Renormalon is a collaborative effort between Elena Sizova, Heinrich Mueller: music data and Dr Olga Karelkina: visual data + encoding. Its purpose technically is to visually and sonically communicate the renormalon physics principle. Each composition is separate component of the theory representing a particular phenomenon in the realm of quantum uncertainty. The observer is to be immersed conceptually and hopefully will experience discrete states of energy which is integral in atomic behavior.
Kevin McHugh returns to his Delft imprint as LA-4A for his & the label’s first artist album. Phonautograph represents an artist album in its purest sense: a deeply personal work that feels like the culmination of a lifetime of passion and experience – one that ebbs and flows across a variety of styles and tempos, from the electrifying acid house and electro of ‘Resistor’, ‘Capacitance’ and ‘Dialup’ to slower tempo ambient and experimental excursions such as ‘Frequenzvariabler’, ‘Blitzlicht’ and ‘Semantron’.
Pushmaster Discs presents the debut LP by Mattia Trani. ‘The Hi-Tech Mission’ is not just the usual techno album, it also represents a space travel around the futuristic techno vision of the Italian producer, that continues to push Detroit sounds, as well as venturing into some jungle rhythms. The shuttle reaches a mysterious planet, it seems that the mission is not finished yet.
To be continued…
Continue reading “Mattia Trani – The Hi-tech Mission [PM015]”
Dekmantel presents Danny Wolfers a.k.a. Legowelt’s ambient project Occult Orientated Crime. It’s for the first time ever that this moniker of the prolific Dutchman will have a physical release. Wolfers: “The OOC sound is an accumulation of twenty years of musical training and research and what effect it has on the brain. Simply put it’s electronic ambient music, which is more advanced compared to the music I’m creating with my Smackos alias. OOC is deeper and more melodic, less loose and vague but perhaps more intense. It can bring the listener into a completely different state of mind, you can almost call it ritualistic neuroscience music.” The six tracks are recorded around the same time, using coherent recording techniques. “Let’s say I was in a flow, or something like that. But I rather think it’s the music itself that gives it a distinctive sound: the way the music was composed, the notes and the sound palette. I haven’t used any sharp sounds for example, but everything is very round so your brains will soak it up as something smooth.” Apart from the track ‘Just a Clown On Crack’, the release lacks kick drums. “Most or nearly all music from PC doesn’t have a beat because it is often unnecessary, it distracts from the melody or what should be processed in the mind of the listener. The melodies, sounds and structure itself are enough to bring the listener into a certain mindset: a beat there would almost sound cheap, tacky. ‘Just a Clown On Crack’ has a trip-/hip-hop feel to it and was craving for a beat. It’s also the last track of the album and, in a rather fluent way, brings the listener back to the misery and tragedy of the normal, everyday world. It’s like returning from the OCC dimension with a soft landing.”
Andreas Tilliander returns to Kontra-Musik in a grand style with his second TM404 album. Titled ‘Acidub’, this highly anticipated release is much more of an evolution than a repetition of the first superbly self-restricted album, where Tilliander even decided to use only one of the two Roland TB-303 waveforms. Acidub is a more playful and open listening experience, no doubt inspired by his extensive live touring with the TM404 concept. In fact, you can almost hear Tilliander’s flock of acid machines breaking free from the restrained modus operandi. Every sound is like a migratory bird with a heart yearning for high altitude and favourable winds. The opening track Alinge paints a lucid picture of these acid birds leaving a cold industrial landscape behind; the flickering black shadows from their wings against the white smoke rising from a forest of chimneys below. The very last seconds of Alinge even echo of the place the silver birds are longing for, but that will remain a secret between Kontra-Musik and the avid listener. Sufficient to say, we can follow these birds of passage as they’re heading south towards a warmer climate, fleeing the cold discipline of the North. Mutron Mantra, for instance, brings us to a rainforest full of serpentine lianas, giant leaves dripping with moist and green pools of water bubbling with organic life. Don’t Defend Mascot guides us through a steaming savannah at dusk with hundreds of yellow eyes following our every step while Pade vividly describes the perils of the flight and the pace and courage needed to press on. In all, Acidub is a surprisingly exuberant follow-up to the more introspective TM404 album. But while the musical journey of this second album is quite different, the experience of sheer aural eminence remains the same. Andreas Tilliander has done it again, and Kontra-Musik couldn’t be prouder.
ZYX are the duo of Inge Graf and Walter Zyx. They formed in Vienna, Austria in 1977. Committing themselves to the “aestheticisation of everyday life” in all fields of art, their works with video, photography, graphic design, and music are visually influenced by Pop Art, Constructivism, Futurism, Dadaism, Beat culture, and the electronic rock of the 60s and 70s. They are considered pioneers of multimedia art worldwide, and continue to remain active to this day. ‘Trust No Woman’ is the debut album from ZYX, and was released in 1981 on the label RCA Music. It was recorded, mixed and mastered from March to August 1981 at their own Sun Moon & Stars Studio Vienna. They designed short, punchy songs around a barrage of analogue synths, rock-solid electro beats and tempered, low-key vocals. Cold and claustrophobic atmospheres collide with mechanical rhythms The songs are sung in English with a heavy German accent, and lyrics channel obscure existentialist dialogues. Despite the sombre tone, there lingers a touch of the enthusiasm that accompanied the influx of affordable technologies and new media of the era.
Having begun life as a bedroom project for then Southampton-based Nicholas Wood to experiment with ideas around minimal electronica and shoegaze, The KVB has grown with partner and collaborator Kat Day. The now Berlin-based productive pair have released four albums of woozy and immersive anthems since 2010. ‘Of Desire’ is The KVB’s most fully formed record to date, taking in influences such as Death In Vegas, Scott Walker and Roxy Music to create something that is at once familiar and yet inventive and original. Steeped in musical history, it’s an album that hums with devotion and captures a band ready to emerge from the underground and embrace an ever-growing audience. “Being able to produce from home meant we weren’t restricted.” Wood says remembering The KVB’s early days. Many of the songs on ‘Of Desire’ date back to these earliest bedroom recordings, including lead single ‘In Deep’. “It’s about longing,” he adds of a song powered by a motorik beat and distorted blasts of icy guitars.” There’s definitely a romantic undercurrent to the record.”
This latest twin release of two ten inchers, Cityscapes and Landscapes offers a rare treat because for the first time, the listener is given a fascinating insight into the development of the Greg Foat Group. The recordings presented on these two EPs represent a journey from urban to rural environments in musical form. Foat actually wrote these around 2002 at the age of 23 when he was living in Stockholm, Sweden. But crucially, they sound like they were written today.
New Terrence Dixon album appears on Bandcamp.
It’s been a while since Planet Rhythm released an entire LP project. Who else to thread into album territories than Ukranian Planet Rhythm stalwart ”Yan Cook”. After releasing various efforts through the Rotterdam based imprint over the last few years, Yan Cook comes up with a double LP consisting of 2 discs with 2 tracks on each side. Whilst shifting between various sides of the Yan Cook identity the XX LP proves to be an effective and bulding package over mechanic Techno sounds with strong builds and exciting taints of FX.
Liverpool artist Stu Robinson aka ASOK steps up to Creme Organization with a debut full length offering, A Mind Forever Voyaging, featuring ten tracks of macho yet melodic, tender yet tense analogue house and techno. Something of a late starter, Robinson has fomented his own mystical, nostalgic, inventive analogue sound that makes you jack, as well as conjuring real emotions with his great knack for melody. This album was recorded live then edited down. “So if something doesn’t sound good it either stays in or I re-record the whole thing,” says Robinson, who used things like Maschine, tb303, analog RYTM, JX-8P, Microkorg, some plugins and “a shit load of old rave samples” to create his debut full length. All written at home over a period of a year or so, it proves the artist has plenty of ideas and more than enough skills to carry them off. All unified by a sense of emotion and kinked dance floor groove that has been picked up over the course of 25 years of living and breathing many different forms of dance music, it is an accomplished debut.
Coherence is a new vinyl only series from Be As One, a channel of expression with a different approach than the main label catalogue. Focused exclusively towards hypnotic and carefully programmed Techno, Coherence will be an outlet for established artists, but also for breaking the new and exciting talent. The first release comes from techno alumnus Orbe, who launch this new limited series with a double LP of dreamy, hypnotic Techno.
Album debut from Inter Gritty. This island-hopping adventure takes us from the quirky depths of Ictis through the 303 workout of Stac Lee and the brutal pounding of Swona, to the lush electronics of Cijin. The Norrköping, Sweden-based producer has taken his sound one step further from his previous EPs and painted a bigger picture, covering an archipelago of sound that offers both rough seas, jagged cliffs and serene forests.
Having broken the barrier for murky skewed house with his 2014 white label ‘A Place Called Ballacid’, Hungarian scene founder S Olbricht returns with a full album on Lobster Theremin that channels his distinct brand of thumping, sludgy techno, weaving through repetitive drone-laden ambient and Hague-esque escape soundtrack house. ‘For Perfect Beings’ is a sound-palette tour de force, picking ‘n’ mixing tempos and tonal balances that shift throughout each track and side of vinyl. Which strangely starts on a 12″ LP slab and ends with a pseudo ‘bonus’ 10″ two track experiment.
To coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Berlin club Tresor, Juan Atkins and Moritz Von Oswald have released a second Borderland album together. It begins in ominous mode, with the title track’s brooding bass tones casting a long, dark shadow, but the pair soon find a way to break away from the gloom with the mesmerising chords and heavy rhythm of “Lightyears” and the wonderfully spacey Detroit techno of “Riod”. Both “Odyssey” and “Merkur” push the tempo back down but keep an emphasis on hypnotic, woozy textures, snappy drums and jazzy tones, while “2600” shows that Van Oswald hasn’t lost his ability to craft dub-heavy, dreamy techno.
Andy Stott rarely gets it wrong. To date, he’s release a trio of fine full-lengths on Modern Love, each of which has arrived perfectly formed. It’s a similar story on fourth album Too Many Voices. Rich, spacious and melodious, it draws on both classic and contemporary sounds, channeling Yellow Magic Orchestra, James Blake, Boards Of Canada, Autechre and clap-happy drum machine funk, before twisting these varied inspirations into thrilling new shapes. For all the high-minded experimentalism, Stott’s greatest gift is an ability to create music that’s inspired and entertaining, achieving a balance between boundary-pushing and old-fashioned melodiousness. When he gets it right, as on Too Many Voices, few can really compete.
Danny Wolfers aka Legowelt with a new project UFOCUS on his own label Nightwind Records. 11 Tracks with a mix of electronix and more club ready tracks, typical Legowelt style. A double-album set that explores the paranormal themes that were once a major part of the early ’90s ambient techno scene. Musically, much of Guidance For The Puzzled recalls those halcyon days, with Danny’s drawing inspiration from a mixture of classic Detroit techno, intergalactic electronica, intelligent techno, stargazing ambient house and – on the fine “Archetypes & Myths” – dreamy deep house/acid house fusion.
If everything suddenly changed – what would that be like? Qnete’s EP is not the question and not the answer. It’s in a hiatus between hopes and fears, still maintaining an eager energy. Within a short period of time all tracks were recorded straight to tape, raw and improvised. They remember the sun bath before the storm, when you feel that something is about to roll over you. They express the urge and need to sometimes just jump into the cold water to face what’s coming next. They linger in the nervous energy when you’re lost and don’t know what to expect. But they also talk about the hope of finding a safe place.
On their by now 4th release Crystal Soda Cream yet again prove to know how to pull out all the stops: shimmering cold & toxic, passionate & sharp tongued, claustrophobic & elegantly wasted with usual aplomb. By revealing “Work & Velocity” this Vienna threesome – Theresa Adamski (dr, keys, voc), Philipp Forthuber (voc, guit) and Sebastian Ploier (bass) – bears a distinct breed of post punk, that is not just a zealous reflection of the cold, old days in a cloudy mirror, much rather CSC manage to forge a bridge between a thoroughly thought through reminiscence of stylistic device and the framing of a paramountly contemporary statement.
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Known and admired for its rich and moody ambient and techno output, Field Records is presenting a brand new LP from Iori. His mesmerizing ambient excursions come under the title of Cold Radiance, and the album features eight tracks that suck you right into his world. Each track here is a long and absorbing affair that slowly unfolds and pulls you right into its grainy core. There are dark, texturally rich tracks that are full of menace as well as more heavenly, suspensory and angelic ambient offerings.
The Hipodrome Of Music 