The re-release of the first ever recordings by Belgian minimal synth masters Twilight Ritual. Released in 1982 in a tiny cassette edition this album has not been heard by many people. ”The Ritual” includes some of their best work, from mysterious dark synthpopsongs like ”Elegy” to club music and the epic 14-minute track ”Up To Now”.
Coldwave / darkwave debut album by San Francisco based producer Gabriel Ramos. While the band has gone through some lineup changes Ssleeping Desiress has essentially remained the sole recorded output of Gabriel Ramos, who has been the only constant member. The album runs the boundaries between minimal synth, coldwave, and electro with lyrical themes spanning gentrification to coping with loss.
Composer, improviser, and Buchla Music Easel master Charles Cohen returns to Morphine with a suite of new material. In keeping with the timbre spectrum of his semi-modular system, Brother I Prove You Wrong is built around pointillist analog tones—Cohen’s cosmic “beeps and boops”—that swarm and scatter in mesmeric patterns across four sides. Moving through surrealistic textural overlays and industrial miasma, the album’s nine tracks reveal a more introspective and personal side of the artist, following from a retrospective LP trilogy released via Morphine in 2013. Those assembled works, dating back to the late ’70s, quickly became essential listening and brought Cohen—at the time largely unknown outside Philadelphia’s experimental circuit—to critical renown.
Brooklyn-based experimentalist Jahiliyya Fields presents his second album on L.I.E.S. On Chance Life, Jahiliyya Fields changes track a little with the 11 tracks a tad closer to the dancefloor. While there are still out-there moments (including a bizarre spoken word cut), for the most part the album pairs his throbbing synthesizers and crusty electronics with dense techno grooves, psychedelic tribal rhythms and humid box jams.
Patrice Scott presents his first full length artist album: Euphonium, The Album. Encapsulating the essence of the Sistrum sound, Euphonium, The Album sees Patrice offering up 9 tracks cut from the same cloth as his previous work for the label – sublime and evolved with depth and authenticity as only he can convey. Without a doubt, it is the modern sound of deepest Detroit.
Remastered deluxe double album of archival material by pioneering 80s minimal electronic duo Oppenheimer Analysis, formed in London, England in 1982 by Andy Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd.
Continue reading “Oppenheimer Analysis – New Mexico: The Complete Collection [MW059]”
Flexi Wave reviels the collaboration between Silent Em aka Jean Lorenzo and Ortrotasce aka Nic Hamersly. The LP is a 11 tracker with 5 solo-tracks and one collaboration track all carefully put together by the artists together.
”Muscle and Mind is the return of Oscar Mulero to long plays, after Grey fades to Green and Black Propaganda. ‘Muscle’ and ‘mind’ may seem antagonistic terms in real life, but in terms of music they make sense together, especially when talking about techno. The coalition of introspection and abstraction is not incompatible with the rough and the percussive, and this album is a good example of this. The underlying message behind the title refers to the reflection of mental states in the body, the genesis of emotions where body and mind are managed by the sense of hearing. Throughout these twelve tracks, one can dive into the musical world of this producer whose discourse mutates in every album, always intricate, always meticulous. Darkness acts as a thread and repetition as hypnotic therapy. But now, he sets his usual hard sound aside and looks for a much more cared for and precise sound , where there is room even for a harmony and musicality that go hand in hand with danceability. The combination of atmospheres and rhythms is constant throughout the album. Each of the cuts has been prepared with few sonic elements. He takes elements away one by one, and keeps exclusively the necessary. A record that has been developed during endless hours in airports and travelling, absorbing influences from all over the planet. Made in solitude but surrounded by people who don’t know what you are really doing on that computer. To close the circle, the album was mixed in professional studio using solid state technology, which gives this work a unique warmth that cannot be achieved in a domestic environment.”
Surprisingly, it’s been some four years since Croat producer Ilija Rudman dropped his much-played debut album, The Reveal, on Bear Funk. Happily, True Colours – his first outing on Is It Balearic – sees him in fine form, joining the dots between kaleidoscopic synth-funk, rubbery dub-disco, spaced-out boogie and glassy-eyed downtempo jams. Rudman is an expert at capturing the sounds of bygone eras, usually through the use of vintage equipment, while delivering tracks that sound thoroughly fresh and original. It’s this that makes True Colours such a fantastic set. Highlights are plentiful, from the close dance smoothness of “Bad Passion” and boogie dub vibes of “All The Time” (check the delay-laden hits and sweeping violins) to the jaunty electro-goes-Balearic brilliance of “Wild Guess”.
Don’t Be Afraid have released the latest album from US based artist Eecee(a.k.a. Doubt), called Cosmic Trigger. The album has been released as a cassette and free download via Don’t Be Afraid’s Bandcamp page and as expected, it’s an experimental leaning affair and a beautiful, mostly ambient journey through mesmerising textures and atmospheres.
Sophomore album from Jonas Ronnberg aka Varg with icey electronics live recorded. Ursviken is, unsurprisingly, a largely icy and atmospheric affair, with occasional bursts of throbbing, techno-influenced intensity (see the relentless loops and murky textures of “Vitberge”, and industrial freakiness of “Guldstaten”) punctuating the otherwise downbeat, largely ambient mood. As usual, there’s much to admire, from the bleak, dubbed-out oddness of “Raggarsvin” and overwhelmingly dreamy “Ohn”, to the understated grooves and spaced-out chords of “Skaeliptom”.
Super hot reissue of the original Portuguese Boom Records release of the Sarr Bands sought after 1979 Double Action LP. The title track, a heavy chugging Cosmic gem, is a bit of a holy grail among disco aficionados, but the rest of the LP is equally as good. Other standouts include dark slo-mo instrumental Soul Machine, a wonderful cover of Vince Montanas classic Nice & Nasty, the dirty drugged up disco groove of Mefisto Boogie and not forgetting the highly in-demand Magic Mandrake, a great slice of off-the-wall dancefloor madness with pumping bass, searing horns and sleazy vocals.
Menacing beats by DJ Spider are presented here in a double vinyl package. There is plenty of material here for dance floor damage as well as mental. Plan B Recordings is on top of its game with it’s 41st release and with many more to come.
Philly’s Metasplice are back with another double LP’s worth of unique soundscapes. To be sure, they’re previous sides for Morphosis’s Morphine label and they’re own imprint _bruxist have been some of the most engaging works of electronic music in recent memory. This collection of new works is even more arresting and vital.
Hailing from Florence, Daniele Ciullini was part of the forward-thinking TRAX collective, whose pan european art/music collaboration network acted as a proto-social network decades in advance of the internet. This compilation collects Ciullini’s self released ‘Domestic Exile’ cassette (1983) as well as selections from a series of other compilations(1982 to 1986).
Captured Tracks present ‘Deeper’, the third full-length studio recording from American post-punk band The Soft Moon.
Two supreme Chicago heavyweights go head to head across 2 slabs of wax… step up Boo Williams & Glen Underground. This double-pack is pure fire & was originally released in 1995 on miniscule Trax offshoot MAAD, fans of that bouncing, stripped back, funked out House music look no further, it’s all right here. This is the first time this record has ever been re-pressed since it’s original release surprisingly with prices on-line often being at the higher end of the scale for used copies.
Is the Truth out there? With “The Truth 2008 – 2013” anthology, Solar One Music presents a refine selection of some of The Exaltics greatest tracks from 2008-2013. Box Set , five years of a highly prolific career. This future classic retrospective gathers together the very best of the Jena located artist on labels such like Transient Force, Bunker, Clone or Last Known Trajectory just to name a few. Only a handful of talents succeeded to emerge from the shadows and raise up such enthusiasm the way The Exaltics did over the last 8 years. Widely regarded as one-to-follow since making his musical debut back in 2007, the co-founder of the Solar One Music label never stop transmitting to Earth warning signals, that would affect the whole human race. Early influenced by Detroit and the European West Coast movements, the German producer, real name Robert Witschakowski, quickly forged his own musical identity, extending the legacy of Drexciya or Dopplereffekt. Always coming on strong with a dense, dystopian and even hostile sound, the present LP turns into a testimony of The Exaltics’s technical skills behind his machines. Featuring eleven cuts (two of them never released on vinyl and one unreleased track) of pure robotic madness tinted with Sci-fi and aggressive funk, with lots of room for experiment to turn dancefloors into panic zones, pushing Acid Techno and Dark Electro genres forward, far beyond trends. Thanks to SOM032, the Truth about Ancient Aliens and their plans to invade Earth is definitively in your hands: a must have for every fan of electronics with soul and nuts. We are not alone!
Moral was the trio of Marco Andreis (Guitars, Bass), Hanne Winterberg (Vocals) and Ingolf Brown (Synthesizers, Rhythm Box, Sequencer) from Aarhus, Denmark formed in 1981. They released their debut mini-album ”Dance of the Dolls” on cassette in 1981 and the album ”Whispering Sons” on cassette in 1982. During the summer of 1983, Moral recorded and produced their debut LP, ‘And Life Is’ at Ingolf Browns home studio. It was the first release on Ingolfs label ARP Gramophone in August 1984. Influenced by early 4AD Records, Joy Division, Brian Eno and Wire, the band crafted their own brand of Nordic melancholic Post Punk. The album develops the bands signature sound of airy, glacial synthesizers with crepuscular guitar and serpentine melodies. The main synthesizers used are the primitive Roland TR-606 Drumatix, the percussion side-kick to the TB-303, plus the BOSS DR-55 Dr. Rhythm drum machine. Hannes hauntingly beautiful vocals walk the line between germanic chill of Nico and Alison Statton of Young Marble Giants. Lyrical themes of cold nights and blossoming relationships paint a detailed picture of youthful life in Scandinavia. This deluxe edition contains three bonus tracks that originally appeared on the ‘Somewhere Outside’ compilation.
