Confused Machines presents another 808 day release. 7 Electro cuts using Roland TR-808, Roland SH-09, Korg MS-20, Korg MS-2000, Verbos Electronics modules and a few FX processors.
Mule Driver – Sequences to Activate Dormant Agents [CM24]
cassette
Tout Debord – Burning Love [DR134]
Detriti Records presents another release by Frech artist Tout Debord.
Smackos – Once a Mirror [PERS004]
Legowelt worked as a sound designer for the factory presets of Mirror, which ended up as Muse which is an 8 voice polyphonic bi-timbral synth. The entire album was recorded with an early prototype of of Moog Mirror.
Doppler Effect – Genesis: Studio Recordings 81-85 [MEC094]
Doppler Effect is the brain child of singer and songwriter James Straight. Started in Boston in 1981, the band explores what Straight calls the encyclopedia of electronic music. Since its inception the band has explored and incorporated almost all styles of electronica from Ambient to Industrial, Techno, Synth Pop, EBM, House, Dark Wave, Acid and Disco, with a touch of Punk and Funk around the edges. It all depends on the song as Straight sees his work as mini films he’s Directing, a sort of seeing with your ears. Utilising the whole paint box to achieve the desired effect, his only rule is it must work for the song. “Genesis: Studio Recordings” compiles a selection of songs recorded between 1981 and 1985. Including lot of unreleased songs and early versions ranging from synth-punk and new wave to minimal wave and synth-pop.
Plague Pits – Bukolik [TNP06]
Plague Pits is a Swiss synth collective from Bern Inspired by the D.I.Y. electronic tape underground of yore, they play disco dirges for the Anthropocene – cold wave for a heating planet. ‘Bukolik’ is their new cassette release on Transnecropolitan.
MACON – Early Jams [NB06T]
Voluntary simplicity. A long-standing philosophical tradition that advocates a form of limitation of needs to achieve happiness. Does this apply to music? I think this music is distinguished by its simplicity and freedom. Here, the sound of machines is presented in its simplest form. For “MACON”, as the name not implies, deconstruction means trying to approach music in an ever-renewed way. This cassette brings together MACON’s first attempts at rhythmic electronic music.
Harlem Electronics – Cagey [MRG017]
Marguerite Records welcomes Northern Europe’s machine funk masters, Harlem Electronics, as the 17th label output. ‘Cagey’ is a punchy cocktail of sly bass hooks, raw machine grooves, and found sounds, all tied together by vocals that shape-shift from staccato statements to haunted murmurs and back again. Featuring six tracks including a remix by Colombian producer Filmmaker.
Gavelman – Fata Morgana [DC025]
Glasgow’s Gavelman, head honcho at Lifeforms, hits Dead Channel with this raw blasted, blown-out acid electro future classic. Hot and hammered, this lo-fi seven track monster pulls no punches. Rumbling 808 kicks, dense decimating rhythms, and stretched out 303 insanity fuse for a head-spinning masterwork in mutant electronics.
Daniele Ciullini – The Double Face of the Zero [TIF008]
‘The Double Face of the Zero’ revolves around the progressive crumbling of the human condition, trapped in a Babel of toxic languages, hypnotised by seductive as much as false myths. The traversed architectures are empty or abandoned; inside, only faint echoes of mechanical rhythms reminiscent/incubus of models destined for passive consumption and the reproduction of consensus. Babbling, bare syllables are all that remains of a one-way communication. The new alphabets of communication systems do not need expressive space but consensus time. This journey is closed, however, by a text that is, in its own way, full of hope and that, like a compass, indicates a possible escape route from this mortal spiral of spectacular-media-political consensus. The sound sources from which the work originates are multiple. All electronically processed so as not to show their origin, in order to place themselves in an “other” space. All this not out of sonic sadism but out of a desire to elaborate a sound palette that is as personal as possible. A palette of sounds that tries to place itself outside the fences and categories that delimit even the area of research music, which instead, by definition, should be as model-free as possible.
VA – Yarrow Ballet V.A. 01
Introducing Yarrow Ballet’s V.A. (Volume 01) featuring 10 beautiful tracks. The essence of this compilation its best describes as a listening experience that aligns perfectly with Yarrow Ballet’s musical aesthetic. It captures a balance of darkness and softness, all underscored by a sense of melancholic beauty. The V.A. also embodies a sense of community, similar to that of a close-knit family.
Disappearer – Counterfeit [MMS004]
META MOTO presents the fourth solo artist tape, “Counterfeit” by Disappearer, recorded and produced by Johan Skugge, half of Harlem Electronics. The album showcases a fluidity between electronic sounds and genres, characterised by a deliberate elusiveness. Oscillating between eerie atmospheres and funky beats, the artist constructs an enigmatic sonic landscape, evoking a sense of hiding in the shadows while emitting smoke screens. With its electrifying compositions, this album promises to captivate audiences with its bold electronic aesthetic.
System Disorder – Random Report [SOT012]
Sons Of Traders Records presents DJ Nephil’s side project “System Disorder” with this latest collection entitled “Random Report”. He is continuing the experimentation and sound research in the studio and in his artistic compositional form connected both to the machines and to his own vision. He is presenting here eight acid-electro variations on a more minimal theme around a sort of contemporary dark novel.
Fashion Cult – Desolation Sounds II [DR131]
Fashion Cult is a darkwave project formed by T.G.T.B. and Satellitstat members. This is their second cassette release on Detriti Records.
Timothy J. Fairplay – Convictions That Stick [PNKMN54]
Timothy J. Fairplay finally lands on Pinkman, furthering his sonic excursions into raw, jacking, yet evocative house music. ‘Convictions’ rattles through drum-machine workouts topped with soaring synthlines, inviting you to spiral in the club’s darkest corners. Between the shuffled claps, ominous melodics and delay-laden syncopation, ‘Convictions’ playfully evokes both the mechanical exploration of urban space, and the claustrophobic intimacies encountered within it. There’s even a nod towards 1980s’ cult cinema hit ‘The Bronx Warriors’ at the end. Naturally, these six tracks find a perfect home on Pinkman.
Body Habitat – Cala Lilly [LIES204]
New release from the mysterious Body Habitat project, allegedly associated with the equally elusive German Army project, this is a 15 track tape full of broken industrial rhythms and seething sonic soundscapes, unrelenting California desert music.
YE GODS – No Albion [LIES203]
YE GODS returns to L.I.E.S. with a new fill length, “No Albion”. Seven tracks of haunting ritualistic electronics, coming from the darkest realm of your psyche. Chilling ambience, voices from your nitemares, wishing to escape this world.
Ofelia Ortodoxa – Basics For Sadness [DYSTATIK]
Ofelia Ortodoxa is one of the most interest and expressive producers of the Colombian electronic music scene. Ofelia Ortodoxa return’s to Athenian label Dystatik with “Basics For Sadness”, a cassette release inluding rescued tracks and ideas from old cassette recordings and new collaborations with Valanais (track 1&3) and Ferdinand Carclash (track 4). “Basics For Sadness” is a uses a powerful Minimal Synth and Dark Wave aesthetic with a certain nostalgic feel.
Tradecraft – The Body Needs Purpose [BHT006]
Absolutely killer darkside mutations from Tradecraft, aka Carrier aka Shifted, a stunning hour-long session of dank, highly atmospheric technoid alchemy that plays from the Pan Sonic/Vainio/T++/Actress songbook. Key technoid shapeshifter Guy Brewer chases a trio of aces under his Carrier alias with the murky arrival of his Tradecraft project, forging heaving downtempo slugs and vapours from a signature palette of iridescent electronics deployed somewhere along the line between Actress, Burial and Mika Vainio, on a cybergoth bent.
Dimanche Midi – CONDé [NB04t]
Chronicles of the wasteland, an ode to those who remain in the shadows, a nod to the wild beauty of 40 rue Marceline. Looser solo project, Dimanche Midi goes quickly, it can be listened to in one go, fully on your bike. Drum machine, electric bass, synth, guitar, cassette loops, samples, radio archives and dirty stories from CONDé!
Taru – Ipnagogik [DM09]
Confused Machines unleashes it’s first release for 2024 and it’s a mesmerizing journey led by Ruggero Lambo aka Taru, utilizing minimal synths, squeezing beats into tiny fractures and exploring syncopations to a certain visionary degree where the tension between self-consciousness and unconsciousness arouse, a vague memory of a near future becomes present.
The Hipodrome Of Music 