Atmospheric Vol. 2 is the second single to be taken from Deepchord’s latest full length but sees him stray from the album tracks, bringing 3 exclusive pieces to the vinyl, keeping in the same musical vein as Ultraviolet Music.
dub techno
VA – Dub Masters Series I EP [ARTSTRANSPARENT006]
ARTS Transparent shaped his form in many different ways into electronic music, giving clear directions to any other label out there, emotionally and technically. This time the label will focus on the first Dub Master Series, a collective of the best Dub Techno Artists we have around the globe. Zoltan Solomon / Grad_U / IXM aka Kaelan / Hydergine.
Oscar Mulero – Second Skin EP [POLEGROUP037]
Slow paced beats and dubby chords by Oscar Mulero that mutate and run around the arrangement. Remixes by Architectural and Tensal.
Knowone – Knowone Timber Box 001 [KOTB001W]
The mysterious Knowone imprint presents a collection of dusty, smoked out, dub techno journeys. This is the real deal; for those of you who aren’t familiar, this label is highly recommended for fans of Basic Channel, Echospace or Meanwhile. Enough said, right? This collection comes in a limited edition, handmade wooden box with 5 x 12″s and 2 CDs. It’s hard to pick a highlight from here because all the tracks on here are so damn good. But we do particularly enjoy the glacial and cavernous vibes of Track 3, the hypnotic and dubby deep house on “Track 5” while “Track 8” sounds like Jeff Mills and Stephen Hitchell going on a stoned UFO journey over the Arctic.
Sounds & Sequences – Shining [SS003]
Freund Der Familie – Freundlich II [TELRAE029]
“Freundlich II“ is the follow up of Freund der Familie’s “Freundlich” 12“ which was released in 2014 on Telrae. The A-side track “Mash Up” is a deep setup of electronica. Somehow futuristic, alienated and claustrophobic. It could it be the soundtrack for a vintage science fiction movie. Or in other words: pulsating beats imbedded in a sea of sounds, noises and FX that generate life. “Seconds” joins in with ghostly dark sounds that in the course of the track are accompanied by a steady beat.
Q3A – Space Chamber [114DSR/Q3A-1]
Route 8 under his alias Q3A serves up a sumptuous four track EP, Space Chamber, on the Delsin label and it touches on many different styles with equally great results. ‘Lost Souls’ is first and is an expansive bit of well driven deep house with rich synths and cavernous innards that really suck you in. Next up is another serenely crafted bit of atmospheric house with dusty drums and lose hits all backed with heavenly pads and retro bass. The first of the b-side tracks is a chunky acid kicker with angelic vocals drifting up top as a controlled 303 line rips up the foreground. Spaced out and deep, driving yet emotive, it is a moving bit of club music before the B2 trips you out on a silvery electro tip with its icy lines and slap-funk snares.
The Analog Roland Orchestra – Roden Crater Vision [ORN038]
A collection of tracks, skits and moods for James Turrell´s visionary Roden Crater project by The Analog Roland Orchestra.
Eszaid – €€€ [CLPMR001]
Collapsing Market release their first record. Eszaid (aka Louis Vial, one half of Mura Oka) inaugurates the imprint with four foreboding & gloomy trips that traverse through techno’s darker shades into haunting ambient. Louis Vial merges slow drum patterns with foggy textures and sparse arrangements. This is an incredibly affecting and mature first EP from the young producer who launches the label in the best way possible.
Deepchord – Ultraviolet Music [SOMACD111]
Given his prolific nature, fresh material from Rod Modell under the Deepchord guise is not news. There is, though, something rather special and extra-ordinary about Ultraviolet Music, an expansive, double-disc full length for Soma, which the Detroit-based producer has described as “hallucinogenic”. Taking dub techno as his blueprint, Modell delivers an impressive collection of hypnotic, out-there moments that also take influence from ambient, Detroit techno, deep house, and the kind of fuzzy, beguiling sonic textures guaranteed to flip your lid. While many of Modell’s albums feature epic, 20-minute plus workouts, here he quickly shuffles between shorter moments whilst retaining a deliciously dubby dancefloor pulse.
CV313 – Lost Sequence [ECHOSPACEDETROIT017]
Finally available on wax, cv313’s classic ‘Lost Sequence’ culled from the celebrated Japan exclusive Live double CD album released back in 2009. On the B side there’s a rare live version performed by Intrusion at a Loft event put on by the good folks over @ Little White Earbuds. This rare recording was reduced and stripped down, core traces of the original swim inside oceanic bass, and modulating frequencies creating an atmosphere all of its own.
STL – Message Of Sound EP [ECHOCORD066/067]
Stephan Laubner presents his new EP on Echocord “Message Of Sound”, containing original STL tracks and loops.
Shinichi Atobe – Ship Scope [DDS014]
Hugely sought-after techno classic – the precedent to ‘Butterfly Effect’, originally released on Berlin’s legendary Chain reaction and out-of-print for 15 years, now newly remastered from vinyl by Matt Colton at Alchemy. A massive personal favourite of Demdike Stare’s, Shinichi Atobe’s ‘Ship Scope’ was Chain Reaction’s penultimate release in 2001 and, with the benefit of hindsight, also one of the legendary label’s most sublime offerings.
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.
Cio D’or – Yocta To Yotta EP [SEMANTICA073B]
Nautil – Canopee [FUR052]
Parisian artist Nautil is a music student specialising in acoustics, signal processing, and informatics. His debut single, Canopée, utilises analog synths, sampling and personal recordings to emphasize the geometrics of nature and music. On the A-side the lead track, Canopée, is a cavernous, pulsing, low-frequency techno colossus destined to hypnotise dark warehouse spaces. On the reverse Galdae is a propulsive tecnoid tweaker while Mue is designed for head rolling after hours with mesmeric synth drones suspended over a brain melting sub-bass pulse.
S. Moreira / Refracted – From A Cosmic Perspective [SL005]
The new Slow Life has landed and the Berlin collective is setting the bar high with this one. Four expertly produced, inventive & atmospheric cuts – two originals, two remixes – that will take you to the cosmos & back before you even realise you’ve been taken on a trip. S. Moreira and Refracted are on absolutely deadly form here.
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.
Conforce – Presentism [111DSRLP]
Boris Bunnik is back with a brand new album under his Conforce guise. Entitled Presentism, is his fourth under this alias and proves once that this most prolific talent is still very much an evolving producer. Presentism is more organic and less dystopian and mechanical than before, with a light hearted sense of joy and vivid musical patterns lingering long in the airwaves, and as such harks back to earlier full lengths like Machine Conspiracy, which leaned more on Detroit rooted techno. It is a collection of diverse musical compositions that leans more on musical structures than technical obsessions, and where his last effort Kinetic Image was a tightly programmed conceptual thing, this LP is a much warmer, more organic and aquatic bit of floating modern techno. As such, you get the sense Conforce is back and having fun with his music making once more, free from any rules and instead just crafting what he feels inside.
The expertly designed sounds of this album float and drift in subtly uplifting ways, right from the off. It is a diverse collection sounds with a fine sense of mood through, and that is what ensures it makes sense as a greater whole. At the same time it retains that signature Conforce sense of rhythm, underwater atmosphere and vivid seascaping that really takes you away from the world in which you live. Some tracks like ‘Realtime’ are slow and moody, others like ‘Erased Connections With The Past’ are more propulsive and physical and those such as ‘Monomorphic’ are heady, hypnotic affairs that make for beautiful electronic soundtracks
The Hipodrome Of Music 