The first collaboration between SARS & Abdulla Rashim sees a diverse long player of aggressive industrial, drone and live electronics. A melancholic story in the manner that has come signifiy the sound of northern Europa.
ambient techno
S Olbricht – For Perfect Beings [LT022]
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.
Iori – Cold Radiance [FIELD020]
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.
Peter Van Hoesen – Prismatic Wish An Ambient Mix
Lundin Oil – Between The Shields [NE029]
Vigilant electronics and desolated soundscapes by Lundin Oil aka Abdulla Rashim with the first long player under this moniker.
Dino Sabatini – Omonimo [OUTISOPERA001LP]
As both a producer and the helmsman of the Outis Music label, Dino Sabatini has carved out a distinctive musical style that shows a great reverence for both ancient archetypes and future possibilities for change. With one foot planted in a mysterious past and the other foot planted in a world yet to arrive, Sabatini’s works are carefully realized emotional journeys that intertwine shimmers of optimism with undercurrents of poignancy or nostalgia. His latest full-length offering, ‘Omonimo’ (that’s ‘homonym’ for non-speakers of Italian), brings all of this to fruition on a record that demands (and rewards) deep listening.
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Inhalants – Deep Florida [LIES070]
New Yorkers Matt Morandi (Jahiliyya Fields) and Max Ravitz (Patricia) take the buyout, cash in their 401k’s, and opt for early retirement down to ”Deep Florida” on their debut LP for L.I.E.S. Titles like Humid Widow, Dark Duties, and Chasing the Dream set the tone for what can only be called a tropical storm of synthesizer chaos atop dusted drum programming and hazy vibes.
VA – Dub Masters Series I EP [ARTSTRANSPARENT006]
ARTS Transparent shaped his form in many different ways into electronic music, giving clear directions to any other label out there, emotionally and technically. This time the label will focus on the first Dub Master Series, a collective of the best Dub Techno Artists we have around the globe. Zoltan Solomon / Grad_U / IXM aka Kaelan / Hydergine.
B12 – Transient Life [ASGDE009]
B12, one of the UK’s first wave of pure techno acts, are back again to take you above and beyond with their trademark deep space techno and electro soundscapes. After appearing on the ‘5 Years De:tuned’ album with the track ‘Let Me Free’, B12 return to De:tuned with more transient music for the mind.
The Invariants – TI003 [TI003]
The Invariants are back with a new record in similar fashion. Synths to mess with the mind, hypnotising drums to stimulate the body. The A side features a jam in two parts supplemented by two acid filled cuts on the second side.
Sova Stroj – Silent Earth LP [TTTB008]
Sova Stroj is the nom de plume of Luxembourg-based producer Michel Flammant. With a history in black metal, rock and synth pop bands, he has now ventured out on his own, delving into experimental and electronic music. Sova Stroj’s debut album ‘Silent Earth’ explores feelings of willful desertion through forty minutes of highly concentrated and almost teleologically dark ambient patterns. Musically the album is centered around an abstracted industrial music influence paired with precise and evocative melodic and harmonic explorations.
Tagwell Woods – Mecca [PF011]
It’s been two years since Tagwell Woods first appeared on W.T. Records. His rich and refreshingly unique techno style caught the ears of the faithful. Finally, finally, the Londoner is back on vinyl with six pieces of his original brand of machine music. And the wait is worth it. Tracks like “Christmas” and “Training” pulsate with feeling. Others like “Rabbit Society” and “Chance” build on that emotion. Crisp percussion and heartening strings are weaved as lush moments and textures unfurl. The 12″ is incredibly deep and flooded with sentiment. But don’t be mistaken into thinking Tagwell Woods deals in weight, instead it’s his lightness of touch that sings. “Tied Waves” is fragile and delicate, whispering before blossoming into being. The finale, the beautifully uplifting “Velocity”, has that same deftness. Mecca defies classification. Electronica. Techno. House. Acid. All are lovingly melted together to produce an absorbing and soulful second release, a release which is testament to the talent of this fledgling musician.
Eszaid – €€€ [CLPMR001]
Collapsing Market release their first record. Eszaid (aka Louis Vial, one half of Mura Oka) inaugurates the imprint with four foreboding & gloomy trips that traverse through techno’s darker shades into haunting ambient. Louis Vial merges slow drum patterns with foggy textures and sparse arrangements. This is an incredibly affecting and mature first EP from the young producer who launches the label in the best way possible.
Acronym – Ashes [NE025]
Acronym back on home turf Northern Electronics with five tracks of psychedelic dance floor excursions and ambient pieces.
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.
Marco Shuttle – Sing Like A Bird (Reprise) [EE009]
Marco Shuttle returns to his Eerie label for his first full release since 2014’s debut album, ‘Visione’, with a new two track single that sees Shuttle return to more dancefloor driven territory. ‘Sing Like a Bird (Reprise)’ is a fresh version of the track originally released last year on Peter Van Hoesen’s Time To Express label, to which Shuttle fans will have become familiar with in recent sets. It maintains the original’s hazy reverbed flavour, but in the form of a more groove-oriented and psychedelic edit that sidelines much of the original’s vocal track in favour of a snake enchanter-like synewave melody, for a less lyrical but equally musical new take. The B-side ‘Back Here’ is an older track that Shuttle has been holding back for a while, waiting for the right moment to reveal this atmospheric, melancholic and melodic track, in which intricately delayed layers of piano keys progressively unfold through a rich percussive background made of 808 rims, deep bass kicks, heavy toms and jazzy hats and rides.
Silent Harbour – Hinterland [DSCLP001]
Once again the dutchman from the north Boris Bunnik (who actually resides in Rotterdam now, but that aside) is showcasing his magic fingers, this time on Shipwrec’s deep techno offshoot Deep Sound Channel. ‘Hinterland’ is a topnotch ice-cold but heartwarming submarine electro/techno album with distant hints of IDM, in other words the perfect soundtrack for the long midwinter nights to come.
Recondite – Placid [ATLP006]
Recondite aka Lorenz Brunner is back, this time partaking in some wild experiments with acid, on behalf of California’s Acid Test imprint. Beginning with the ultra-deep and reductionist “Compel” which is reminiscent of early Plastikman, he then launches into the funky R&B tempo of “Pass Up” and the sombre and emotional tones of “Undulate” which gets the first four to the floor beat going. Life & Death label mates Tale Of Us join Brunner on the stunningly soulful “Sequenze” while “Subdue” presents his darkest side on the album. Later on “Ley” gets a peak time level stomp on, in fine acidic style. While Brunner has most definitely found his stride, leading to current mass appeal, he certainly proves he still has underground credentials on this fine effort.
Oliver Ho & Danny Passarella – Multi [PASS002]
Oliver Ho produces music on the axes of techno and noise. Danny Passarella works with synthesisers, but also designs clothes. Together they’ve made Multi, a conceptual EP on the subject of gender (non-)binaries. Four tracks of thoughtful synth-scapes and reverbed techno. 12” release on Passarella’s self-titled label.
Shinichi Atobe – Ship Scope [DDS014]
Hugely sought-after techno classic – the precedent to ‘Butterfly Effect’, originally released on Berlin’s legendary Chain reaction and out-of-print for 15 years, now newly remastered from vinyl by Matt Colton at Alchemy. A massive personal favourite of Demdike Stare’s, Shinichi Atobe’s ‘Ship Scope’ was Chain Reaction’s penultimate release in 2001 and, with the benefit of hindsight, also one of the legendary label’s most sublime offerings.
The Hipodrome Of Music 