French Sailing Captain had to stop on Parisian shores of Les Yeux Orange to refuel before extending his electronic journey. He teams up here with legendary producer The Advent, delivering “Computer Monkey”, a concept EP coming with relentless lyrics about egocentrism on social networks. Two awesome remixes by electro cult artists Legowelt and DMX Krew round up the package made of crystal transparent copies with pixel art full color sleeves.
DMX Krew has been turning out electronic music from his analog-laden studio since 1994. He has built a discography nothing short of prolific. He mixes tech savvy with a firm understanding of club music and a penchant for catchy and clever hooks and the Powerplay EP, released on Innershades’ Altered Circuits imprint, forms a great display of this.
Over the years, Ed Upton has released an insanely large volume of records as DMX Krew, though his quality level as rarely dipped below “brilliant”. While many of these EPs and albums explore his love of electro, he’s not averse to exploring sci-fi techno, jacking house and throbbing Italo-disco. ‘Unhooked’, the track that opens his first 12″ of 2022, is deliciously dark and creepy, sitting somewhere between the lo-fi techno of L.I.E.S, the acid-fired rave-era insanity of Aphex Twin and bittersweet dancefloor melancholia. Elsewhere, he peppers a crispy breakbeat with ghostly chords and bubbly lead lines on ‘Orange Cat Print’, summons the spirit of the apocalypse on doom-laden acid-electro number ‘Didgerididnt’ and delivers sturdy, mind-mangling electro thrills on ‘Dust Devil’.
Gudu Records presents ‘Jack’s Jive’, a long overdue re-release of a legendary lost South African record from 1987. Out of print for years and never available digitally, ‘Jack’s Jive’ is the stuff of legend: a bold, bright synthesizer-led cut that has been demanding Discogs prices upwards of £150 and both referenced and ripped off by contemporary artists since. Re-mastered for 2021 and cut to vinyl for the first time in decades, it’s backed with two remixes by DMX Krew.
Classic Detroit-influenced electro tune featuring special guest vocal by Blak Tony of Alien FM / Aux 88. Plus two bonus bass bangers on the flip.
Self-styled ‘house husband, record producer’, DMX Krew, continues his effortless stretch of releases that date back to the early 90s, with a new album for Hypercolour. His deft melodies and mechanical, electro-tinged beats have made for some classic albums in his repertoire, from his incredible run of albums for Rephlex Records, up to 2020’s ’Ghost Bubbles’ long player for Terrestrial Funk. And so ‘Loose Gears’ marks DMX Krew’s fourth album for British stalwarts, Hypercolour, and fans will not be disappointed. Armed with an arsenal of hardware, and a head full of futuristic visions, ‘Loose Gears’ collects eleven tracks of the customary quality we have come to expect from DMX Krew. From the funk laden ‘Solar Transit’ to bleepy chugger ‘Dejected Ambient Twerp’, the vibrant synths and spongy rhythms of ‘Torpedo Tube’ to the beatless wiggle of ‘Xpansion 2’, there’s much in store to be savoured on ‘Loose Gears’, as DMX Krew serves up another fine selection of electronic goodies.
Continuing our past year briefing, after the readers top 3 and best giveaways, we present a list of our 20 favorite albums from 2020.
We have four albums more on the electro side coming from DMX Krew, Men With Secrets (Donato Dozzy and Retina.it), Nullptr and The Exaltics & Heinrich Mueller, while on the industrial/EBM side we have albums by A Civil Terror, La luna sotto il ponte and LBEEZE and impressive works from Black Meteoric Star, Ian Martin and Trenton Chase.
On the synthier side of music we have four albums coming from Das Ding, Linea Aspera, Newclear Waves and Jake Schrock, while for the Detroit lovers we have two Detroit influenced album by The Beneficiaries (Jeff Mills, Eddie Fowlkes and Jessica Care Moore) and The Nightstalker (Dan Piu and Martin Akeret).
Closing the list are the debut album of disco-don Franz Scala on Slow Motion, Obergman‘s acid album on Furthur Electronix, Anthony Collins with his album on Lobster Theremin under the Grant alias and Shifted with his first album on Avian.
The list is compiled in chronological order.
DMX Krew has made millions of booties move to the beat since the early nineties. His string of albums on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex spanning 1996-2005 helped define UK electro and breaks on dancefloors around the world. For almost thirty years he’s tirelessly pumped out a myriad of incredible electronic programming through many labels including his own. Terrestrial Funk humbly welcomes Ed DMX’s new album ‘Ghost Bubbles’ as the fourth release on our catalog following a string of boogie, highlife, and disco records. From Miami, Florida, to Accra, Ghana to the Gulf Of Mexico, and now to the Celtic Sea’s channels off Britain’s west coast. Ghost Bubbles is a thirteen track journey perpetuating DMX Krew’s synthesized sound waves around the globe.
A long player of new music from DMX Krew on Hypercolour. ‘Glad To Be Sad’ presents the usual collection of first class electronic funk and modular melodies that DMX is known for, but covers a wide and colourful palette of rhythm and sound, abundant on the bass and with a heavy dose of futurism in its waves of glorious synth-work and deadly drum machine rhythms.
Shipwrec is 50 releases old. No mean feat and to celebrate the dutch label is returning to one of its stalwarts, Ed Upton aka DMX Krew. For this very special 12″ the veteran audio alchemist conjures up five tracks of machine music magic. Squirming, acid soaked electro forms and melts in “Bush Baby Bug Eyes” before the shapeshifting “EQShift Trak.” “Language Reponse” goes up a gear, rhythms zipping along on a highway of bright bars as synth lines beam warmth. The flip skids into the corners for the chiptune freshness of “Irrational Momentum” before the wave funk wizardry of the title piece. Ed Upton cracking open the champagne for this Shipwrec milestone and once again proving his undeniable prowess behind the machines.
23 years have passed since Edward Upton first donned the DMX Krew alias, but the prolific British producer shows no signs of slowing down. Astonishingly, Strange Directions is the electro stalwart’s 21st full-length excursion. Predictably, it’s rather good, with Upton delivering a set that effortlessly body-pops between vocoder-laced electro workouts, melodious IDM, bass-heavy intelligent techno, gnarled Drexciyan throbbers, Artificial Intelligence style home listening fare and even a dash of muscular, tongue-in-cheek Italo-disco (the deliciously sleazy “Soft Networks”). As usual, the distinctive, off-kilter swing of original analogue hardware is present throughout, as Upton showcases his full range of talents.
7777 presents its 13th release featuring DMX Krew and Yuri Suzuki. Side A brings you straight house attitude. B side strips it down and adds the acid. These songs are perfect for your record bag.
Following his stunning box set on Fundamental Records, Ed Upton aka DMX Krew makes his third outing on CPU, increasingly becoming home for his darker side. Space Cucumbers contains a wealth of expression with Italo disco arpeggiators, seldom heard time signatures, Hi-NRG, and bass heavy electro funk. Featuring the usual aquatic tendencies mixed with echoes of darkwave. Vintage analogue strings, overdriven acid and Upton’s favourite drum machine all make an appearance riding on his signature funk laced arrangements.
UK wave funk veteran DMX Krew returns to Abstract Forms with his latest double album project. Escape-MCP features 13 tracks of synth drenched electro and elastic techno grooves drawing inspiration from a 1983 computer game where the player is trapped inside a computer by a rogue processor. Fortunately DMX Krew isn’t trapped inside a computer and is still with us making killer grooves.
Following hot on the heels of Tadd Mullinix’s ‘Skein’ – Bopside’s second album release for 2016 comes from label owner Tadd Mullinix’s dancefloor destroying nom de plume who needs little introduction: JTC An 8 track concise body of work perfectly calibrated for DJ use and home listening alike, where the beats hit hard and the melodies linger in your brain. The self-titled LP starts with ‘Caskadia’ – a call to arms for dancers with call and response synth lines and broken beats. ‘Atmospheres Pt.2’ takes things out into deep space, and ‘Nexus Ship Core’ is an acid drenched burner with glacial synths. ‘Infoline’ then makes it’s first appearance in a remixed guise by Rephlex alumni Ed DMX, then closing out the album with its recognisable lead line in its original form. Things take a deeper turn with ‘Dusselmorph’ before the full on breakbeat assault of ‘Blitz Puff (High Position Mix) takes things up a gear, then dropping you off safe and sound, though a little shaken with ‘Atmospheres pt.5 (Hemi Mix).
This record can easily be classified as Library. Listening to these tracks moves your senses back and forth through time, from 80’s sci-fi back to Raymond Scott’s early 50’s experiments. The perfect soundtrack for bedrooms, late night dinners and greenhouses Ed Dmx contributes to a tradition in musical history, a richly vivid trail in which composers influence each other’s harmonies and ways of writing tunes, like an endless ping-pong game between minds and individuals but at the same time between continents and places throughout the world. Unlike many of Ed Dmx’ electro- oriented productions, ‘TheNew Age Travellers’ shows a more intimate side of his work. A story told through short synthesized conversations and electric piano improvisations is reminding us to cry, dream, remember, feel, live … and love.
The Hipodrome Of Music 