New instant classic by Aphonia, side project of Inhalt from Dark Entires fam., who join the Wrong Era-ship with eleven minutes of chills and goosebumps. Rolling through the depths to the surface, this is the sound of your wildest trips. Not italo, not cosmic, not deep: we’re not putting a label on this one. ? A remix from Kris Baha showing his flair for a downtempo industrial jam. Another by head-honcho Franz Scala adds his famous running Italian Dance brush.
The cobblers are back with a fresh collection of bespoke 80’s edits. This second installment dives foot-first into swirling synth-pop, muscular Italo chug, and dubbed-out rhythms. The perfect soundtrack to Balearic sunsets and hazy late-night discos.
Absolute Unity is the new Dance Music project from Ryan Grieve, a cofounder of Hole In The Sky Records. Ryan has produced as one half of bands Canyons, Fred Cherry and Heart People, among others, with releases on labels DFA Records, Modular Recordings, Universal Music, Warner Music, Hole in the Sky & I’m A Cliche. Returning from the haze of major record label obscurity and confusion, Absolute Unity is a return to roots with a focus on simple, raw sounds aimed for DJs to play to dance floors.
Mazen and Vish (together Dar Disku) have teamed up with label collaborator Moving Still for a Hi-NRG version of ‘Sidi Mansour ‘ originally recorded by Algerian Disco superstar Cheba Yamina. On the flip side Moving Still gives us a bass-heavy edit of Syrian Wedding Performer Sarya Al Sawas – ‘Bas Asma3 Mini’. The last track of the three is the first Dar Disku edit. Sampling Indonesian Group Orkes Kelana Ria originally released in 1961 and featuring Arabic vocals by Munif.
Diamonds In the Night is back with its second volume featuring Lerosa from Ireland, Vyvyan from the UK, Eliott Litrowski from Denmark / France and Iamnotarobot from Spain.
Das Komplex joins up with the King Of Kong imprint to release four soul-infused tracks entitled ‘Reverse Hallucination’
Höga Nord Rekords presents Birds from London. Birds or Katie Wilkinson is relatively new as a producer but has been DJ-ing and playing in bands for the last nine years, marinating herself in interesting underground music. This 7”, Transcendental Phases / Tunnel Vision is her first release on Höga Nord Rekords. Birds is a declaration of love to electronic music and psychedelia.
Following last year’s ‘Monster Skies’ comes another 6 track mini-lp of original works from label head Jura Soundsystem. Once again the EP aims to bring together the melting pot of influences that also inspire the label, Dub, Ambient House, Leftfield Disco and Balearica. The EP was made with the Roland classics, the Juno 106, SH101, D-05, TR 707 & 727 and includes guitar and sax work to balance the electronic sound palette.
The 5th edition of Hamam House takes on further trips to the intergalactic dancefloors with middle eastern tangled dance music.
Voluminous Arts happily announces its third official release, a 12 track album entitled “Disco” by Gavilán Rayna Russom’s elusive alias Black Meteoric Star. This is not a Disco record. The title deliberately troubles the music biz’s incessant tendency to hierarchize genre classification over the experience of listening. If you must categorize these mutant sounds think of them as a proposed alternate score for those long, caffeinated sessions in Abby Sciuto’s forensics lab, the soundtrack to a heavy workout in the Westchester Danger Room or perhaps the musical accompaniment to deep body investigations of your own ancestral memories. What this record really is, and why it’s called “Disco” has to do with the layering of time and life energy present in the spaces where we have traditionally danced to music which are sometimes called Discos. From the pounding urgency of “Muscle Machine” through the unbridled night vision romp that is “Fluid Feline Forms” and the shimmering investigations of “Whispers Between Worlds” to the extended lazer pointer focus of “I’m Unmelting” this record lays out a broad slab of practice-based research into the ghosts we connect with on the dance floor. Whether it be through partying in former industrial buildings, contested spaces of labor built on lands violently appropriated from indigenous people, uncomfortably inhabiting vacuums in queerness left by the AIDS epidemic, lifting lineages through sampling, or the relentless cycle of whitening that accompanies dance music’s march into the market, our experiences in the Disco have been permeated by the spectral and the haunted. Through rhythm and frequency, organized over time, this music blurs the veil between the living and the dead inviting those who move to it to connect with experiences beyond that false binary. What you have here is another fantastic Black Meteoric Star record, as always made without multitracking or overdubbing, recorded directly from single live takes. It is is utterly consistent with all that name has come to mean, but on “Disco” Black Meteoric Star’s vision has been allowed to expand into an almost mythologically epic space. Ancestral time works differently. Settle in and absorb the frequencies. As the closing track suggests, the virtual Disco these sounds evoke is for “Freaks Only”.
The Hipodrome Of Music 