Exiting Morphology aka Matti Turunen, Michael Diekmann album with 8 stunning tracks in their signature style.
album
Roladex – Anthems For The Micro-Age [MR031]
Medical Records presents it’s second contemporary artist release with Roladex. Using an arsenal of analog instruments, Roladex nostalgically borrows ideas from music of the past to carefully craft a unique brand of futuristic-mechanized pop, with an emphasis on songwriting and layered production. Weaving sparse, sequenced arpeggios into fuzzy bass and bubbly melodies to create a bed of sound where they layout a somehow bright melancholia. Part minimal synth-wave, part dream pop. The opening track “Anthem For The Micro-Age” sets the tone with dreamy atmospheric synth textures and interwoven male and female vocals. “Love Surgery” is chock full of pop hooks and synth leads interspersed with angular guitar accents. “Empty Streets” has an almost minimal John Bender bedroom aesthetic. Fans of early Wire (esp 154), Drinking Electricity, Fad Gadget and even noisy 90s shoegaze are sure to enjoy. Presented on high-quality 180gram heavyweight electric blue transparent vinyl and features a bonus LP insert with lyrics.
Tri Fire – Tri Fire [TFTAPE]
Following the success of the Midnight Express single Danger Zone, Robbie M and Terry Patton continued to search for new sounds. Over the next few years the duo would produce dozens of instrumental sketches. Terry always recorded these backing arrangements to cassette tapes so they could easily listen to them later in the car. Cruising the streets of Rock Island IL, vocalist Robbie M would write the additional melodies and lyrics. The plan was to release a full length studio album, combining all parts and adding vocals, but the group dispersed in 1985 before their dream was realized. The Terry tapes, which were never intended for commercial release, are all that remain. When we first heard them, they were inaudible with almost no tones left to preserve, but thanks to a few small miracles and genuine science the shroud of noise has been lifted to reveal an unexplainable haze of funk.
Obergman – Cyclic Multiverse [AFS017]
Mid-paced, fresh ‘n’ funky electro gear on this eight track EP from Swedish artist, Obergman. All very nicely produced while maintaining the quirky factor throughout which results in an EP that gels perfectly from start to finish and a respectable follow-up to the recnt DMX Krew release on Abstract Forms.
Kenny Dixon Jr. – Moodymann [KDJ044]
New material from Kenny Dixon Jr. aka Moodymann along with two tracks produced by Andres. This long awaited album features twelve songs over 4 sides of vinyl, a poster, all in custom sleeve with the best album artwork since 1979. A journey further into the weird and wonderful world of the Moodymann…Straight from Detroit!
Cuthead – Resteessen [UV019+] FREE ALBUM
“When we selected music for Cuthead’s Everlasting Sunday LP we had to leave out several great tracks due to the limited space on the record. So Cuthead decided to give it away for free as digital only album via our bandcamp site. Enjoy!”
DJ Spider – Nemesis Rising [PBR035]
Here is the full length LP from DJ Spider. It is a mix of deep house, deep down tempo beats and some darker house tracks. This record will take you on a journey from beginning to end, just like a full length should. Every piece has it’s place in the selection & much thought has been put behind them with meaning & intent to invoke higher listening. Spider has worked with some great musicians over the years & added some of their pieces to the mix as well. Sly Scott threw down some amazing Saxophone parts on The opening track “Prison Planet” & he also did some playing on the fifth track “Crack Factory”. The one & only Dub Poet, Infinity gave a dope voice piece to Spider for the eighth track “S O S” & Boyd Jarvis lends a gorgeous keyboard solo on the final cut, “Flee To Agartha”
Elitechnique – Intrusion II [CLSS009.1]
Intrusion II, the follow up of the magnificent Elitechnique EP of last year. Another 8 stunning tracks. Ranging from their own brand of disco to 70’s porn funk.
Lè Travo – Erring And Errant [DE056]
Lè Travo is the brainchild of Patrick Bollen from Tienen, Belgium. As a teenager in the early 1980s, Patrick would visit ”DeAtelier”, the infamous coldwave/gothic club in Leuven. He would be inspired by Joy Division and other Factory releases, The Danse Society and Cocteau Twins. He gathered a some session musicians and a female backup vocalist. Eventually Patrick bought a Greengate DE-3 sampler, using the brains of an Apple 2E with a keyboard bolted onto it. He crafted loops made from a deconstructed upright piano, hitting the strings directly with a drum stick. Lè Travo made their first appearance on a split LP with Fred A in 1984. ”Erring and Errant” is their debut 7 song LP originally released in 1985. For the reissue 3 bonus songs from the split LP have been added. The songs are coldwave in the vein of Weimar Gesang, Opera Multi Steel, and Clan of Xymox. Guitar, bass and sample interplay with piano and synthesizers with dark and forbidding crescendos in the fast numbers, and elegaic melancholy in the slow tracks. The vocals are delivered with a sense of urgency, while the lyrics are inspired by avant-garde movements such as futurism and constructivism, as well as science fiction and existentialism.
Jeff Mills – Chronicles of Possible Worlds [AXSN001]
The theme of “Chronicles of Possible Worlds” is exoplanets, new planets discovered starting in 1995 which revolve around a star outside our solar system. Mixing music, dance and visuals, this creative work testifies to the advances of science and hints at the existence of possible other worlds. Following a period of investigation and a meeting with researchers from the Marseille Astrophysics Laboratory, Mills chose to focus on six planets (Wasp 12b, 13b, 14b, 15b, 16b and 17b). Their specific physical and structural properties were then translated through music, sound, images and dance. Together with Mills, the choreographer Alexandre Roccoli created a roaming choreography spread out across the Vasarely Foundation that explores the correspondence between the physical properties of these planets and choreography’s own body states. The show’s soundtrack, composed by Mills, is broadcast by the dancers costumes (designed by Berlin designer Anke Bruns) that are equipped with speakers. The music, the different sonic trajectories, the dancers and the public ambling freely through the halls can spatialize, orbit, or even fuse in the naves of the Foundation.
L.A.S.’s Crime – Mutatio (Modified) [JAMTRAXSPECIAL002]
This is not your ‘usual’ L.A.S.’s Crime album, as if something had gone wrong in cloning, and what came out is magically different and at the same time deeply consistent with the productions of the 80s … with the participation of bands, artists and DJs from all over the world, the result is a beautiful mutant vinyl…7 songs remade as extended versions, a ‘size’ of song so diffused in ’80s, half way pop and dance.
The Trash Company – Modern Love [THUG015]
There’s a really interesting story behind The Trash Company. A synaesthesia-affected solo artist who’s worked reclusively since the late 70s, his creations have only just begun to be discovered. Sitting right on the fringes of electro, funk and experimentalism; he is genuinely unique. Highlights across this collection of six previously unreleased tracks include the far away croons and whimsical trumpets on “Modern Love”, the sexual rhythmic moans and Dilla-style beats on “Hot Stripper” and, of course, the fuzzy lo-fi bar room blues of the title track.
Benedek – Unititled LP [PPU053]
Benedek unititled debut release on the Peoples Potential Unlimited promo series. Some stellar modern electro funk and forwardthinking dance grooves.
Traumprinz – Mothercave [GLGLP003]
… In a soft night of confusion the ape was born into his lion mother’s lair. As he grew older, he danced in countless circles around his father’s fallen empire. Spent by fires of ecstasy, the departed reptile king appeared in his sleep and told one love will show you how to fly, and he sang forget the world, ’cause no man will ever wake up from that insubstantial world of cycles…
Shifted – Under A Single Banner [NAIL007LP]
It’s been a busy couple of years for the producer behind the Shifted project. On top of an extremely well-received album for the Mote Evolver label, the producer has edged further out into the fringes of electronic music under a number of aliases, taking in noise/ambient variants as Covered In Sand, as well as more distorted, technofied productions under the Alexander Lewis moniker, a sound described by the Blackest Ever Black label as “S-M techno.” His new album as Shifted, Under a Single Banner, finds the producer converging these strands into a lucid re-imagining of techno, starting off from the toughened, purist templates honed down by the likes of Sandwell District and Marcel Dettmann, and stretching out into more textured, sometimes noisy, often introverted and melancholy signatures. It’s a perfect fit for Bed Of Nails, a label that’s given a platform for the more direct dancefloor mutations of Dominick Fernow’s own productions as Vatican Shadow, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, and Christian Cosmos, as well as familiar Hospital Productions affiliates such as Kris Lapke under the Bronze Age guise. There’s a rich and earthy warmth to Under a Single Banner that’s perhaps at odds with the puerile fixation on all things noisy at the fringes of techno these days, but for the most part, the tension and momentum keeps the album definitively aimed at the floor without ever resting on its laurels.
Jonsson & Alter – 2 [KM032]
Having commenced 2013 with one long player in Andreas Tilliander’s TM404 project, Kontra Music signs off for the year with the second album from label regulars Jonsson & Alter. It’s a fine way to bookend another impressive calendar year for the Malmo-based label who have slipped out a bunch of killer twelves in-between as well as found the SKUM label with compatriots Skudge. The inspiration behind Henrik Jonsson and Joel Alter’s nonchalantly titled second album 2 apparently derives from the time Jonsson & Alter spent performing the previous album live and wanting to incorporate “heavier beats”. The result is a nine-track album that sees Jonsson & Alter produce a refined and matured follow up to their debut, while managing to maintain a raw and housey aesthetic.
Fishermen – Patterns And Paths [SKUDGEWLP001]
After their wonderful EP from a year ago, the Fishermen are ready to take you on a diving trip with their very first album, an accomplishment in itself With “Patterns and Paths”, Thomas Jaldemark (YTA) and Martin Skoggehall (MRSK, Smell The Flesh) have crafted a rather mesmerizing story of abstract and figurative tropes altogether, and eerie is probably the best word to describe the general mood of this, but hard and raw eeriness! The affair starts with “Green Horn”, a gentle foreplay setting the tone for an imminent journey into the lightless abysses. “Hope Is gone” further enhances the incoming grim turn of events in a coil-like fashion before “Serpents” makes our feet and hips take over our fear of the unknown. The trance has indeed begun and we’re soon entering a hidden warehouse rave cave of un-earthy shamanism, the unforgiving stomp of “Get None”. “Dyspnea” manages to find a path into deeper regions the groove shift towards a darker funk with “Lost Teeth”, a caribbean techno banger that’d wake any zombie in the making! “The Four Skulls” suddenly hints of a safer journey with healing percs and melancholic pads, but “Rise” soon shatters those false hopes with an evil lurking motoric groove. Then, you hit “Scurvy” where the pace slows down a little only to introduce the seductive side of this gloomy adventure, a challenge to you feet inducing lascivious moves. Keeping you in trance, “In Solitude” kind of combines both previous tracks strengths with an added Twin Peaks value. Now finally reaching the far bottom of the ocean, the mood gets even more claustrophobic with “Sunken Mosque”, the last stage of this trance before maybe getting back to the surface. Indeed, if “Torments” might let you catch a breath of air, it is filled with minerals, the world above has changed, and you might very well feel safer back under the water, a reverse mirror to Mike Ink’s old Gas project.
Peter Van Hoesen – Life Performance [TRESOR265]
One year on from ‘Perceiver’, Peter Van Hoesen presents his first live album, documenting his performance during the Time To Express label night at Tresor on July 19th 2013. Armed with three synths, a drum machine, two iPads and some outboard effects, he covers a brace of new material woven with recent releases in typically disciplined and unrelenting PvH style, capturing his highly efficient energy transfer and breathless momentum in full effect and perhaps providing better context for his music than any studio album could.
Uku Kuut – Grand Hotel [PPU052]
PPU providing yet again with 10 more selections from the archives of Estonian funk front man Uku Kuut. Grand Hotel is an instrumental journey from his days in the Soviet Union, Sweden, Los Angeles, Estonia. Including his very first home recording dating back to 1982, and a track that was recorded at Herbie Hancock’s personal studio. It’s a miracle these masters are still around after 30+ years of traveling from country to country. They finally find a safe place to rest.. Grand Hotel.
Chevel – Air Is Freedom [NON010]
Non Series has become one of the strongest and well respected labels if we speak about serious techno. For its 10th birthday the label comes up with the debut album by Chevel and delivers again more than only a handfull of tracks.
The Hipodrome Of Music 