DeepLabs is a Detroit based record label run by Luke Hess. The focus for the label is to release Detroit influenced techno for the dancefloor and to build a strong community of likeminded artists.
deep techno
Cyspe – Amnesia [INSULA001]
Insula, a brand new Amsterdam based label dedicated to new talents that bring an emotional narrative and personal identity to the techno scene. Their first record forms the initium of Cyspe’s solo project, with a sound rooted in architecture, geometry and cybernetics. Cyspe is also known as Robin Koek, one half of the Artefakt duo who recently released music on Field and Delsin Records.
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.
Șerb – Transient Recs 1 [L2M003]
Șerb steps up and delivers four heady, scrunched up house excursions. Moody pads and electrified fx stretch and bang over squelching drums and a booming low end. An eclectic EP spanning thick and thin, crunching club music.
Levon Vincent & Marcel Dettman – NS 10 T Rex Edition [NS010]
New Novel Sound. “Fear” has been an in-demand since it was featured on his Fabric mix back in 2012, and remains one of Vincent’s most striking compositions – a spacey, melancholic mixture of classic Detroit influences, unfussy deep house beats and new wave-era synth and bass touches. The flip boasts a more recent collaboration between Vincent and Marcel Dettmann, which is equally as tasty. “Vengeance” is synthesizer-heavy and intergalactic in design, with EBM style motifs and tumbling, atmospheric melodies riding a similarly no-nonsense groove.
Subversive – Domestique [VRV005]
Subversive delivers a follow-up to last season’s VRV release, ‘Chainbreaker’, this time with two measured explorations of atmosphere and movement. The title track, ‘Domestique’ builds its drama around delayed stabs, crafting a wash delayed environment that keeps a strong pace. ‘Corosync’ emerges from a similar approach but intensifies the drum programming and strips away melodic layers. VRV label bosses, Raíz, rework ‘Corosync’ with emphasis on thicker beat construction and synthesized psychedelia.
Sounds & Sequences – Motion Rotation [SS002]
The second release on Sounds & Sequences, featuring two excellent deep, dark and dubby tracks.
Moodcut – Heart Beat Takeaway [MORK006]
Dust-soaked and fizzing with effervescent residue, these five tracks swerve and dive between subtle synth texturisations and deep-sleeping sullen house. The boundaries between ambient and house often merging in the depths of the warm, throbbing, analogue fuzz.
Benjamin Damage – Obsidian [50WEAPONCD018]
‘Obsidian’ marks the third album from Benjamin Damage (his second solo long-player). “Obsidian is a collection of fragmented memories from all the music I’ve ever liked, distorted and restructured into a full length techno record. A purely personal project and an end of an era with 50WEAPONS.”
Eduardo De La Calle – Nanoscopic Scales [HVN031]
The bold Eduardo de La Calle of Analog Solutions infamy drops his second 12″ for Hivern, following up from his take on U’R’s “Transition” for the 2014 HVN release. Here Eduardo gives us some us his finest examples of the lush Techno soundscapes he’s become known for.
Dona – In My Bed EP [POINTS005]
The fifth release on Points Records with three originals by Dona and an Eduardo de la Calle remix.
Natan H – Lignes EP [FS029]
Finale Sessions presents this release by Natan H hailing from the “City Of Angels”. The track “Lignes” with its melodic pads and its wavering synths make for a late night beauty. Track 2, “O (Phase)” is another late night stomper with moving chords and melodic drum patterns that keep it a smooth sounding piece. The dub techno song “Invariant” (Feat.Jordan) is floor filler for sure with its heavy laden pads and synths and its monstrous sounds.
Kuba Sojka – Multiple Faces [DMK003]
Kuba Sojka returns to the London based DMK label to deliver an impressive album of deep, techno inspired grooves.
Sandhu – Undefined Revolution Vol. 1 [SDH001]
This is the inaugural release from the Berlin based Sandhu. The ‘Undefined Revolution’ vinyl series will solely feature compositions created with hardware, recorded live and unedited. Volume 1 comprises the first four of these very organically produced tracks. Ranging from experimental electronica through to a tougher Techno palette, the EP’s A-side starts with the fluid ‘Girtab’ with its laid-back break and sci-fi edge, before ‘Lesath’ heads into deeper realms with ominous sounding synthwork and an infectious groove. The B-side shows the tougher Techno face of Sandhu. ‘Shaula’ is a perfect DJ tool with heaps of energy for those restless dancefloors, while ‘Sargas’ completes the quartet with its choppy beats and latin-tinged rhythms.
Aroma Pitch – Present From A Small Distant World [APR003]
The DJ Trio and Live-Act (Jesse Scherwitz, Julius Richter and Magnus von Welck ) finished their third EP on Aroma Pitch Recordings. With this one the boys have reached a new level of production and maturity. Three tracks full of twists and turns making this a perfect kickstart for a timeless summer. Beautiful & moody deep techno the oldskool way.
DJ Jus Ed / Mr. G – Goatee EP [UQ061]
For the latest outing on his prolific Underground Quality label, deep house veteran Jus Ed is joined by veteran UK techno maestro Mr G. Each producer delivers two tracks in their trademark styles. Unsurprisingly Mr G’s tracks are tough, stripped-back, atmospheric and heavy, with the hypnotic spookiness of “Freakshow” just edging out the bumpin’ beats, weighty bass and minor key chords of “Billares Londres The Rum”. In contrast, there’s an inherent tunefulness about Jus Ed’s two analogue deep house jams. Choose between the subtle steel drum melodies, sinewy synth-strings and Balearic house grooves of “GoTee Stroke”, and the ultra-deep dub house flex of “Heaven Sent”.
Eduardo de la Calle – The Intellinet Prophecy [BAD006]
Eduardo De La Calle is back with his debut album and it comes through the young Badance label. The Intellinet Prophecy is a techno album with audible influences of jazz and the supremely scientific, where tracks like “Call From Beyond” or “Faith Necessary” go way beyond the dancefloor and land somewhere in outer space, a place on which genres don’t seem to exist and the passage of time is swamped in beats and melodies.
Internet Spy Machine – Semiotics [MYST005]
Jackson Lee & Ben Jenkins return to their roots. Equally influenced by Detroit warehouse parties & metaphysics of Middle-American industrial decay to advance Basic Channel/Deepchord blueprint, morphing dub sound into baroque acid dreamscape.
Tissu – Unmanned Vehicle [MORK004]
Warm, washy chords collide with bubbling, subterranean acid and crunchy drum work on this subtly epic debut from Swiss newcomer, Tissu, with his trippy delay-drenched synths giving everything an astral-aquatic quality.
Scarpa – Wilderness [FBLP003]
It was a remorseless hatred that enslaved a people many millennia ago in the captivity of those who worshiped the sun and the moon and the gods in the stars and of the earth and beneath the earth. In toil and despair the people were flogged and cursed by the searing whip, scorched by the flaming desert sun above and burned by the abrasive sand below their feet. In agony, they cried out for rescue from the malice-bred bondage of the kingdom. “How long?” While ridden with anguish, their captors became plagued with disease and death, and so the enslaved fled. Within a day, they reached the edge of a vast sea from which mountains grew blocking them in on both sides, and as they looked back in terror they witnessed their captor’s army quickly approaching. A watery death spread out before them while a spear-pierced death raced in from behind.
Yet their cries for help were not unheard… billowing clouds rolled in and a tower of fiery blaze appeared as manifestations of the theophanic Glory-Spirit protecting and separating the people from the approaching wrath. With no where to go, the great sea split apart, and before them a narrow path was unveiled through the voided waters for the people to pass through to their deliverance. The army rushed in after them only to be swallowed by the raging sea that had just brought life for those who had been enslaved, but now brought death to the death that had held them captive.
Life for the people of God is a pilgrim journey through an alien wilderness under the shadow of death. So it was in days long ago. So it is in ours.
The Hipodrome Of Music 