Five guys jamming together, each throwing in funk-nuggets from a finely honed appreciation & a shared love of the good groove. This studio project was compiled from a free-wheeling desire to just team up and play together, see what happens.
album
Ashra – Blackouts [SPALAX14759]
Blackouts is a solo album by German musician Manuel Göttsching, released in 1978. It was originally released as an Ash Ra Tempel album, but the 2011 reissue of the album is credited solely to Göttsching. The album was written and performed entirely by Göttsching on electric guitar, keyboards.
Zwischenwelt – Paranormale Aktivitat [CAL007LP]
Zwischenwelt is a project combining the talents of former Drexciya member Heinrich Mueller, New York DJ and producer Susana Correia, Spanish producer Penelope Martin and vocalist Beta Evers. This is the first vinyl edition of this special project. A well executed audio-visual experience playing with the tension between machine and human vox. Musically rooted in the early 90’s lab-electro style that has been presented as Gesamtkuntwerk, further conceptualized and developed into an even more abstract but not any less powerful or less intense experience. Cold voices sonically merging with emotional machine sounds (or is it cold machine sounds merging with emotive vocal sounds?).
Jeremiah R. – Callisto [TABR033]
Tabernacle Records is exploring the outer reaches of Detroit-influenced techno, electro and ambient. Their latest outing is coming from Jeremiah R. Beginning with the floatation tank-in-space ambience of “Chorus”, Calisto sees the producer laying down a whopping eight cuts that variously touch in Drexciyan electro, Artificial Intelligence-era IDM, and hard-to-define hybrids that confirm the intergalactic potential of electronic music. Interestingly, the music is roughly equally split between horizontally inclined, beat-less explorations, surging dancefloor workouts, and the kind of mid ’90s home listening fodder that sits somewhere in between.
Corporate Park / Beau Wanzer – CP / BW [BW003]
CP/BW is a collaboration between Corporate Park and Beau Wanzer. The LP collects material recorded over the past 3 years from various fits and bursts in Denton, TX. It’s a slimy hodgepodge of varied influences processed by warped minds and melting hardware, displaying Wanzer and Co.’s unique brand of American electronic madness.
Joey Anderson – Invisible Switch [DKMNTL029]
The art of omission is a craft New Jersey native Joey Anderson masters like few others. After releasing his acclaimed debut album After Forever in 2014 and the 1974 EP earlier this year, Anderson returns to the Dekmantel label serving up the signature sound we love him for. Invisible Switch is the perfect example of what Anderson can do with very little, catapulting him to one of the finest and most original techno and house producers to date. Hammered to loose 4/4 rhythms, and without the use of the obvious percussive spasms, Anderson serves up some of the strangest dance floor tracks around. The lack of snares in ‘Waves in the Organ’, the schizophrenic ‘Blind Light’ and the sprawling ‘Reset’ show his fresh take on what modern dance floor music can sound like: elegant and urgent at the same time, while the wonderfully weird ‘Invisible Switch’ vouches for his versatility as a producer. Anderson’s minimalism doesn’t affect the musicality of the tracks. The strength lies in the details and unexpected twists. Freaked out chords cut through ‘Nabta Playa,’ a peak-time club track that stands out thanks to its enchanting madness. One of the many highlights is the impressive, more-than eight minutes-long ‘Disappearance’, which builds around a wrung synth line and neurotic rattling hi-hats, leading the dance in a hallucinatory techno trip that excels in originality.
D5 – Sides Of Space [112DSR]
Delsin present Sides Of Space, a collection of classic, lost and forgotten tracks from atmospheric techno producer D5. The tracks on this new compilation have been chosen from old CDRs by label boss Marsel and truly reflect the artist formerly known as Dimensions 5’s fine tradition of relaxing chilled out, Detroit influenced techno. This is a compelling compilation that is wholly timeless from start to finish. Though driven by a fine sense of groove, it is also great head music that is richly musical and truly serene. In all, this releases reminds us that D5 is a underrated producer of emotive electronic landscapes.
Kyle Hall – From Joy [WO018K]
Wild Oats presents the triple LP entitled From Joy by Kyle Hall. The title is derived from the idea of finding a way to live life in a state of presence; detaching oneself from the mental, self imposed narratives echoed by society’s traditions and judgement. We as people tend to be at our most honest and present in our childhood, so in some ways From Joy serves as a mechanism and reminder to return to one’s youthful energetic state. The 8- track album, all produced before 2010, is a homage to where Kyle lived at the time in his father’s basement on the westside of Detroit on Joy Rd.
Spatial Relation – Beyond The Zero [PM011]
Peripheral Minimal presents Beyond the Zero, the debut album by Brooklyn-based duo Spatial Relation. The eight songs that make up Beyond the Zero were produced, recorded, and mixed in the band’s home studio from 2012 to 2014. With influences ranging from 1980s minimal synth to Skam-styled IDM, Spatial Relation’s music draws equally from the early pop work of Depeche Mode and the later electro sounds of Dopplereffekt. Emphasizing hard beats, thick basslines, and hypnotic arpeggios, the minimalist arrangements onBeyond the Zero are geared for maximum effect. Created with a carefully chosen selection of analog electronic instruments, the album pairs the overtly synthetic sounds of hardware with human vocal experimentation.
Petre Inspirescu – Vin Ploile [MULEMUSIQ192]
Romanian minimal techno hero Petre Inspirescu releases a solo album on Japan’s Mule Musiq and what a moment in a brilliant career thus far. This guy is a true innovator and many are curious to hear what kind of journey into the deep and bizarre he can take us on. Starting out with the exotic bongo meditation of “Delir 1” and the breathtaking immersive ambience of “Delir 2” or the sinister and unsettling “Lumiere” things start to develop more movement later. Such as: on the deep hypnotic vibes of “Delir 4” or “Delir 6” which feature sombre string arrangements, emotive piano passages and some of the most expressive and restrained drums and percussion performances. All nine suspenseful compositions seduce with a deep melodic sensibility, harmonic adventures and an overall rhythmic ambiance of freshness and laidback enthusiasm. Together they represent a challenging auditory experience that will resonate in your mind long after the music has finished.
Deepchord – Ultraviolet Music [SOMACD111]
Given his prolific nature, fresh material from Rod Modell under the Deepchord guise is not news. There is, though, something rather special and extra-ordinary about Ultraviolet Music, an expansive, double-disc full length for Soma, which the Detroit-based producer has described as “hallucinogenic”. Taking dub techno as his blueprint, Modell delivers an impressive collection of hypnotic, out-there moments that also take influence from ambient, Detroit techno, deep house, and the kind of fuzzy, beguiling sonic textures guaranteed to flip your lid. While many of Modell’s albums feature epic, 20-minute plus workouts, here he quickly shuffles between shorter moments whilst retaining a deliciously dubby dancefloor pulse.
Basic Soul Unit – Under The Same Sky [DKMNTL028]
Stuart Li, better known as Basic Soul Unit, brings his rugged house to the Dekmantel imprint for the very first time, serving up this finely crafted follow-up to his 2012 debut album. Delivering ten Detroit and Chicago-inspired house tracks of the finest calibre, Li’s offset and grubby bruk drums are a constant nod to the dance floor, while his melodies lean towards an unparalleled industrial edged emotion. From the LFO-like synth-line and crunchy jack of ‘Fate In Hand’, to the Levon Vincent-esque techno shuffle ‘n mutter of ‘Landlocked’ and the Morphosis-gone-wild style of ‘Unwavered’, on the to the dark subbass welt of ‘The Rift Between’ and the relentless floor destroyer ‘Temptress’: ‘Under The Same Sky’ sets the bar fly high for raw yet extremely original house music.
Charles Manier – American Manier [BOP004]
Tadd Mullinix returns to the lesser spotted Charles Manier avatar for the second album release on his Bopside label, and the first under this guise following releases for Nation and Ghostly. The resulting 11 track album is mostly new material with a lineage of inspiration that can be traced back decades, from box banging EBM club trax to spectral beatless excursions. Drawing influence from a variety of sources but still a cohesive, engaging listen – ‘American Manier ‘ is destined to become a future underground classic.
Chris Alexander – Music For Murder [GDLP003]
Journalist turned producer Chris Alexander is something of a hive-mind of information when it comes to obscure horror film music, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that his new album sounds like a pitch-perfect tribute to synthesizer-heavy, Italian “Giallo” soundtracks, and the horror-disco style perfected by John Carpenter. It’s made up of tracks Alexander wrote and released – usually via obscure, CD-R only labels – over the last decade. More importantly, Murder Music is actually rather good, with Alexander offering a perfect balance between clandestine synthesizer motifs, panicked beats, clanking industrial textures, hypnotic guitar lines, and chords that seem to creep up from behind.
Delta Funktionen – Wasteland [RAM-X-CD01]
Delta Funktionen presents the compilation cd of the Wasteland Chapters. Spread over 4 EP’s, from which the first two have been released on Rado Matrix in June 2015 and the other two in September and October 2015, it tells the story about an intergalactic journey towards the planet Wasteland, somewhere deep into the Andromeda Galaxy.
Candido – Dancin’ & Prancin’ [SA8520]
Candido Cameron was a Cuban percussion maestro who had played with luminaries such as Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Rich and Count Basie throughout his illustrious musical career which started in 1952. Fast forward to 1979 and Candido finds himself caught up in the Disco boom that had engulfed his adopted New York City. Feeling he could add his trademark quick-fire Conga and Bongo playing to Disco’s straight 4 x 4 syncopated rhythm he cut some records with legendary NYC label Salsoul. The fruits of this partnership were 2 full length LP’s and a handful of 12″ singles that changed the face of underground Disco. The first of these two LP’s made for Salsoul was the truly epic “Dancin’ & Prancin” containing the all time classic “Jingo” which has been sampled, edited, re-configured and coveted by too many names to mention! It’s a killer funky Disco version of master Nigerian drummer Olatunji’s 1969 percussion suite of the same name, Salsoul style. The LP also contains one of the deepest Disco records of all time; “Thousand Finger Man” a testament to Candido’s percussion prowess and a spacey, beautiful voyage that has left more than an indelible mark on modern House music, often being cited as a huge influence by artists such as Masters At Work and more.
Napoleon Cherry – Walk Alone [MFM007]
Napoleon Cherry is perhaps not the unknown name that Music From Memory excels at celebrating but the Philadelphian musician’s releases are certainly suitably hard to find. This career retrospective offers a mix of impossible-to-find tracks, many from his deliciously rare 1990 debut full-length, and previously unheard cuts. It portrays Cherry as a master of warm, evocative, Balearic soul and lo-fi synthesizer funk, whose analogue-rich releases were always out-of-step with the musical trends developing around him. Crucially, all 10 of these tracks are superb, making Walk Alone yet another essential Music From Memory purchase.
Tim Deluxe – Tim Deluxe Orchestrates: The Radicle [SRNYC019]
The Radicle album bu Tim Deluxe released on Strictly Rhythm label has a decidedly soulful, blues-y feel. Tim took his time and immersed himself completely into the record, surrounding himself with some of the best contemporary jazz musicians around, including Jim Mullen (guitar), Rod Youngs and Enzo Zirilli (drums), Pete Wareham (sax), Jay Phelps (trumpet), John Donaldson (piano) and Ben Hazleton (bass). he Radicle is a nine track sonic adventure with ideas bursting from every kick and lick. There’s even a cover of the Miles Davis classic ‘So What!’ which bends the trumpet classic into new forms while ‘Shanti’ explores a more mysticial, Indian vibe with a sax solo John Coltrane would be proud of. There are no synthesizers or electronics on the record: in some respects, it’s also a reaction against the electronic world.
Hieroglyphic Being & J.I.T.U. Ahn-Sahm-Buhl – We Are Not The First [RVNGNL033]
For those who maintain the more mutable dance music is, the deeper its impact on human evolution, RVNG Intl. presents ‘We Are Not The First’, an epic conducted and deconstructed by Chicago artist Hieroglyphic Being and the JITU Ahn-Sahm-Bul. ‘We Are Not The First’ combines the musical forces of Marshall Allen, Daniel Carter, Greg Fox, Shelley Hirsch, Shahzad Ismaily, Elliott Levin, Jamal Moss, Rafael Sanchez, and Ben Vida in deep dialogue with each other and humans’ hidden sonic history. Tracked as different personale patterns over a week of studio sessions in Brooklyn, said syntax translates into mesmerizing sound forms as the ensemble excavates sonic folklore and ancient music, employing spiritual-jazz’s welfare and health as an agency for balance. An album with an active brain, ‘We Are Not The First’ aspires to reprogram the mind, to transcend our expectations through bugged-out percussion, modular mayhem, flurries of free improvisation, and voices carrying through the air. Hieroglyphic Being & JITU Ahn-Sahm-Bul develop consciousness from primordial ooze. As in listening, the ooze intones an echo of our deep past, rendering the present ever focused. ‘We Are Not The First’ is an 11-part epic and each track is a movement therein that testifies: an ensemble’s vitality lives in its collectivity. When we ask the ooze, the ooze articulates: ‘We Are Not The First’.
Broken English Club – Suburban Hunting [CITI018]
Minimal Wave sublabel Cititrax announce a full length album by artist Broken English Club. Oliver Ho (also known for his Raudive alias) expands upon the themes in his earlier output. Now though, he is presenting Broken English Club as the multifaceted project that it is. He fearlessly exposes a range of emotion through varying sound, texture and song structure. The result is a manifestation of his influences (post punk, noise, techno, grindcore) melded into his own unique vision and culminating in an album that sounds absolutely massive, both on and off the dance floor.
The Hipodrome Of Music 