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.
Elitechnique – Intrusion II [CLSS009.1]
album
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.
Terrence Dixon – Badge Of Honor [SFTDXLP001]
Badge of Honor pushing the envelope of techno with quirky, Detroit-infused abstractions that only the masterful Dixon could conjure up. Far removed from his Population One moniker, this is Terrence Dixon’s fourth LP in an illustrious 20-year career. The album hits us with raw, all-encompassing techno cuts alongside some choice left-field experiments (View From A Lighthouse, Radio Room and Light Years), cementing Terrence’s reputation as the free-form producer of choice, not unlike a modern day Sun Ra. From the P-Funk basslines and melodies of Operation Acoustic and Incoming, to the dark, undulating Mills-esque sound of The Atlantic, this is a release that seemingly covers all the bases. Over a year in the making and already doing the rounds with those in the know, Badge of Honor represents techno from a future age, conceptualised to go well beyond the surface…
Max & Mara – Less Ness [DE054]
Dark Entires is excited to introduce the debut album “Less Ness” from contemporary Bay Area duo, Max and Mara. Their collaboration began in 2012. Max is based in Oakland and has been a part of various projects most notably Brotman and Short and his current solo work as Business Etiquette. Mara is based in San Francisco and is known for her solo work as Group Rhoda. On “Less Ness” they worked with a hardware set up: 808 and Elektron drum machine, Moog, MAM, and Sequential Circuits synth with splashes of Mono/Poly and collage elements, vocoder lines and dubbed out vocals. They step away from the the computer as much as possible and prefer that their ideas can be traced back to the tools so that a sense of physicality remains. They find inspiration from all kinds of far out sounds, most notably dub, industrial, and various drug culture tangents. Lyrically the songs revolve around topics such as escapism, looking though cultural windows, and character role development. Some songs are a bit more surrealist in content with elements of hard realism and critical commentary.
Figure Study – Figure Study [DE053]
Dark Entries is proud to present the debut album by Figure Study, a contemporary band from New York. Figure Study is the Manhattan-based duo of Nathan Antolik and April Chalpara. For their debut self-titled album, Figure Study utilizes a carefully tailored set up of vintage analog synthesizers and drum machines. Figure Study creates a lush sound where haunting vocals echo over dark melodies that reflect an isolated and disintegrating world. Songs flux between dissonant dance numbers and more sparse, somber compositions, each carrying a sense of urgency and modernism. Figure Study’s sound includes influences from such early underground artists as Kirlian Camera, Nine Circles, and The Actor.
Ron Morelli – Spit [HOS407LP]
Given his stated role as curator at the head of the ‘non-stop’ LIES, it makes perfect sense that Ron Morelli would look elsewhere to issue his debut album. Gravitating towards the Hospital Productions label run by Dominick ‘Vatican Shadow’ Fernow makes equal sense given their shared appreciation of noise, ambient and industrial music. Apparently the first of three planned releases on Hospital from Morelli, it’s no little surprise that Spit arrives with much expectation. Spend some time with the eight tracks that make up the LP and you’ll begin to understand why Morelli has used such words as pressure, monotony and stress to describe the motivating emotions behind Spit. The corrugated growl of “Modern Paranoia” and the broken metallic rhythms of “Crack Microbes” are considered highlights!
Kerridge – A Fallen Empire [DNKLP001]
First surfacing with an impressive debut EP for the Horizontal Ground label, it makes perfect sense that Berlin-based Samuel Kerridge should then gravitate towards Downwards to further expand on his own brand of industrial techno. You get feeling that the knowing sense of humour apparent in many of the titles to Kerridge productions appeals to someone like Downwards label boss Karl O’Connor. After several EPs for Downwards, Kerridge unveils his debut album A Fallen Empire which comes brandishing “7 pieces of sonic warfare” that lodge the producer ever deeper into the crawlspace between jagged industrial techno and white noise laden experimental sounds. B side behemoth “Death Is Upon Us” is a morbid highlight.
Emptyset – Demiurge [SUB010]
James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas are getting crustier and more experimental with every passing year. Recur, their fourth full-length excursion, is decidedly fuzzy and discordant. Seemingly intent on pushing experimental electronics to its limits, the formerly Bristol-based duo serve up a challenging but rewarding set based almost entirely around half-rhythms, white noises, drones, feedback and hissing atmospherics. It’s spooky, intense stuff, all told, occasionally enlivened by sparse, pared-down concoctions that sound like a smacked out take on Autechre. But for all the bleak, out-there sounds, Recur is strangely involving, due in no small part to its immersive nature.
Esplendor Geometrico – Ultraphoon [GR2130CD]
Recorded in Madrid and Rome during 2013, this is the new album by the influential electronic duo ranked as industrial music pioneers. Ultraphoon is a leap ahead as for production and sound quality, with a stunning and brutal outcome, richly detailed nonetheless. Rhythms, noises and processed voices from different sources come together in hypnotic –bordering on trance– soundscapes along the lines of previous releases such as Pulsión (2009) and Desarrollos Geométricos (2011). Most of the meticulous mastering process has been carried out by Francisco López, internationally renowned as one of the top sound art and experimental music personalities, giving a new twist to the usual Esplendor Geometrico sound.
