chicago
Obsolete Music Technology – Volatile [EMP015]
Hieroglyphic Being Live @ Boiler Room (London) 06.11.2014
Svengalisghost – Russian Torrent Versions 15 [CCCP015]
Svengalisghost makes his eagerly anticipated return to wax after spending the better part of last year, crushing gigs throughout Europe with his high impact live set. On this slab we get four tracks of industrial strength machine electronics put through the filter of the Chicago native….equal parts EBM and dare we say half time techno. This EP drives and hits hard as only the energy king knows how.
Two Dogs In A House – The Doomsday Initiative Part 2 [NATION017]
The Doomsday Initiative is a musical concept that the end of the world was here and doom was plunging to terrible sadness. Selected artists 2 Dogs In A House (aka Steve Summers and Ron Morelli) produced and created ideas of this planet we live on in an ideal landscape of doomsday.
Mutant Beat Dance – PolyfonikDizko [RHM012]
Traxx and Beau Wanzer team up for another Mutant Beat Dance release. Who know these Chicagoans are out to push music into a different realm every time they work… The Mutants call it Jakbeat, inspired by the early days of house music.
Traxx @ Nation Nite, Concrete (Paris) 03.10.2014
Perseus Traxx – Spacecast #18
Ike Release – Noir [MOSLP003]
Debut solo full length from Chicagos Ike Release. Ike is an accomplished solo producer as well as being one half of acclaimed duo Innerspace Halflife with Hakim Murphy, and has a long and fruitful relationship with MOS Recordings. For the last five years or so, Ike has been releasing a mind-expanding brand of analogue rich music that continues in his native Chicago’s fine traditions without resting on the usual tired tropes. Labels like MOS, Machining Dreams and his own Episodes have released it to date and now this full length, Noir, comes as a fully formed artistic statement that lays out his sound in all its glory.
Hieroglyphic Being – The Four Dimensions Of A Nubian Mystic [TCLR009]
Deep and tripping acid backed with some jazzed out drumworks on the flip. Producer and boss of Mathematics records, Chicago’s Jamal Moss a.k.a Hieroglyphic Being is a one-off musical explorer. Jamal’s music takes cues from the EBM and House that played a huge part in the city’s musical underground in the late eighties and early nineties, notably Ron Hardy and Adonis, but also Industrial, Avant-Jazz and Noise. His releases, much like his music, have straddled House labels and the more leftfield avant garde electronic imprints with ease. However his deeply held Afrofuturist intent and the discipline of his radical designs set him apart from the pack. Always moving forward, his music is an ever-evolving transmission from his mind to our bodies, or as he sees it, a form of meditation that the supple, tuned listener will enjoy immensely.
Dar Embarks – Fleer [STILOVE4MUSIC043]
Hailing from Chicago’s South Side, the duo Dar Embarks lives in a world of underground techno and machines. Their debut album ‘Fleer’, was recorded live on hardwares, no keys were played, just the pressing of buttons and turning of knobs. Gathering its inspiration from records on the shelf, sci fi and comics, Dar Embarks remains steadfast in technotic efforts to interpret the future…our future.
Hieroglyphic Being & The Configurative Or Modular Me Trio – The Seer Of Cosmic Visions [ZIQ349]
Crazy etherial collection of some previously released and some unreleased tracks presented in album form. The album is hugely varied within it’s basic drum machine and synths template; from the psychedelic blowout ‘The Seer Of Cosmic Visions’ and the distorted, ruptured crunch of ‘How Wet Is Ur Box’, to more delicate meditations like ‘Space Is The Place’ or ‘Letters From The Edge’. From the the shimmering rhythmic noise of ‘A Genre Sonique’ to the the woozy tribal funk of ‘134340 Pluto’ or the rough darting strings of the off-kilter ‘Calling Planet Earth’ and finishing on the relaxing gaseous drones of ‘Strange Signs In The Sky’, the album never fails to transport the listener to another state of mind.
Mick Wills – Juno Plus Podcast 96
Traxx @ Dekmantel Festival 02.08.2014
Africans With Mainframes – Nubian Rainbows [RHYTHM012]
Some say history has come to an end… we say the future is about to start… Two brand new nu-jack sessions by Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being and Noleian Reusse.
Antoni Maiovvi – Psychoplasmics EP [COTF004]
Antoni Maiovvi joins the Crimes Of The Future family in a perfect match of Italo horror running out of the disco, leaving behind the gentle thud of dark techno in a dark Roman Alleyway. Junior Fairplay’s inaguaral remix takes us out of the darkness to a happy ending in sunnier climbs on a beach somehere in Portofino.
TrAxx – EkstrAkt
MZKBX @ Café Moka (Paris) 17.05.2014
RA.415 Ron Hardy
Larry Heard – Alien [ML9009]
One of Larry Heard’s most under-rated albums finally remastered and available as full vinyl release for the first time! Known for his classic early house releases Larry Heard’s productions always hinted at deepest outer space, but his 1996 Alien album was his first actual science-fiction record. It’s almost as polished as the most mainstream dance production, but just as sublime as any Detroit producer. Heard’s house roots often show themselves, while the chords and shimmering production make this an album almost on par with Heard’s mid-’80s peak. The project was a recording & sound-development experiment that was mostly constructed around a Korg O1/W workstation keyboard that was left at Larry’s studio to check out by Victor melodious myles Houston along with some of the staples of his studio, including the Roland d550 and Oberheim Matrix 1000. Mr Fingers magic touch can be heard all over the album, and this showcases the incredible musical talents of the man, who’s name by now cant be left out from any hall of fame when you’re talking music innovators from the last century.
