The award winning documentary, Detropia, is a cinematic tapestry that chronicles the lives of several Detroiters trying to survive and make sense of what is happening to their city. Detroit producer Dial.81 has composed an exquisite soundtrack to the film. It has been singled out by many as moody, special and epic. Vinyl LP comes in full color jacket and download card for entire album plus an additional three bonus tracks.
Ambient and Dub Techno dramas from Hamburg’s Edoardo Zerbinati. ‘Forest Echo’ is his debut album and scopes deep, rolling, atmospheric Techno scenery summoning the mystical aura of mid-late ’90s electronica. This 12” sampler of the full length, 10-track CD album, includes also a remix by Adbullah Rashim.
Lunar Disko Records presents its first LP from Dutch artist VC-118A. ‘International Airlines’ is based on a retro-futuristic concept of aircrafts, drawing inspiration from this idea throughout to create an ethereal sculpture of sounds. VC-118A aka Samuel van Dijk guides the listener through a network of light and emotions via seven intense and atmospheric electro/techno tracks that will leave you floating deep within inner space. Constructed in the north of Holland, ‘International Airlines’ explores the artists concept of aircrafts through emotive soundscapes, brooding over an array of analytic drum programming. Each track levitates the listener to another atmosphere – never attached to geographical locations or time. Gravitating from beginning to end, ‘International Airlines’ displays the artists focus on his subject – an air flight through different colours of sound.
Dutchman Boris Bunnik already crafts deeper house and techno than most. Forever keen to experiment and push the boundaries, though, the man best known as Conforce has recently started a new moniker, Silent Harbour. To explain the roots of the project it’s best to go right inside the mind of Bunnik, where he himself has been lost recently, exploring notions of isolation, deep-sea submersion, aquatic environments and all the abstract ambiance such places entail. Silent Harbour is about exploring the deep unknown, about slowing tempos without losing focus on details, about sound tracking the everyday movie that plays out at the bottom of the deepest darkest oceans of which we know so little. Listening the ten tracks that make up the debut album on Echocord and the concept shines through immediately: right from the opening sound you’re lowered below the sea’s surface as all sorts of little sonic plankton float by. Sunrays occasionally beam down from above; sometimes you’re in warm water, other times it’s colder, but always is there a gentle lull back and forth like the most soothing deep-sea swell. Somehow Bunik even manages to soundtrack what seem like underwater wrecks… rusting metal, tinkling glass and swarms of predatory fish looking for a feed. There are even sections which speak of danger and peril, as if a storm is brewing miles above or as if a shark is on his way… on the other hand, though, there are also passages alive with a Spring-like optimism, where coral grows, aquatic plants flower and new ocean life is born. So evocative is this album you’ll hardly notice that it has very few beats, instead you’re mind is busy painting the pictures to go with the sounds.
The concept of Coughy was to be an exact opposite of clinging to one particular sound or a tedious rehearsal of prior established songs. Improvisation, spontaneity, obscure cultural influences and a complete and reciprocal trust were to be the principles of this project, and a strong live visual input provided by the visual artist Color Nurse (Irina Stanciulescu). The result, often unpredictable even to the protagonists, associates freely drones and rhythms, noise and harmony, digital and analog, atmospheric and psychedelic, pop and experiment.
Electronique.it Records with “The Expression Of Emotions In Man And Animals Ep”, the second part of a trilogy on vinyl dedicated to Charles Darwin studies. In this chapter it is presented the relation between listening to various genres of electronic music and the emotional expressions arising from that. This release includes three traks by Plant 43, Valmass and Yard.
First new album from the Echospace duo since the critically acclaimed ‘Liumin’ double album on Manchester’s beloved Modern Love imprint. The sonic structure of this album was the basis for what later became ”Liumin” released on Modern Love but this exploration is something all together different, left untreated and unprocessed from its original 1/2” tape to preserve the natural organic state of the recording. The LP is a soundtrack to Silent World, an independent film produced by Rod Modell that will come out on DVD sometime after the album.
Electric Voice Records presents a collection of 18 pop-rock post-punk tracks. With contribution by Innergaze, The KVB, Soft Metals, HTRK, Jeff & Jane Hudson, Horrid Red and others.
“Hidden songs” stands as a collection of previously unreleased electronic ambient/drone tracks, composed and recorded between 2011 and 2012. After a long period of fragmented construction and deconstruction, they have finally found their unifying frame and achieved physical form through this EP.
Italy’s webzine Electronique.it has decided to enjoy the joys and sorrows of being a record label and prepares its first release featuring three artists. “Soils” by Commodity Place is an ordinary ambient piece and “Is This For Real?” by passEnger keeps tranquil mood while adding some casual beats. Last track, Cosmic Metal Mother – “The Unreleased Techno Mixes Series (comunicazione uno)”, which is destined to move the feet and flirts with Detroit and Belgium anno 1992.
Right then, our Head Technician has sworn that he will have the next instalment of Black Mills Tapes ready for us by the end of January. Volume 3: All Pathways Open comprises a further twelve tracks lovingly transferred from those now fabled 1/4″ and cassette tapes. The Advisory Circle kindly lent a hand and retransferred ‘Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen’ for which we are very grateful. Our Head Technician tells us this particular segment had been giving him a fair bit of trouble, so the help was appreciated.
Dominick Fernow might be best known for his industrial incantations under the Prurient moniker, but in recent months his attention has shifted towards a different outlet. Fernow’s interest in electronic music (from the clamorous grind of Muslimgauze to the recently defunct Sandwell District imprint) has been well documented, and it comes to a frothy head with his Vatican Shadow project. Revolving around themes gleaned from Iraq war propaganda and yellowing stacks of newspaper clippings, the tracks on ‘Kneel Before Religious Icons’ are a perfect representation of Fernow’s modus operandi. Behind a wall of tape hiss, drum machine rhythms beat out memories of early Ministry and AFX while sickly FM synthesizer pads crawl and heave into the abyss. Like much of Fernow’s output prior to this, the emphasis is on society’s darker crevices, but Vatican Shadow is steeped in an alarming mystery and sulfuric smoke that is sure to surprise recent converts.
South London producer Darren Cunningham’s new album, R.I.P, underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Drexciya, T++, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Burial and Basic Channel. Absolutely essential release by one of the most exciting producers of the 21st century.
Pattern Of Thought speaks a believers language. It was created and processed with care. We experience time and our conscious emotions in a most individual space of mind. Our thoughts are formed by what we feel. Our own personal diary, the mind and heart guides us through. All tracks and sounds where recorded in Belgium with the use of hardware instruments and several recording techniques, from field recordings to reel to reel tape. The sounds of the album are kept authentically as possible, away from what was happening in the music world around me, it is a deepest personal reflection.
Blackest Ever Black presents a much needed vinyl pressing of two tracks from Vatican Shadow’s debut cassette release, backed with Regis remix. For anyone familiar with the original 2010 tape or mp3 release, we should say this record sounds radically different, thanks in no small part to a pedigree mastering to vinyl by Matt Colton at London’s Air facilities. The haunting synth washes, grinding bass distortion and chopper blades of ‘Cairo Sword Unsheathed’, and the subharmonic bass of ‘Gunmen With Silencer’ are illuminated with a cold hard light, while their physical shape feels viscerally intimated. Regis transforms ‘Church Of All Images’ from Vatican Shadow’s ‘Kneel Before Religious Icons’ LP, adding another vividly compelling episode to his important cache.
Limited edition label compilation from Echospace, Detroit featuring unreleased material from cv313, Deepchord, Echospace, Intrusion & Variant. 4 x 12” 160 gram mixed colored vinyl with full color gatefold jacket with poly lined inserts.
Two years after Monolake’s ‘Silence’ release, Robert Henke is back with a new Monolake album entitled ‘Ghosts’. Dark and colorful, with haunting and deep excursions into magic worlds of sound and grooves, held together by a fragmentary story as part of the artwork that indicates a continuation of themes present on ‘Silence’: Precisely crafted earthshaking beats, rough dirty noises, wide lush soundscapes and little sonic creatures inhabiting a fascinating planet in which a lot of things go badly wrong and nothing is taken for granted. Music that augments reality when listening to whilst commuting, music to get lost in when experienced loud in a club. There is nothing minimal in that music, it is bass heavy and full of detail. The 2x vinyl version (gatefold sleeve) includes 11 tracks plus a bonus CD with all tracks in digital format.
Scandinavia’s ATV serving 4 slow paced, atmospheric electronic cuts that are perfect for headphone listening, yet also have the right energy for playing them out loud.
Shed’s 50Weapons debut. He’s created something completely unique; rather than boom, the rhythm of “The Praetorian” pulsates, taking a metronomic, sand-dry snare and combining it with an undulating pad melody with a distinctly dreamy quality. “RQ-170” meanwhile ticks along with the head-nodding rhythm of dubstep, utilising bass frequencies almost below the range of hearing, while a snarling rasp burrows through the track’s centre.
