diagonal records

Powell – New Beta Vol 2 [DIAG041]

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Powell loosens up and reaches out on the 2nd New Beta playground – a place to explore his more reflexive, emotive urges – with seven curious permutations that swerve from Æ-style abstraction to pointillist electro-acid and a brace of mutant diskotheek breakers. As with the first volume, he’s clearly still gassed off his new hardware, resulting in a nerve-jumping fizz and crack that sounds like he’s jamming with fingers directly in the jack ports, channelling his thoughts and feels practically unimpeded.

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Powell – New Beta Vol 2 [DIAG041]

NHK yx Koyxen – Doom Steppy Reverb [DIAG034]

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Japanese experimenter Kouhei Matsunaga has been quietly building an exceptional discography as NHK yx Koyxen and the numerous variances. With prior NHK yx Koyxen output on PAN, Skam and Raster Noton, Matsunaga’s growing alliance with Powell’s Diagonal label makes perfect sense. A fresh NHK yx Koyxen LP that expands on his fuzzy, texture-laden, leftfield techno blueprint. So, while there’s plenty of industrial-influenced darkness, claustrophobic tape hiss, and redlined rhythms, the Japanese artist also includes quietly beautiful textures and hazy, looped melodies. This is most evident on the foreboding, late night swing of “Y”, where the application of dub delays helps emphasize the skewed, doom-laden mood.

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NHK yx Koyxen – Doom Steppy Reverb [DIAG034]

Not Waving – Animals [DIAG025]

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In interviews, Alessio Natalazia has freely stated his next album would be “very different” and “very intense”. That album, his first for Powell’s Diagonal stable, has finally arrived, and it’s as ballsy, robust and full-throttle as he promised. While it contains nods to the woozy, shoegaze and ambient influenced soundscapes that have been a feature of his previous full-length excursions, these are well hidden behind clandestine fusions of techno and industrial, surging EBM-influenced workouts, post punk-goes-post rock explorations and atmospheric analogue electronics. For those well versed in his back catalogue, Animals makes for arresting listening.

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Not Waving – Animals [DIAG025]

Not Waving – Get Serious [DIAG026]

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Not Waving aka Alessio Natalizia lands his Diagonal debut in rowdy fashion with this one track 12″ Get Serious, ahead of a full album next year. There’s been a sense of continual shift in sound across all of Natalizia’s work as Not Waving, and he seems increasingly seduced by the idea of making people lose their shit on the dancefloor with this pummelling cut.

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Not Waving – Get Serious [DIAG026]

Prostitutes – Ecstasy, Crashing Beats and Fantasy [DIAG015]

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There’s a tongue in cheek sensibility and an air of confrontation to much that James Donadio does as Prostitutes which made him more than suited to Diagonal label when the Cleveland artist debuted on the label last year. The curdling acid of “Dollars To DMs” and the faltering bleep electro of “Side Effects Of Living” are particularly potent Prostitutes productions.

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Prostitutes – Ecstasy, Crashing Beats and Fantasy [DIAG015]