‘Programm 4′ is their fourth album. Mixed and auto-produced by Mark Eins near the Wall in West/Berlin in 1983, the album was rejected at the time by Innovative Communication, considered too much synth/punk/techno’, while the new label managers were looking more into new age stuff. In fact Schulze eventually sold the label in 1983, which started to release a plethora of acts loosely grouped around the NAM genre.
Early pioneers of the German New Wave music scene, Din A Testbild were formed in 1978 by Mark Eins and Gudrun Gut. Din A Testbild played a significant role in defining the avant-garde music of Berlin. Legendary is their partecipation at the Festival Genialer Dilletanten” in 1981. ‘Programm 3’ is their third album. Mixed and auto-produced by Mark Eins with help of Ziggy Schöning, it was released on Klaus Schulze’s record label Innovative Communication in 1983.
The name DETOBEAT. derives from the home cities of all parties involved in this project: DE/nver (Todd Nickolas), TO/ronto (Linus Booth and Chris Macintyre), BE/rlin (Gene Kouzouka) and AT/hens (Lurid Music). Their debut release features a reworked female vocal version of Ciffs by Marie Davidson, an assaulting techno rework from her Essaie Pas partner Pierre Guerineau, a psychedelic guitar excursion from Khidja, as well as the first ever remix commissioned from legendary greek electronic composer Lena Platonos.
Eleven Pond formed in 1986, released one epic postpunk/synth pop/darkwave LP titled ‘Bas Relief’ then records songs for a second LP titled ‘Assemblage’ and the experimental noise project ‘Space Trio’. The band breaks up shortly after due to differences in taste, all the 16 track master tapes are shelved. 22 years later the song Watching Trees is rediscovered in Brooklyn NY and club DJ’s in the minimal synth scene play Watching Trees. Dark Entries Records reissues ‘Bas Relief’, the original hand silkscreened vinyl LP becomes a $900 collectors item, invitations for the band to play shows appear on Facebook … in 2010 Jeff Gallea reforms Eleven Pond and starts recording and performing. They release a cover of the “Seasons Are Sitting on Chairs” from Arvid Tuba and a few great songs like “Just Be Happy”. As we love the insane modernity of these two songs we decided to release them on Prego and asked Dmitry Distant to remix this happiness anthem. All songs are remastered for vinyl by Isolator, housed in a jacket designed by Anda Masq & Rodeo Basilic.
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.
The next release on Zone is from electro and techno duo Mikron with a great remix from The Exaltics. The brilliantly gurgling and steely ‘Ulterior’ kicks things off with sheet metal hits, slithering bass and buffed-up synth sounds that make you jerk your body. It’s direct stuff for the dancefloor, and so is ‘Vanguard’. Though less quick and in your face than the opening track, it still has the sort of crisp groove that has real impact. A distant cosmos of howling winds and thundering rumbles add weight to the whole thing and really finishes it in style. ‘Foresight’ is even more haunting and spooky. Chilly metal pads spiral in the background, lurching drums and hits bring the groove and the mood overall is truly unsettling. It’s devastating stuff that gets completed with Clone and Shipwrec artist The Exaltics’ take on Ulterior’. The German has fun layering in Drexcyia style, ripped-up synths and crisp hits. It’s macho and post apocalyptic and is as inviting as it is austere.
Das Ding, the dutch wave savant, arrives on Pinkman with four works of full bodied synth sorrow. Freezing rain pelts rusting machinery, a barren land of decay stretches out onto dancefloors. Rasping rhythms and lumbering bass buttress bitter chords and grinding notes that compel bodies to move. And within the dereliction, behind the dilapidation and rot, burns a purity of expression that is emblematic of Danny Bosten’s consistent quality.
The musical output by Amsterdam trio S.M. Nurse — generated in just three years of activity, 1980 to 1983 — is truly amazing by its volume and quality. The “That’s the Body” EP is their third release on Domestica; a selection of previously unknown tracks and unreleased versions on 12” format. “That’s the Body” (1983) and “On And Off” (1983) are first-ever releases. On side B, there’s new versions of “Mort Automatique” (1981) and “Frutta”(1982), previously found on the now expensive “30th Anniversary: 1980-1983” album, released by Domestica in 2013.
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.
“Recorded the mix pretty much in one evening at my studio! Mix between vinyl and Ableton. Wanted to do something natural and with an acidic pulse so it took me a while to go back through my records. Really difficult to remember all these tracks so it took a while.”
As the world collapses, dragging its unwilling inhabitants into insanity, a few things, fortunately, remain true. The man who’s contributed to the development of the JAK sound on behalf of the Nation community from Lake Michigan to the Dutch west coast, where he became well known for several EPs released on Creme Organization Records, is back. After two full-length albums, dozens of EPs and action in the 2AM/FM project, D’Marc Cantu has gained well-earned respect as an underground artist. We are very pleased to bring this little return to the JAK beat style.
Espen Beranek Holm is a Norwegian musician and comedian, born 1960 and began his music career as a clarinetist. Inspired by early synthesizer bands Kraftwerk and The Residents, he began making experimental pop music. His debut single Dra te’ hælvete’ was released in 1981 and was immediately banned by national TV/radio channel NRK due to explicit lyrics. This gave the young artist tons of publicity, helping the single spend almost 6 months on the national charts. Beranek returned to the Starholm Studios in Oslo from June – September 1981 to record nine new compositions. His debut album, Sound of Danger’, was released on Mind Expanding Records in November 1981. Nowhere near as accessible as the previous single, the album fared poorly commercially. Withdrawing from the single’s fun, kitsch pop, the album is cool and static, driven by thin rhythm boxes, cold synths, and glacial guitars. Taking heavy cues from David Bowie, all of the songs are sung in a nasally English accent, a rare occurrence in Norway at the time. The lyrics are melancholic, but tinged with paranoia. There are also upbeat tracks that evoke a prog or glam sensibility a la King Crimson, Alan Parsons, or Roxy Music.
Z Records are back in the funk hot-seat, but this time Joey Negro presents a snapshot of the edgier, robotic sounds of the emerging early 80s electro scene. From stone-cold classics such as Hashim’s Al Naafiysh (The Soul), Tyrone Brunson’s ‘The Smurf’ and Key-Matic’s ‘Breakin’ In Space’ to revered party anthem’s such as Aleem’s ‘Release Yourself (Dub)’, Two Sisters ‘High Noon (Part 2)’ and Dwayne Omarr’s ‘This Party’s Jam Packed’ to electro oddities like Paul Hardcastle’s ‘Rain Forest’ and The Packman’s ‘I’m The Packman’ we get a genuine labour of love and a timely reminder of the raw drum machine sounds that were soon to define the beginning of the house and techno scenes we have today.
It seemed like Neo Ouija, a Norfolk based IDM imprint, had closed up shop. Four years of silence suggested that founder Lee Norris, aka Metamatics, had decided to call it a day. But looks can be deceiving. 2016 saw the boss release a CD album of fluid acid, squelching electro and heartfelt electronics. Shipwrec are now bringing four choice cuts from Bodypop to the vinyl faithful. Proudly sitting on the “difficult to define” shelf, Norris seamlessly shifts from frigid winter moods to warming autumnal sunshine. Old-school sounds are rewired, softened by delicate keys and steady beats. Machine music morphs into organic matter. Acid coils, echoed bleeps and clicks grow and blossom into vivid audio vistas with Metamatics, once again, proving his musical mastery.
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.
After an EP on Creme Organization off-shoot Jericho One as DJ Plant Texture, Dona Basile now assumes his Dona alias for a new EP on the main label. Entitled The V.G.P Sessions, it features four new cuts from the Italian. Up first is a live cut version of ‘Energia’, a bristling electro track with globular bass and coarse hits. Turbulent but full of synth based serenity, it is a fine start. ‘Cigarettes’ is rugged and broken, with glossy IDM synths and corrugated drums all loosely arranged into something prickly and unsettling. ‘The Deads At Twelve’ then gets even more fucked up, with rusty synths and blown out drums making for a dystopian house groove that will likely soundtrack the apocalypse. Last but not least, ‘Nr. 13’ mixes up Detroit synths, wild acid, heavenly chords and chopped up, buried deep vocal samples into something that will fire every synapse in your body. This is outlier stuff from Dona that sounds like little else.
Lobster Theremin is back and rolling and bringing more snappy electro through the Theremin caverns with this indelible EP from Unfinished Portraits.
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.
The Hipodrome Of Music 