his mark on TWDIG01, the enigmatic artist Noamm from Northern Greece makes his return on Tiger Weeds with a solo 6-track EP. Featuring stripped-down, back-to-basics sound, which truly showcases his mastery of minimalism. Each track has been thoughtfully composed to emphasize the raw and unadulterated essence of electro. In today’s complex world, Noamm’s music embraces the ‘less-is-more’ aesthetic.
The Hipodrome Of Music 