Kerridge’s 3rd long player marks a more fluid, or effluent, refinement of his sound, blurring the boundaries between organic audio sources and custom-constructed synths to flooding the senses with waves of bristling, oxidising industrial tones and coruscating texturhythm seemingly intent on separating flesh from bone. It’s evil stuff, all seven tracks of it, forming a closed feedback system of guttural, choking frequencies and cardiac arrhythymatics.
Hypercolour announce the latest long player from UK stalwart, Ed DMX AKA DMX Krew, the visionary British electronic producer who has been responsible for a slew of excellent releases since the mid 1990s. ‘You Exist’ is DMX Krew’s debut appearance on Hypercolour, and as expected the record features nine tracks of beautifully crafted, melodic electronic sounds. From the opener ‘Spiritual Encounter’, DMX sets the tone perfectly with oodles of pitch perfect synth riffs and driving drums, working his way through snappy and bright pop moments like ‘Hard Copy’ to more melancholic, darker cuts like ‘Computational Paradigm Shift’. DMX breezes in and out of electro techno territory to more contemplative IDM vibes with ease, testimony to the guy’s talent (that’s also seen him wear the hat of over 10 aliases throughout his career to date). ‘You Exist’ captures a very true and genuine musical form, produced and delivered with love from one of the scene’s unsung heroes, and makes it a great companion piece to another Hypercolour released album from similar stock. A consistent and engaging album then from DMX Krew that will pleasure the ear buds of discerning listeners everywhere.
99LETTERS steps up on THRHNDRDSVNTNN with a collection of chugging, otherworldly house and techno excursions. Tape saturated machines groan under ghostly synth pads and layers of static, whilst over driven percussion pounds overhead.
Among guitar aficionados, they don’t come much heavier than acid-drenched enigma Eddie Hazel. A founding father of Funkadelic and responsible for the blazing ”Maggot Brain” solo, he released just one album. A concentrated dose of guitar-driven psychedelic soul and loping funk-rock, Game, Dames And Guitar Thangs(1977) was co-produced by George Clinton and features the full Mothership crew. Despite impeccable credentials, the album sank and dropped out of print for years, becoming a sought-after collector’s item for funkateers ever since. Mercifully addressing the dubious legitimacy and quality of previous reissues, Be With Records present a worthy and welcome 180 gram edition, limited to 500 copies. Eddie Hazel was a pioneering guitar genius, but his troubled lifestyle led to a dearth of recorded material that demonstrated his strengths. It’s a wonderful thing, then, that this lost classic is available on vinyl again. Possibly the finest slice of P-Funk you’ve never heard, it’s a record that will make your brain dance and one every funk fan needs.
The Left Ear label hit that sweet spot once more, diving into the archive and coming back for air brandishing a veritable slab of private press jazz funk history. Originally pressed in 1979 in a run of 100 copies, Thesda was the brainchild of Thomas Crawford and Eugene C. Hagburg, backed ably by a handful of like-minded musicians, and existed for brief moment of sublime expression, captured in its entirety on this gorgeous LP. “Spaced Out” takes us on a cosmic journey through jazz funk, soul and disco into that far out dimension of groovesome psychedelia inhabited by Mandre and Dexter Wansel. Fully licensed and reissued for the very first time, this Left Ear pressing is your best chance to own this forgotten piece of jazz-funk history without having to remortgage the house.
In addition to his prolific output as Not Waving, London-dwelling Italian Alessio Natalizia has developed quite an interest in profiling the vast archive of music that surfaced from his motherland in the 1980s. After Strut tapped him to curate the Mutazione compilation back in 2013, Natalizia has taken to square his focus on more specific artists, with this Tapes retrospective following a similar profile of Daniele Ciulini last year. Selected Works 1982 – 1992 spans a decade of recordings from Tapes, aka brotherly pair Giancarlo and Roberto Drago whose style of industrial music absorbed the counter-cultural influence of William Burroughs or Throbbing Gristle, and the sci-fi dystopia of J.G. Ballard and John Foxx. The 21 tracks here will delight anyone with an interest in the obscure annals of European primitive electronics.
Continue reading “The Tapes – Selected Works 1982 – 1992 [ELP017]”
Montreal-based electronic duo Essaie Pas is comprised of Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau. Both are respected musicians in their own right – Marie having released two acclaimed solo records, with Pierre being best known for production work on underground Canadian musicians such as Dirty Beaches and Femminielli. Essaie pas was born on a hot summer night in 2010, releasing some ultra-limited singles which culminated in their debut LP, Nuit de noce (Teenage Menopause Records) in 2013. The mix of drawling guitars, français mumbles, and minimal electronics caught the ear of DFA Records, who booked the pair to open for Factory Floor on their first North American tour.
In interviews, Alessio Natalazia has freely stated his next album would be “very different” and “very intense”. That album, his first for Powell’s Diagonal stable, has finally arrived, and it’s as ballsy, robust and full-throttle as he promised. While it contains nods to the woozy, shoegaze and ambient influenced soundscapes that have been a feature of his previous full-length excursions, these are well hidden behind clandestine fusions of techno and industrial, surging EBM-influenced workouts, post punk-goes-post rock explorations and atmospheric analogue electronics. For those well versed in his back catalogue, Animals makes for arresting listening.
Picking up where he left off on his last long player ”Mirrors and Copulation” we hear an evolution in Haslam’s sound New York’s Gunnar Haslam appears on L.I.E.S. with his third lp for the label titled “Lebesgue Measures”. Picking up where he left off on his last long player “Mirrors and Copulation” we hear an evolution in his sound throughout the nine songs. Still there are the understated yet grooving acid lines next to carefully programmed drums and attention to surrounding detail which creates beautiful and balanced atmospheres. There is a brightness coupled with an underlying sullenness tapping into some sort of mystical and seemingly obscured narrative which moves through the entire record. Deep and immersive stuff to say the least.
Some 31 years after they were first conceived, the cuts that make up Anna Homler and Steve Moshier’s Breadwoman & Other Tales remain thoroughly odd, out-there and entertaining. During the duo’s mid-1980s collaboration, performance artist Homler channeled the spirit of a character she’d created called Breadwoman, delivering bizarre vocals – half sung, half spoken, in some kind of made-up dialect – she referred to as “divine speech”. These were worked into musical pieces by experimental composter Moshier, who utilized cheap drum machines, battered analogue synthesizers, and chamber music players to create hypnotic, otherworldly tracks that remain hugely charming. The story of their creation and performance, told in great detail in the accompanying liner notes, is also fascinating.
The mysterious Knowone imprint presents a collection of dusty, smoked out, dub techno journeys. This is the real deal; for those of you who aren’t familiar, this label is highly recommended for fans of Basic Channel, Echospace or Meanwhile. Enough said, right? This collection comes in a limited edition, handmade wooden box with 5 x 12″s and 2 CDs. It’s hard to pick a highlight from here because all the tracks on here are so damn good. But we do particularly enjoy the glacial and cavernous vibes of Track 3, the hypnotic and dubby deep house on “Track 5” while “Track 8” sounds like Jeff Mills and Stephen Hitchell going on a stoned UFO journey over the Arctic.
Here at Giallo HQ we first noticed H ø R D whilst searching for tracks for the fictitious Wild In Blue Ost, and his music has gone on to be some of the best we’ve ever heard, so much so that we jumped at the chance to release the debut album by this incredible artist. Eight Reverb-Soaked Urban-Gothic Melancholic songs, between synth-shoegaze and violent EBM, Focus On Light is a beautiful heartbreaking LP that will resonate strongly with fans of Pornography-era The Cure, Joy Division and classic Nine Inch Nails.
Medical Records releases the first full length LP in 5 years by LA’s Geneva Jacuzzi. To say Jacuzzi is a multifaceted artist would be an understatement. She is well known for her uncompromisingly obtuse synth-driven pop and one-of-a-kind performance art that is comprised of one time only spectacles and installations. Her works have been presented in famous art institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA and numerous other venues across the globe. She has developed a very focused cult following in the art and music scenes. She was originally well known for her multitude of self-released home recordings but also released a full length Lamaze in 2010 on the Vinyl International to much acclaim. Not to mention her track The Sleep Room featured on The Minimal Wave Tapes Vol 2. Technophelia is the culmination of a hybrid of DIY and professional studio recordings (with the help of esteemed producer Chris Coady) that resulted in this exquisite album. Features the soon-to-be-hits I’m A TV and Cannibal Babies. Lovers of unique and left-field wave such as Gina X, Ronny, and the like will be transfixed by the raw, oozing newness of it all.
The seventh Surgeon album. Anthony Child claims that the inspiration for his seventh artist album came from using hardware to receive transmissions from far-flung galaxies. He then hooked up with astrophysicist Dr Andrew Read – a former collaborator – to work out the bewildering track titles. That’s the concept. The reality is that From Farthest Known Objects is a dense, grainy work. It feels like Child has deconstructed or in some more extreme situations has hacked away at tropes like minimalism, clicks and cuts and dub step to reveal an inner, hidden world. On the first few tracks, this alternate reality resounds to a sluggish pace, amid the crackle and groan of cleaved percussion and tortured subs, but it gradually comes round to stepping, broken beat techno and lunging rhythms. That these also descend into pulverising walls of white noise and nausea-inducing frequency shifts at times also serve as a reminder that Child has tuned into something other or inner-worldly.
Stereociti aka Ken Sumitani presents his second album Lost Land for Mojuba and like its predecessor Kawasaki his new oeuvre is some of the finest Japanese deepcore you will come across these days! This long player is taking us on a journey into an adventure to Stereociti’s ever-changing vast sound landscapes, narrating the story of a lost land. Each of the ten songs is contributing to paint you a in-depth picture of a forgotten city which vanished from this earth long time ago, exploring even the tiniest details through a remarkable sound design. A album that will find a place at home, in the club and you heart! Available as limited edition 3×12 LP in a hand-printed silkscreen cover. Vital Sales Points: – high quality music – limited edition Vinyl in hand-printed silkscreen cover
The ocean- the infinity, the beauty, the colour, the sound: a truly seductive place. With the sound of ocean waves Smallville’s beloved artist Moomin invites us to enter his second full length album “A Minor Thought”. A selection of wonderful tracks initiate some exciting house music moments at our favorite clubs, improved at Panorama Bar, Robert Johnson and of course the Golden Pudel among many others.. Engaged with a fantastic collection of analogue synths and drum machines, Moomin is always on a hunt of the most delicate samples.
Golden Teacher and the Rough Trade shops join forces to offer new ears the opportunity to hear the Teacher’s first three recording efforts on one handy compilation. Recorded between 2012 and 2013 at Glasgow’s Green Door Studio through a state-funded scheme for unemployed young musicians, this release documents the six-piece’s interest in the willful naïveté of late 20th century “post-” tendencies, leading France’s MidiLibre to later describe Golden Teacher as “an idiot-savant prototype of dance music in the 3rd millennium.” Golden Teacher is an ensemble of Cassie Ojay, Charles Lavenac, Laurie Pitt, Oliver Pitt, Richard McMaster and Sam Bellacosa. This release gathers all material from the band’s first three EPs, first released as OM18, OM20 and OM23 on Glasgow’s Optimo Music. The LP presents a selection of the band’s favorite tracks from these sessions.
Twin Paradox is a special series in Fundamental Records where two different artists with a strong connection release a double album, one from each artists/band. So what we have here Two different albums, from two different artists, with a connection in style or maybe conceptual… in this TPS003 Luke Eargoggle for example is part of the Faceless Mind project.
Comet announce the third volume of the Afrobeat Makers Series: Nu Guinea – The Tony Allen Experiments. By re-working the original magic drum patterns from the Afrobeat master Tony Allen, Nu Guinea created a compilation of tracks which is charged by a voluminous electronic jazz-Psyche funk imprint. For this release, Comet Records teamed up with Early Sounds Recordings, the berlin label, also home to duo Berliners Nu Guinea. The Naples formed, Berlin-based duo, is a project that arose out of jam sessions, melting synthesizers with instruments, containing a handmade sound that is not aiming for perfection but genuineness. It can be understood as a steadily shaping form, always open for collaborations with other musicians.
Dopeness Galore with an LP of jazz bop burners from the masterful saxophonist George Adams. Now sadly departed, Adams was a Jazz multi-instrumentalist who was pretty active up until his passing in 1992. Suitably titled Finest, this six track selection canvasses the ’70s and ’80s era of the Adams discography with his dramatic way of playing the saxophone really coming to the fore. Get introduced into the world of avantgarde and postbop jazz.
The Hipodrome Of Music 