More mystery on the Russian label Gost Zvuk, with a 13 tracks album from Flaty.
ambient
Breaklab – Reet [ZCKR013]
Noisy & drone-ish debut 12inch by Bremen based artist Breaklab. Electronic organ dkb-44 sound studies.
The Smoke Clears – S/T [ACTSCLPX1]
The Smoke Clears is the abstract ambient project of producer John Daly. He debuted this alias with an eponymous LP in 2013 on Further Records and this is a part 2. Following up his 2013 LP of the same name, this record builds upon it’s predecessor’s ambient abstractions while adding another layer of nuanced melodic contemplation. Kicking off with “Fathoms” a deceptively calm track but with a paced sense of urgency which is evident throughout the LP, belying it’s calm undertones. Continuing at this pace for the rest of the first side the LP takes a side turn with the lush “Slipstream” melting into the only vocal track of the LP – the dubbed out bliss of “Oh My Days” featuring Cian Finn. Showcasing a side that might not be so familiar, this is lush downtempo machine music equally as at home cranked up one louder soundsystem style, or for late night home listening.
Monadh – Muara [FUR103]
Everyone’s looking for inner peace of some kind even warmongers. As most intelligent people know, music is one of the most effective ways to achieve that blessed, blissed state. The debut album by Seattle producer Monadh (Jake Muir) offers yet more crucial aid in the war on stress. Muara is an ambient album in the purest, chillest meaning of the term. Its seven tracks are awash in aquatic signifiers and textures; each one is a rejuvenating dip in healing, icy waters. (Muara is Javanese for “estuary.”) Which isn’t to say that Muara should be filed in New Age sections of record shops (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Rather, what the album most resembles is the ambient output of artists like Biosphere. Loscil, and The Sight Below—musicians who uncannily make you warm to cold tones. “The way I make music is really stream of consciousness,” Muir says. “My friend calls it ‘slow improv.’ I happened to be watching a lot of older Japanese cinema, especially samurai stuff, from the ’50s to the ’70s while making the album.” Natural habitats also played a significant role, Muir notes. “My favorite music is informed by mood and place.” This deep into the 21st century, it’s not easy to create ambient music that sounds vital and untainted by hackneyed tropes. Monadh succeeds in this difficult task, through a combination of his field recordings from the Pacific Northwest and meticulously chosen samples mostly lifted and pitchshifted from library records of a pastoral and romantic bent. He also cites Andrew Pekler’s Sentimental Favourites and Biosphere’s Shenzhou as inspirations.
Ryo Murakami – Esto [BDNLP002]
Eleven, deft, darkly-lit, sometimes despairing soundscapes by the Osaka-based producer, for his third album. ‘The thoughts of a rebellious spirit are always accompanied by music,’ he says. Esto, existence.
Not Wawing – Redacted [ELP023]
Forever a label willing to revisit previous tape-only wares if the demand is there, Sam Willis and Ale Natalizia’s Ecstatic turn their gaze to one of the latter’s earliest Not Waving documents. Originally issued on highly limited, gold cassette way back in 2012, Redacted was produced during Walls downtime by Natalizia and expanded on the “classified” themes of his Remote Viewing-inspired debut LP Umwelt. Fans of the most recent Diagonal-released Not Waving LP, Animals, should be thrilled to see how far Natalizia’s project has developed in just four years with the prevailing mood on Redacted a sort of murky and brutish EBM that is wholly satisfying.
Ian Martin – Clairvoyant [27DIAM]
Known for his diverse releases on labels such as Bunker, Panzerkreuz, Further or Shimmering Moods Ian Martin has developed his very unique own brand of electronic music. To categorize his music is difficult which adds an immense appeal to his approch on his releases. Clairvoyant is no exception to this. It is an uplifting and beautiful album based around three of Ian’s favourite synthesizers: Waldorf Microwave I, Ensoniq ESQ-1 and Korg M1. Ian describes this album as an emotional collection of tracks with a lot of fantasy.
Zandvoort & Uilenbal – Geruis Uit Somberdorp [NW010]
Geruis Uit Somberdorp’ (Rustlings from Somberville) is a concert for Harmonium, Mixtur Trautonium & Synthesizer, originally commissioned for the dutch classical Concertzender broadcast corporation in early 2016. Zandvoort & Uilenbal are Danny Wolfers and Jimi Hellinga.
Crotaphytus – Acanthosaura [FUR104]
Robert Witschakowski takes a break from rewiring the rules of electro with his prolific The Exaltics project to deliver the eerie soundtrack album, ‘Acanthosaura’. Working with Nico Jagiella – with whom he co-runs the Solar One label – the pair have created the soundtrack for a world of flickering shadows, dark ambient textures and ominous bass tones. It’s the first Crotaphytus release in six years and according to Witschakowski, a project stemming from his love of reptiles and movie soundtracks. Like previous Crotaphytus releases on Solar One, ‘Acanthosaura’ is a deeply atmospheric affair. With each track title a reference to different types of lizards, from the death-paced drums of Cyclura Cornuta” to the slow-motion ebm-disco groove of Xenosaurus Platyceps” and the murderous subs of Caiman Latirostris”. In between, the dark ambient passages of Conolophus Subcristatus” and Amblyrhynchus Cristatus” as well as nods to The Exaltics’ spaced out electro in Iguana Delicatissima”. However, Robert insists that the album remains true to the project’s ethos. Crotaphytus is always dark and haunting. The project has no rules and that gives us the total freedom to make everything with it. I make also different styles with The Exaltics, but I have a concrete vision every time. With Crotaphytus, we let it flow and see were we land at the end. For this album, we tried to create an atmosphere like you are in a deep jungle, chased by giant lizards. Ambient has really the power to transport feelings. I guess this is subliminal in us from watching films.”
VC-118A – Shift Register [TABR036]
Over the last few years, Dutch electronic misfit VC-118A has delivered a number of killer EPs and 12″ singles, each packed with sharp-edged electro, spacey techno, and industrial-strength analogue house. Shift Regsiter is his second full-length excursion and offers an expansive and hugely atmospheric journey through his trademark sound. Naturally, there’s much to admire across the 14 tracks, from the woozy, spaced-out electro-dub of “Input Mode” and the sparkling IDM of “Serial Data Transmission”, to the ultra-deep throb of “Radiation Curve”, and the hard-wired dancefloor bounce of the Drexciya-like “Apex”.
Human Rays – A Tension [FUR105]
Human Rays – Stockholm, Sweden producer Robin Smeds Mattila—says that the music on A Tension was made during nocturnal sessions in a studio full of mostly cheap analog and digital gear, all in one take. “I kind of let the mood guide me and just go with it,” he says. The result is a gripping fourtrack´suite of emotionally charged minimal ambient that was created quickly but sounds like it was rigorously sweated over for many weeks. After a handful of releases that explored noisy, quasiindustrial techno, Mattila here deviates into a more abstract, melancholy mode with A Tension. His creative process involves experimenting “to see how far I can push a sound with a pretty lofi setup. Improvisation and limitations are part of the thing that makes it interesting.” This approach yields riveting dividends right from the start on A Tension. On “Condensity,” the sparse pinging and distant, muted beats commingle with what sounds like rough wind or waves, hinting at the Arctic vibes that Biosphere conjured on Substrata. It’s at once chill and chilling, tranquil and unsettling. “Between The Hours” places spindly, woody beats beneath a dramatic sweep of synthetic strings, ebbing and flowing like Fripp & Eno’s monumental “An Index Of Metals.” “Neverendless” might be even more redolent of the North Pole than “Condensity,” its severely minimal isolationist ambience suggesting Mick Harris’ nonemorecold Lull or Thomas Köner’s Permafrost. On “Manual Litany I,” Mattila takes what sounds like a sentimental synth melody and smears it into a mantra of compelling drudgery. He notes that the track draws inspiration from William Basinski, who’s famous for his series of profoundly poignant Disintegration Loops albums.
Space Dimension Controller – Orange Melamine [ZEN231]
Floating Points – Kuiper [FP002]
Sam Shepherd drops a surprise 12” still riding the wave of his impeccable, all-conquering 2015 LP, Elaenia. ‘Kuiper’ that was written after the producer started touring with his live band (Leo Taylor, Alex Reeve and Susumu Mukai), and is “completely different” each time it’s played. Here we have a new version, a riotous, stargazing 18-minute version recorded by the band at 8am. Flipside the B, ‘For Marmish Part II’, meanwhile, is an early demo version of the same track on Elaenia that includes Shepherd flexing his vocals.
Repeated Viewing – Street Force (Soundtrack) [GDLP005]
Repeated Viewing’s soundtrack to the “not totally sure if it’s real or not” film of the same name slinks out of your speakers as if Badalamenti and Goblin had made sweet regretful love one night and created a baby so dark and brooding, only the ‘Trv Synth Fr33ks’ would take it in and raise it like wolves. Following the story of one man’s revenge across 1982 New York, this is Death Wish if we lived in some kind of alternative universe where Lucio Fulci had directed it instead of Michael Winner. From Ballads to Disco to Minimal Synth, “Street Force” is a masterpiece of faux soundtrack bliss and definitely not to be missed.
Legowelt – Dekmantel Podcast 078
Vakula – Cyclicality Between Procyon And Gomeisa [DKMNTL040]
Vakula has been a Dekmantel label member ever since the very early days. The Ukraine based producer now drops his album Cyclicality Between Procyon And Gomeisa on the label. ‘This album is about cycles, repetition and interaction’, says Vakula, whose Cyclicality between Procyon and Gomeisa is the third of a series of albums and reflects a dashing experimental record that evokes the endless and captivating potential of electronic music. It creates a mesmerizing journey through various music genres, exhibiting a singular sonic experience, whilst he works through a process of improvisation and refinement. Once again the mastermind proves to be capable of creating complex, yet diverse musical pieces beyond genres and trends. The result: an audio adaptation of his fascinating mind. ‘There are two parallel processes that come together in my work: me writing music and working on the sound I want to achieve, and the energy from outside that flows and transforms into thoughts, correlations, and actions.’ The track titles relate to the source of Vakula’s inspiration and connect the dots between his obsession for the vastness of our universe and electronic music. ”To wonder about the universe and to dig into mythology and scientific research discovering at least some of its secrets is what keeps me endlessly motivated as a producer.”
Fred P – Sound Destination [SPMBLP002]
Sound Destination is a project that crosses genre to find its own space. Soundscapes, downtempo, ambient, and house music all find a place in this aesthetically complete project. There’s a simmering, hovering quality about the whole album, as a pastoral ease settles over the listener. The record flows like a vague narrative, a non-specific sort-of journey album, a meditative jazz-house trip. Fred Peterkin shows yet another perspective of his expression. bursting out of the style-box, to draw you in to his own dimension.
Leonardo Martelli – Previsto [ATN029]
Electro kicks, raw textures, ominous choirs: L’ immaginario, Previsto’s opening track, ties a bound between Martelli’s two releases on Antinote, giving us one last glimpse at the uninhabited post-apocalyptic landscapes drawn in Menti Singole. However, this time Leonardo Martelli explores a more urban universe, as the use of rap samples on Negli abissi and Lo Schema suggests. Martelli exploits their aggressiveness in a way that somehow reminds us of minimalist rap tapes from Memphis. The third track’s title makes it even clearer: called Leggende Metropolitane, the song is a trip into the darkest blind alleys of the city, an invitation to wander among human wastes, driven by its light kick. La Luna, is the most contemplative moment of the album, offering us a meditative break before the nightmarish Il registro, Martelli’s brutal come-back to raw electro with a tune which depicts us a hellish engine room for expiating souls. Finally, the record concludes with Previsto, a haunted title track, filled with wailings that give us to contemplate a cruel vision of the urban misery we’re stuck in.
45 ACP – Graveyard Shift [LIES083]
From scratchy ambience to dramatic slow tempo bpm cuts to melodic house tracks, 45 ACP shines on this ep showing his versatility and reinforcing his reputation for strong song writing and composition. Once again diverse enough for club or home listening, warm up or peak time…let the djs make the choice.
Modaji – Belle Epoque [UTA002]
Dominic’s initial Modaji releases garnered acclaim from luminaries such as Francois Kevorkian, Derrick May and Gilles Peterson and after 10 years away from releasing to concentrate on composing music for film and television, Jacobson returns to the studio to delve further into his deep house and ambient soundscapes. The first of two EP’s, Belle Epoque touches on a more cinematic approach to production and showcases a warmer, more expanded sound.
The Hipodrome Of Music 