New year, new start and a long overdue introduction of some female sensibilities into the Slow Motion stable. System Olympia hails from Calabria and was formerly part of London based Royalty. You know the drill by now, tear jerking synths, chest crushing bass and that indefinable slow-motion disco swagger that we have made all our own.
Black Bones’ debut release is really something. From the Daphni-esque full throttle Afro A Side, to a duo of lost classics on the flip, this one’s a keeper…
Jamie Paton, one half of the duo Cage and Aviary has in interviews expressed his thoughts about if ‘Slouchy techno’ can be viewed as an own genre. The answer lies in this 7” – ‘Telefuture / Blind Summit’ – released on Hoga Nord Rekords, on which the label above is highly appropriate to sum up the sound. The tracks contain elements from your techno favorites dating three decades back, but the tempo and the production creates a slouchy (in the words most positive sense) feeling clearly influenced by the slow motion house of Cage and Aviary.
The history of dance music is littered with one-hit wonders. The mysterious Sahara-Ja, whose one and only 12″ appeared on Australian label Central Station back in 1989, is a perfect example. Since slipping out in limited quantities 18 years ago, the Egyptian Lover-does-’80s soul cut “I’m An Arabian Knight” has become something of an in-demand record amongst collectors. This timely reissue contains all four versions included on the original ’89 release, including a tasty instrumental and the must-heavy Funky Arabian Mix. This sublime version puts more emphasis on the producer’s killer electro rhythm, dreamy chords, and cascading, Persian style synthesizer melodies.
Early 20th century. Barbarism on an industrial scale. After the final shots had rung out Europe was left a husk, a shell to be rebuilt. And she did rebuild. Slowly, but surely, normality returned. Different zones. Different ideologies. One Europe. Yet not everyone was happy. Within this struggling continent there were those who saw the hand of authoritarianism at the wheel, past criminals ruling and lands being led back to dictatorship. The solution: the sub machine gun. From Reason to Ritual is Rude 66´s most ambitious album to date. Amsterdam´s premier electronic musician maps the rise and fall of terrorism over two slabs of wax. Gruesome naivety, one that led to countless deaths, is given an electro beat on the first record, “Reason.” Warbling wave vocals from Ruud’s wife Shaunna tell a bitter tale of paranoia and looming violence. That violence is truly realised on the second record “Ritual.” Beats rain like shards of broken glass, constricted acid and echo as the enemy closes in for the final hollow defeat. An album that takes you from manifesto to death march.
Spring is in the air and Matteo Pepe, aka Uabos, is taking away that winter chill with four tracks of house warmth and machine funk. Acid bars float on crisp claps for the uplifting “Mystic Force”. The Italian keeps the floor stoked with the sample strewn grooves of “Copacabana” before the synths take over with the lush chords of “City Woods”.“Karmic Souls” closes, meandering notes bend and shimmer on clean percussion for an exotic climax to an EP of ambitious analogue delights.
Time to welcome an international champion of all things cosmic to Wrong Era, Slow Motion’s international facing sister label. With releases on Clone and Viexlexx to name but two, Mr Pauli is one of the disco underground’s favourite tastemakers and he doesn’t disappoint with four slamming tracks of sublime synthesized funk.
Edits from a hole in the ground, a hole with unreasonable echoes, insane delays… A side extends a french library musician called yannick’s crowning disco masterpiece, whilst the B suspends and rewiggles the mysterious vera’s bridge..
It is a rare occurrence, especially when you consider that we are writing this in the year 2017, that an unreleased soul/disco album from the 1970s surfaces after 40 years. The Tramp crew first heard about the album while discussing the re-release of Teakwood’s sole 45RPM single release “Can You Dig It” with former band leader and founding member of the group, Fred Forsh. It was in 1972 when two new Berry College freshmen met and realized that they were both music majors which led to an impromptu jam session in the lower level of the student center. This was the beginning of what would soon become Teakwood. “Those two original members, Ralph Moore on saxophone and me on piano, along with five others went into the studio in 1976 and recorded two songs for our first and only single”, remembers Fred Forsh. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Moore and Forsh parted ways but Teakwood continued with four remaining members plus two new ones and with this new lineup, went into the studio in 1977 to record nine songs under the collective title “A Distant Star”. However, for some obscure reason the songs were never released but luckily the reel-to-reel master tapes survived. The tapes were sent to the head quarters of Tramp Records in early 2016. In the end it took several attempts at three different recording studios to transfer them successfully.
For the third set of Excursions, we’re letting off some tasty Turkish flavours. Darkhouse Family presents ‘An Ottoman Excursion’. Halal Cool J (aka Don Leisure of Darkhouse Family) has blessed us with four cheeky edits, crafted with care, and guaranteed to create dancefloor flames. For ‘An Ottoman Excursion’ we head straight in with the neck-snapping drums and epic riffs of ‘Visne Nektari’, before the synth-led ‘Derbent’s Groove’ breezes triumphantly into motion. For the flip, we nicely drop the pace a little to do the ‘Turkish Duck Walk’, before the humidity of the ‘Fernebache Heat’ raises up the tempo to close out the set. 4 chops. 8 minutes of Turkish Psych-Funk vibes.
The 4th edition to the Limited Series drops on Banoffee Pies Records. More mixed taste loving for your record bag. Italo feelings on Safari from FYI Chris’ own Watson leading the charge on 80’s mode along with a chugged out creeper from Hysteric. Plenty of acquarium breaks from DJ Ok and Rasputin and more bongos in between from Ny*Ak and Ian Blevins on K Dance.
After dropping several tracks for the collectable Red Laser EPs Leon x Leon exports four monster jams melding metallic disco with slo-mo italo & breezy electro-funk.
Epic building tracks full of tension by V. V the anti-SEO one-character pseudonym of someone previously known. Powered by percussion and basslines for the club, yet with their strings, cinematic instrumentation and scale, there’s a sombre dance to be done to these 3 French-titled electronic tracks.
Charlois present “Where is the Champion?”, Timothy J. Fairplay’s first full length solo album. Twelve shifting, shuffling and shimmering tracks make up this debut. Cruising the highways and byways between proto-techno, horror disco and forlorn wave, Fairplay conjures up his creations from metal and smoke. Saturated snares, clipped claps and warbling chords are dusted with distortion. And this idea of distortion, manipulation and the blurred line is omnipresent. Innocent and sinister, cruel and playful, accepted boundaries are brazenly ignored as engines growl and synthlines soar.
Full 3 hours recorded in Cluj in January 2017. A thanks to the Hipodrome and Gazette crews. Great bunker venue & great crowd (a couple of jumping needles towards the end when the room itself was particularly jumping).
Flore and Rusu met in high school. Growing together through various musical phases, they ended up channeling their love for outlandish dance music into one of the most exciting projects to emerge from the bubbling Eastern Europe underground scene. In their Hivern debut, they keep pushing the boundaries of their sound to forge some of their boldest productions to date. In all four tracks of Impossible Holiday, we find distinctive elements of the Khidja palette recomposed under a new (and darker) light.
New label MIC launches with some previously unreleased and unheard material from UK DIY jazz funk maverick, Mike Collins, better known as the brains behind the spacey Loft classic, Sun Palace – ‘Rude Movements’. MIC presents a small archive of Collins’ material (recorded around the time of ‘Rude Movements’) and reveals the more experimental side of Collins’ production. Five tracks that explore early, proto-house music, electro, and fascinating drum machine observation.
Mothball Record returns with a lesser known, but no less brilliant, double-sided disco bomb from Plustwo. Lighthearted and infectious melodies on both sides are matched with superb production and unmistakably beautiful vocals: this is no fast food but elegant music to enjoy for years to come. For years a favorite in the Mothball Record offices, yet strangely unknown by many, “Mad Radio” and “New Sensation” will put some unexpected spark in your next disco set.
The Hipodrome Of Music 