This is his 5th album for Touch. FE3O4 – Magnetite was recorded in Berlin between 2011 and 2012. In contrast to the dark vistas of his most recent releases, FE3O4 – Magnetite oscillates between the two poles of silence and noise. Using his signature sources which range from radio signals to sine wave generators, Mika Vainio creates a unique emotional journey that moves from the serene to the unsettling, always challenging the listener’s comfort zone.
Reissue of one of the top minimal synth Holy Grails out of there. ”Tanzmusik” is the first LP from Sam Rosenthal, boss of the historic Projekt Records label and mind of one of the most influential dark wave acts coming out of the US, Black Tape For A Blue Girl. Originally released in March 1985 and completely recorded at home on a four-track TEAC-2340 with a super minimal setup (Korg Poly 61, Realistic Moog, Boss Dr-110 and some effects), the vinyl release was limited to 250 copies. The album continues in the “electronic mood-music” tradition established by Sam on the Projekt Electronic Amerika cassettes, with the added intriques of the drum-computer, exploring the realms of electronic music. Its signature combination of gothic, ethereal, ambient and neo-classical elements has explored existential themes of loves lost and passions yet to come.
Insubordinate and averse to anything going on in the EDM world the dutch derelict of techno is back with a luminous new album on Clone Records. Steamy and mysterious as ever The Paranormal Soul is advancing the trademark Legowelt sound into new directions. Mangling up the historical foundations of New York, Detroit, Chicago and early U.K Rave, mixing it with seedy witchcraft rituals and deep space psychedelics for a boundless journey into techno mysticism.
Dino Sabatini is not just a Prologue artist having the first 12” release in our catalogue, he is also one of the most authentic Prologue artists who is responsible for providing the well known Prologue sound aesthetic. Dino´s productions always deliver exactly our vision of music; deep, hypnotic, atmospheric and mind-driven. It’s no surprise that we are more than proud to announce the third Prologue album this year, which comes from our high respected mate from Berlin. The album is called “Shaman’s Paths” and it is more than just an album for all of us. Dino´s Shaman’s Paths is his personal interpretation of the sounds of Africa, which provides since decades the basis of trance in order to loose your mind in sounds and drum arrangements and it is his personal interpretation of the Prologue sound aesthetic. The Album is planned for October 2012 and will be distributed over “WordandSound”. One part will be a CD mixed with all tracks, which simply is the Shaman’s Paths to follow. Further we will also have one 12” Vinyl which will contain the most club oriented hypnotic tracks from the Album and a complete digital album with all separate tracks. Dino is now available for bookings and his album tour.
The award winning documentary, Detropia, is a cinematic tapestry that chronicles the lives of several Detroiters trying to survive and make sense of what is happening to their city. Detroit producer Dial.81 has composed an exquisite soundtrack to the film. It has been singled out by many as moody, special and epic. Vinyl LP comes in full color jacket and download card for entire album plus an additional three bonus tracks.
After 2010’s ‘Tuning Echoes’ Mock & Toof return with their second album entitled ‘Temporary Happiness’, featuring the young Swiss artist Ghostape who features on half of the 10 tracks, the remainder being instrumentals. Their sound isn’t easily pigeon-holed & this album continues in the same tradition. Stylistically there are the occasional nods to today’s & yesterday’s myriad of electronic genres, but it is concocted in such a way that the resulting tracks can’t be easily slotted in with this gang or that scene. ‘Temporary Happiness’, as the title suggests, is darker, deeper & perhaps a little less accessible than its predecessor, but it does have its moments of light where the energy & drama of dance tracks ‘Snowball’ & ‘Walking the Streets’ shine through, contrasting with the murky & more melancholic ‘Confusion Time’ & ‘Don’t Work, Don’t Care’. There is also plenty of space and a dub-funk mottled vibe running through a good number of the tracks, which could be said to be a bit of a trademark. At its core ‘Temporary Happiness’ is made by a combination of old machines & new computers, where Ghostape’s vocals and the emphasis on hooks & melodies constitutes the more human side.
Dark Entries is proud to present the debut album of contemporary British band Linea Aspera. Linea Aspera is the London duo of Ryan Ambridge (Synths/Programming) and Alison Lewis (Vocals/Synths). They began the project in November 2011, technically drawing inspiration from electronic music from the early 1980s. For their debut album they utilized small, simple analog synthesizer set up: Roland SH-09, Roland Juno 6, Vermona DRM MKiii, Korg Poly 800 and Analogue Solutions Semblance. Linea Aspera’s sound includes clear influences from early electronic body music, classic synth-pop and, in some instances, industrial and noise. Lyrically the band incorporates the sciences of osteology, neuroscience, and anthropology weaving a new medical language around themes of desire, despair and renewal. Linea Aspera serve up an icebox of dark doom riding on Alison’s powerful vocals with a soft but sharp touch.
Dark Entries is excited to release the 30th anniversary edition of ADN’ Ckrystall’s debut album “Jazz’Mad.” ADN’ Ckrystall is the moniker of synthesizer wizard Érick Moncollin from Tarbes, France. In 1977 Moncollin spent time in Paris experimenting with synthesizers, jamming alongside composers Vangelis and Tim Blake. It was here that he obtained a prototype of the Korg MS-20, a legendary synthesizer. The entire album was recorded over a 4 day period in 1980. The sound of “Jazz’Mad” revolves around the synthesizer, utilizing the instrument to all its capacities. ADN was Influenced by New Wave bands that incorporated keyboards into their songs like Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, and Simple Minds, as well as Prog Rock and Krautrock bands such as Hawkwind, Heldon, Gong, and Neu!. The result is an unconventional and discordant conglomeration of synthesizers, drum machines, and vocals that cradle the edge of the brain. Most of the songs are long instrumental pieces but when Érick sings his lyrics favor love, drugs, and science fiction themes.
The hardware radicalists, that are The Analogue Cops aka Lucretion & Marieu and Steffi, present their unification in the studio as Third Side as an LP including the best productions of the past year and this latest LP serves as both a proclamation of their shared love for the analogue sound and as a breath of fresh air for techno. ‘The Absolute’ kicks things off with rippling snare drums, a warm bass line and a sweet cocktail of atmospherics and effects. Restoration friend, nd_baumecker joins the team on ‘Jackie’, where a chopped up vocal is carried backwards and forwards by an edgy drum machine workout. ‘The Base Of All Matters’ is a progressive, heads-down beat filled with crispy snares and disjointed chords, but the trio really get going on ‘Gauge Fields’ – where a frenetic mixture of synth stabs and effects is swallowed by a montrous, syncopating bass line. Side C begins with ‘Unity’, a powerful techno tool which has recently been remixed by Steffi herself, Blawan and the mysterious Nightjars. ‘Subsequent Stages’ enters lighter house territories but still retains that signature Third Side rawness and minimalism. On the flipside, ‘Fundamental Forces’ introduces a heavy, bumping beat floating over a sea of euphoric voices and distant melodies. Finally, the amptly names ‘Shit On Me’ featuring Virginia (the talented singer and songwriter responsible for the astonishing vocals tracks ‘on the rousing hit Yours’, and on the touching ‘You Own My Mind’, both released on Berlin’s Ostgut Ton in Feb 2011) closes things off with a nasty, twisted percussion which evolves into a more experimental, bass-fuelled anthem for the small hours. Real techno excursions for the coinnasseurs.
Stones Throw Records presents the debut solo album from Karriem Riggins, featuring 34-tracks of instrumental hip-hop. Karriem Riggins is a jazz drummer and producer. He is currently musically involved with Diana Krall, played on Paul McCartney’s recent album, and has a long history playing on and producing hip hop alongside J Dilla, Madlib, Common and Slum Village. This title is similar to Madlib’s “Beat Konducta” series.
Given his ultra-prolific work rate, there was only ever going to be one way for Jus’ Ed to celebrate his fiftieth birthday – by recording and releasing his seventh full-length proper (his second this year). For those who’ve followed his career to date, 50ty and Looking Good will hold few surprises, but that’s not to say that it’s not worth a listen. His particular brand of deep house is never less than beguiling, while there are enough forays into other areas to keep it interesting. Check, for example, the sax-laden “Man With The Red Face” style wig-out “Becky’s Jam”, or the raw, analogue acid of “OHMY”; clearly, there’s life in the old dog yet.
After the legendary “Nighttime World Volume 1” and “Nighttime World Volume 2”, Robert Hood returns with the long awaited “Motor: Nighttime World 3” on Music Man. With this, Robert Hood returns to the project he first started on Austria’s Cheap label back in 1995 and subsequently continued in 2000 on M-Plant. Fusing his trademark minimal techno into jazz inspired moods and inflections, Hood emerges from the smoke-lit shadows of a downbeat, but not beaten, Motor City metropolis. Inspired by Julien Temple’s documentary ‘Requiem For Detroit?’ Robert Hood examines the life, history and future of Detroit’s motor industry and its workforce, set against a backdrop of decay, despair, hope and re-birth.
Dark Entires is honored to reissue the long out of print debut album “Elevator to Eden” by Lives of Angels. Lives of Angels was the brainchild of Gerald O’Connell from London, England. In 1974 he worked at CBS studios mastering recordings from tape to disc. By 1977 he joined his first band Mystery Plane, led by school mate Mark Harvey and later joined by his soon-to-be wife Catherine. Gerald branched off in 1980 forming Lives of Angels as an outlet for his own compositions. He recorded, produced and played all of the instruments on “Elevator to Eden” between 1981 and 1983, using a primitive set up of drum machines, one keyboard, guitar and a tape echo. Influenced by the Krautrock sounds of Neu! and Amon Duul II as well as US psychedelic rock, Lives of Angles crafted their own unique post-punk sound. “Elevator to Eden” was originally released in 1983 on cassette by Color Tape Records, the label started by Gary Ramon of Modern Art. Then in 1986 Fire Records remixed and re-released the album on vinyl but the band was not happy with the mixes. This reissue features the original 4-track cassette mixes of “Elevator To Eden” on vinyl for the first time ever. The LP includes 9 songs featured on the original Color Tapes release. All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley directly from the original master tapes.
Lunar Disko Records presents its first LP from Dutch artist VC-118A. ‘International Airlines’ is based on a retro-futuristic concept of aircrafts, drawing inspiration from this idea throughout to create an ethereal sculpture of sounds. VC-118A aka Samuel van Dijk guides the listener through a network of light and emotions via seven intense and atmospheric electro/techno tracks that will leave you floating deep within inner space. Constructed in the north of Holland, ‘International Airlines’ explores the artists concept of aircrafts through emotive soundscapes, brooding over an array of analytic drum programming. Each track levitates the listener to another atmosphere – never attached to geographical locations or time. Gravitating from beginning to end, ‘International Airlines’ displays the artists focus on his subject – an air flight through different colours of sound.
Dutchman Boris Bunnik already crafts deeper house and techno than most. Forever keen to experiment and push the boundaries, though, the man best known as Conforce has recently started a new moniker, Silent Harbour. To explain the roots of the project it’s best to go right inside the mind of Bunnik, where he himself has been lost recently, exploring notions of isolation, deep-sea submersion, aquatic environments and all the abstract ambiance such places entail. Silent Harbour is about exploring the deep unknown, about slowing tempos without losing focus on details, about sound tracking the everyday movie that plays out at the bottom of the deepest darkest oceans of which we know so little. Listening the ten tracks that make up the debut album on Echocord and the concept shines through immediately: right from the opening sound you’re lowered below the sea’s surface as all sorts of little sonic plankton float by. Sunrays occasionally beam down from above; sometimes you’re in warm water, other times it’s colder, but always is there a gentle lull back and forth like the most soothing deep-sea swell. Somehow Bunik even manages to soundtrack what seem like underwater wrecks… rusting metal, tinkling glass and swarms of predatory fish looking for a feed. There are even sections which speak of danger and peril, as if a storm is brewing miles above or as if a shark is on his way… on the other hand, though, there are also passages alive with a Spring-like optimism, where coral grows, aquatic plants flower and new ocean life is born. So evocative is this album you’ll hardly notice that it has very few beats, instead you’re mind is busy painting the pictures to go with the sounds.
The concept of Coughy was to be an exact opposite of clinging to one particular sound or a tedious rehearsal of prior established songs. Improvisation, spontaneity, obscure cultural influences and a complete and reciprocal trust were to be the principles of this project, and a strong live visual input provided by the visual artist Color Nurse (Irina Stanciulescu). The result, often unpredictable even to the protagonists, associates freely drones and rhythms, noise and harmony, digital and analog, atmospheric and psychedelic, pop and experiment.
Sophomore album from Luke Hess on FXHE Records. The 12-track “Keep On” features guest spots from Detroit poet Papa Smurf and Hess’ brother Jeff, as well as mixing assistance from Omar-S.
Silent Servant (aka Juan Mendez), a member of the now-defunct minimal/dub techno collective Sandwell District, makes his stunning album debut with the poised fusion of epic techno, primitive post punk, and industrial electronics on Hospital Productions. Now nine months since he stopped recording with Sandwell District, Mendez has explored his divergent yet compatible tastes to their fullest, recognising and reconciling their congruent rhythms, atmospheres and intentions with alchemical ability. If you’re familiar with his previous trajectories you’ll no doubt be seriously impressed with his balance and contrast of time-honoured elements, from the bellicose sci-fi romance of ‘Process (Introduction)’ to the full flight techno escapism of ‘Utopian Disaster (End)’, and if you’re new to his sound – whether you’re a noise freak wondering what the f*ck Hospital Productions are doing releasing a techno album, or a techno head who’s baffled by the raspy drums – you should be quickly realising that this stuff is the way forward. From the wave-scanning intro he spins a bleakly noirish narrative, slowly building tension with ‘Invocation Of Lust”s acid hypnosis and the stoic deployment of drones and agitated drum machine slaves on ‘Moral Divide (Endless)’ that resolves with gritted techno determination on ‘The Strange Attractor’. Yet perhaps our favourite moment is ‘Temptation & Desire’, sounding like the converged darkroom visions of Front 242 and Stephen Morris, but if any cut shocks us the most, it’s ‘A Path Eternal’, revealing SS at his most unreservedly sublime and vulnerable without his usual, armour-plated chassis of beats. It all surely adds up to one of the most impressive examples of modern industrial techno you’ll hear this year, one which doesn’t merely pay deference to its roots, but nourishes and augments them with the kind of vision that imparts the strong feeling that he’s really been biding his time, ’til now…
“Negative Fascination” is a 7-track affair said to couple Basic Channel vibes with post-punk and shadowy industrial cues.
The Hipodrome Of Music 