“Shortly after the Dust Under Bridges ep was released, Henri sent us nine tracks which he had previously recorded to tape, not thinking that they were worthy of release. On the contrary, these are nine tracks of beautiful, brooding, leftfield house and techno, and we decided immediately that they ought to be available to the public, and that they formed a perfect appendage to Halvtrak’s debut 12″ release, Dust Under Bridges, written, as they were, during the same period.”
Spontaneity, simplicity and playfulness, combined with the warmth and solitude of an Ibizan hideaway, not to mention the cold, industrial minimalism of Manuels Ruhr Valley Essen roots all make for an interesting fusion on Es Cub. Take opener Ara Anam for example, we could just as easily be on the Space Terrace as we could at Panarama Bar. Tracks such as Werk and Flux combine hints of clipped minimalism with the driving, analogue synth sounds of say Ame or Baikal whilst About To Fall and El Soplo contain both depth and a certain majestic beauty gained from the simple, stripped back, rolling beats and flowing pads. Far from being the throwaway sketches that Manuel modestly implies, we hear strong melodic motifs and hooky samples appearing throughout the entire LP which brings a unique identity to each track as well as adding a cohesive gel to Es Cub.
That Dope Loop Pinning down Sascha Dive as Cocoons deephouse wunderkind wouldn’t really hit the nail on the head however it isn’t far from truth. Compared to most other artists of this genre he can for sure be classified as a young gun but there is no soundproof for his age in his music at all. Sascha Dive’s music is loaded with a respectful amount of taste and house history you would normally find in the productions and DJ-sets of artists who started in the early 90s. And this is not unwanted: Dive admires and follows the big names of house and deep house and his musical efforts to pay respect to them brought him on par with his legends! So it’s no wonder that Sascha Dive productions found their way to top notch labels like Tsuba, Freebase, Deep Labs (Balance US) or Raum…Musik. Not to forget his release for Ornaments and the Moodyman remix for ‘Deepest America”. Having in mind where Dive started with his first album ‘Restless Nights’ and what he achieved until he received remix-honours from Mister Kenny Dixon Jr. one could think Sascha Dive scored all goals he wanted to score. However the journey didn’t stop here: Being a Cocoon artist and having played for some of the major Cocoon nights in Ibiza and around the globe Dive incorporated a decent amount of electronic soul and after-hour-madness to his music over the last years. He even admits that his current productions and DJ-sets are definitely influenced by current techno- and techno-house artists and this special feeling this music adds to a party.
Defeating apathy by creating his own world, Abdulla Rashims music thinks before it speaks. Untangled energy and drive breathes life into the rigid rhythmic structures, where the wild, almost primal, core illuminates the heartfelt and soulful layers within in his music. This musical contradiction between thought and letting go, acts as the base foundation in Abdulla Rashim’s music. As a celebration and as a aural development, Abdulla Rashim releases his ‘Unanimity’ LP on Northern Electronics.
A new artist in the Diametric roster is delivering his debut album as Sons of Melancholia. Being a long time contributing artist in the techno scene, David Nizet, better known as Ozka, has put his heart and soul into this album. It is an album of sheer beauty and pure emotions and will enchant you with its honesty and rawness in places. The music is a mixture of harsh metallic percussive elements, abrasive sounds and breathtaking moody strings and pads. The clash of these elements makes this album so special and we at diametric. HQ believe that this will indeed become a classic electronic music album. For fans of early Autechre and 90s IDM music such as Beaumont Hannant, Stasis, Likemind and B12 but also with a nod to nowadays artists such as Vatican Shadow for example.
Man/machine magician Boris Divider unleashes his fourth album. Continuing his explorations and escapades into the darkest, iciest realms of electronic music, Deflector/Atractor is perhaps his most extensive collection to date as we’re treated to shimmering ambient bliss (“Particle”) to dreamy, skippy, robot-charming fracturism (“Mikrowelt”) via his more classic, straight up funky electro (“Deflector”). Yet another bold march into the coded unknown for both Boris and Fundamentals, this can’t be slept on.
“Free USA” is the first full-length album by Protect-U, the Washington, DC-based duo of Aaron Leitko and Future Times Records co-founder Mike Petillo. On their two Future Times EPs – Double Rainbow and World Music – Leitko and Petillo poured layers of ambient drift onto nearly-steady house foundations, creating long and propulsive zone-outs. On Free USA, Protect-U doesn’t depart from this sound as much as they launch further and further out with it, specifically in the rhythm section, which pivots and lurches into unexpected places throughout the LP. Melodically, automation and humanity combine with dizzying, psychedelic grace, making the sound design sparkle with cool precision. From the bright, super-soaked opening track ”Needs” to the boxed-in drum clunk and iced-out coda of ”Down the Tubes,” Free USA showcases Protect-U’s constantly mutating strand of electronic music.
Beautiful electronix on the latest installment from the label’s mystery man takes us out of the jungle and into the mountains, where syncopated analog rhythms dance beside electric melodies surrounding a caravan of textures and reflection. Including a collaboration with Osunlade.
One of Larry Heard’s most under-rated albums finally remastered and available as full vinyl release for the first time! Known for his classic early house releases Larry Heard’s productions always hinted at deepest outer space, but his 1996 Alien album was his first actual science-fiction record. It’s almost as polished as the most mainstream dance production, but just as sublime as any Detroit producer. Heard’s house roots often show themselves, while the chords and shimmering production make this an album almost on par with Heard’s mid-’80s peak. The project was a recording & sound-development experiment that was mostly constructed around a Korg O1/W workstation keyboard that was left at Larry’s studio to check out by Victor melodious myles Houston along with some of the staples of his studio, including the Roland d550 and Oberheim Matrix 1000. Mr Fingers magic touch can be heard all over the album, and this showcases the incredible musical talents of the man, who’s name by now cant be left out from any hall of fame when you’re talking music innovators from the last century.
The LIES bossman delivers the third chapter in his ongoing series of electronic concoctions for Vatican Shadow’s ever-brooding Hospital Productions. Whereas Spit was an LP which wasn’t sure whether it stood in the techno realm or the noise pool, Periscope Blues is firmly grounded in Morelli’s most experimental frame of mind. It feels like a continuation of one concept over 30 minutes, a testament to his obvious passion for beatless, chest-pounding hardware experimentation. Comprised of eight tracks, Periscope Blues is the culmination of a mission gone wrong. Music for the stranded, the lost, those backed into a corner with nowhere to go, or maybe a reflection of sad individuals panicking on a tropical vacation gone awry. Somber yet very tense drifting off radar machine electronics that feel like a blistering sun beating down on decaying beach remains as time crawls on. That or the equivalent to working the grill summers at Jones Beach and stealing from the register just to get a little more.
Jungle by Night drop a brand new album, ‘The Hunt’. Jungle by Night consists of nine young lads from Amsterdam who use their musical upbringing, taste, backgrounds and unstoppable eagerness to produce a unique blend of musical styles… The nine souls in Jungle by Night were acquainted through school, street and family bonds. A couple of years ago, the group seemed to be infected with a love for raw Africa oriented funk and retreated into the rehearsal studio. Jungle by Night does not set any musical boundaries, the possibilities are infinite. The band members have individual interest and tastes in music. One likes psychedelic rock, others listen to hip hop and all lot of jazz, yet others get their kicks from reggae, latin and rock. All influences dwell down to the musical palette of Jungle by Night. “It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it with passion and soul,” thus Jungle by Night.
Jungle by Night is: Pieter van Exter – tenor sax, Ko Zandvliet – trombone, Bo Floor – trompet, Jac van Exter – guitar, Pyke Pasman – keyboards, Peter Peskens – bass, Sonny Groeneveld – drums, Tienson Smeets – Djembe, Gino Groeneveld –congas
Turquoise Summers returns with a new slab of So Cal Fonk for the Omega Supreme label. A Touch Of Turquoise , last year’s debut LP from Summers, was a superb induction into the world of twilight funk the musician inhabits and there’s plenty more speakerboxx vibes on display with this six track Shades EP. From the very moment the stripped back snap and heavy synth funk of opening cut “The Way You Make Me Feel” veers into focus, the man like Turquoise is on top form, sailing through tempos and moods – think introspective and party starting with “Divinity(Crystalized)” a true highlight. A must for those that live for the funk.
Returning to Viewlexx sub-label Murder Capital, Gesloten Cirkel is ready to serve up a full-length album, Submit X. Russian mystery man Gesloten Cirkel has caused quite a stir with his releases on this label as well as Moustache Techno Series and Berceuse Heroique – it is often weird, twisted music that fuses acid and techno and electro into brave new forms. This new album continues in that tradition across ten new cuts. Right from the off Gesloten Circkel spits out the jams – opener ‘Zombiemachine Acid’ is built on a corrugated bed of beats, has slapping percussion and a sharp acid line. After the same track without the acid line comes ‘Submit X’ with its into fractured, loopy sounds and layered up vocal snippets. For unsettling, dark and droning ambient check ‘Stakapella’, or the same sketch with a distant electro beat on ‘Stakan’. ‘Chatters’ is then a grimy post punk electronic track with whirring melodies, malfunctioning synths and plenty of dirt in its make-up and the latter part of the album touches on more paranoid electro, nagging and unsettling techno and whip-snapping acid tracks. Truly unique, esoteric and idiosyncratic, this album is as unpredictable as you would expect from someone like the enigmatic Gesloten Cirkel.
The Zukunft (future) is over. The machine-dreams has been dreamed, the future shock has lost its terror. Compared to the complexity and contrariness of our technologically advanced presence, the utopias and dystopias of the last century has become a vague description of the here and now. Total monitoring? Check. Cyberspace? Check. A man on the moon? Check! We tried to achieve the future so fast, that our thinking could hardly keep up with it. Newer than now? Difficult to imagine. Also and especially not when it comes to electronic music. The new arises from the old, a well-established method since the brainchild of sampling, gets a whole new quality in an interconnected world. The linearity of time crumbles away in our unlimited digital archives, in which styles and cultures, movement and countermovement are collocated, ever-present in unison. It is sufficient to regroup the set pieces from the past and the present over and over again to connote the new, the forward direction.
Tesla286 just does not do that. The well-known stranger, whom self-mystification just fits the mould every bit as his synonym, stops the clocks and takes a look back. He simulates a past where the future still had a future. The 11 exact electro-replicas of the current album move within the realms of a tight historical framework, somewhere between Asimov, Dopplereffekt and mid-nineties Detroit.
With ‘Umlaufbahn’ we will be absorbed in the magnetic atmosphere of a planet. ‘Tesla’s Oscillator’ clearly cites Herbie Hancock’s ‘ Rockit’ from 1984 and is reminiscent of the futurism of Detroit-electro-wave from a beat of another decade. The title track ‘Zukunft’ presses every button in the science fiction narratives between Star Wars and the subaquatic warriors of the Drexciya universe. The cold machine rhythm of the hypnotic tracks lead us back again and again to the fears of a generation, which mistrusts and simultaneously promotes technical progress. Not before ‘Meteorite over Pankow’ strikes a more optimistic tone, which originates from overlooking the imminent extinction of the human race (or at least of Berlin).
Tesla286 has created a fan-fiction version of a long-gone era with ‘Zukunft’, which reflects our own nostalgic look on the once-upon-a-time-future. We pinpoint that our discomfort over the consequences of the technical progress didn’t really change over the last few decades. There is almost a comforting hint to the power of fear over the new, a stabilising human coefficient, which makes this album so newsworthy.
The album Astral Traveling by Innerspace Halflife is among us with 9 tunes straight from the universal psyche, yet articulated with the tools of human perception through waveforms. Deeper and deeper the tunes take a listener on a journey of spacey pads, longing melodies, electronic bass notes, and jacking drum programming. In terms of human understanding, the universe is infinite which makes any scenario one can think of possible. With this in mind, Astral Traveling was composed and explores the deepness of creativity as Innerspace Halflife reaches down to pull out sounds using various techniques.
Cititrax presents the full length LP by Brooklyn duo Further Reductions. Shawn OSullivan (Vapauteen) and Katie Rose formed Further Reductions in 2008 as an outlet for their shared passion of electronic dance music. O’Sullivan, known for his recent techno releases as Vapauteen on L.I.E.S., 400PPM on Avian and Civil Duty (with Beau Wanzer of Streetwalker) on The Corner has been quite active lately blurring the lines between techno and noise music. With Further Reductions, O’Sullivans rhythmic sensibility is fused with Roses pop leanings to create super lush and atmospheric tracks that work both on and off the dance floor. Informed by the sounds of classic techno and early house, they subtly substitute the structure of functional club music with a more primal absorption based in their unique collaboration. Seductive vocals coupled with organically evolving sequences create a complex narrative that penetrates the subconscious in a way that conventional club music rarely threatens to.
Cute Heels is the solo project of Victor Lenis, a contemporary artist living in Brussels, Belgium. He grew up in Bogot, Columbia during the 1990s, surrounded by the radial punk scene. He has been working with many electronic projects since 2003. He manages the label Black Leather Records, which is also a regular party with live acts and DJ sets. Over the years, Victor’s passion and fascination for synthesizers and drum machines to produce and compose resulted in various digital-only releases as well as his first vinyl release, an EP on Gooiland Elektro. Cute Heels is ready to release their debut album ”Spiritual” of all new material written throughout 2013. ”Spiritual”, rides the line between cold electro-techno and left field electronic body music. Inspired by equal parts Liaisons Dangereuses and Drexciya, ”Spiritual” takes the listener on a journey over 8 tracks and 40 minutes of music. Cute Heels has been called ”the new blood and spirit for the next step in techno music” by electro/techno pioneer Juan Atkins. Listening to ”Spiritual” you can see why. The songs on this full length reveal a sublime influence from Detroit techno, early Chicago house and new wave. Advanced electronics for the dance floor, pumping and sophisticated.
Cold Beats is a record label from Barcelona created to give support to bands and artists in the wave/electronic scene. ‘No Souvenir’ is the third release on the label and comes from the French duo Coco Gallo & Stephane Argillet. The album include 14 tracks and it was recorded and mixed in Paris-Berlin between 2011 and 2013.
The Hipodrome Of Music 