Valentino Mora’s IDO (Intercontinental Dance Organisation) is back for its fourth release featuring some deep techno excursions from Olorun.
experimental
Jason Letkiewicz – The Reflecting Pool [ITLINTL03]
Over the last decade, we’ve come accustomed to Jason Letkiewicz releasing material under a dizzying array of aliases, each utilized to explore a different side of his multi-faceted musical persona. Now, some 14 years after he made his recording debut, Letkiewicz has joined forces with Into The Light Records to release his first album under his real name. ‘The Reflecting Pool’ sees Letkiewicz exploring the uncomplicated and uncluttered in the pursuit of pure aural beauty. The album is stripped back, quiet, melodious is drawing more on Letkiewicz’s love of crystalline ambient, slow burn synthesizer soundscapes, early ’80s library music and the kind of obscure electronic new age music. The set’s 12 tracks gently ebb and flow, with Letkiewicz making great use of dusty old drum machines, effects units and a range of vintage analogue and digital synthesizers. With ‘The Reflecting Pool’, Letkiewicz has provided us with a much-needed dose of stress-free musical escapism, at the same time offering hope that in these troubling times, love may still save the day.
Rhythmic Theory – Mechanised Dreaming [CRLP14]
Bristol based Rhythmic Theory, known for working the dark and mysterious edges of bass heavy techno and drum & bass, returns to Creme Organization. After his first work for the label in 2017 he now brings a fulsome nine track mini-LP ‘Mechanised Dreaming’, exploring the dark corners of ambient and synth based intrigue. Atmospheric sound design is at the fore here, with cinematic soundscapes crafted from broad synth smears and plenty of subtle little motifs. The music paints pictures of a metropolis during the dead of night, or a former industrial factory reduced to a hall of echoes and shadows. There is subtle tension built from sustained chords and plenty of suggestion of weird lifeforms in the icy ticks and scuttling footsteps of thew a-side. Side b is less dark and dank, with slightly brighter synths and wider horizons all explored. This is a truly immersive and emotive listen that always keeps you absorbed.
Kassel Jaeger – Le Lisse Et Le Strié [LTNC017]
Le Lisse et le Strié is a new work by french composer François J. Bonnet, released under his project name Kassel Jaeger. Based in Paris, Bonnet is the Director of INA GRM. He is also a writer and theoretician. Le Lisse et le Strié has been conceived as an exploration of the two antagonist concepts of “smooth” and “striated”, applied to the realm of electroacoustic sounds. If the “smooth” is linked to “nomos” as an open space of organic distribution, the “striated”, on the contrary, is associated to “logos”, as an enclosed space defined by a grid. Elaborating a dialogue between these aspects, Kassel Jaeger draws here an intermediary space where pulsations become textures and layers, and where rhythmic elements are found in the qualities and bodies of sounds instead of being functionnalised, pre-determined sound objects, abstracted and frozen onto a temporal grid. The concept of “striated” is made audible only through the sonic landscape it inhabits, like the stripes of the camouflage fur of wild animals only exist as such in the woods and long grass, disappearing into a potentially uselessness in a desert plain.
Dennis Young – Primitive Substance [AOTNLP026]
Dennis Young is best known as the marimba player and percussionist for Liquid Liquid. After Liquid Liquid disbanded in 1985 he continued to record electronic music. He composes his own music, which combines influences from rock, jazz, dance, electronic and world music while incorporating unique rhythms and colorful musical textures. The “Primitive Substance” album’s timeframe ends in the year 2004 and the recordings have a jazz feel to it, yet still had dance music elements mixed in.
Interstellar Funk – Obey Records Ep. 10
VA – Elsewhere LVI [ERS042]
Emotional Response presents Elsewhere LVI. the 4th of soFa’s compilation series. This double LP takes us to the darker side of the elsewhere ouvre, via another 12 artist / 12 track travelogue. With certain future-retro feelings, this is club music for the open minded. An album that roams from dreamy ambient territories to rhythmic patterns – internationalism for the adventurous DJ. Rusty slow-mo bangers and post-industrial synth-wave kidnap the listener to a dystopic and shady wasteland. Elements of ethnic folk, vintage vocoders and Gamelan samples all united on one homogeneous selection. With artists now known to welcoming new brethren, this is an audio trip to leave reality behind. Exotic, hypnotic, tactile, trance-inducing meditations, washed down with a spoonful of magic.
Randstad – Stranded [PNKMN029]
Following up on his contribution to the first Five Years Of Tears compilation, Randstad steps up to the bill and delivers his first solo release for Pinkman Records. Six tracks ranging from twisted industrialized beat trax to brain melting weirdo dance. A great cross-over record for adventurous DJs and fans of the cold, minimal DIY sound of the 80s alike.
Gruppo D’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza – Niente [ROMA111LP]
Founded in Rome in 1964, ‘Il Gruppo D’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza’ was a collective of noted and noteworthy composers who challenged the very structure and performance of music itself. Today the most celebrated of its members is the renowned film composer Ennio Morricone but each contributor has an intriguing history in Italian music. Drawing on Jazz, Serialism, Musique Concrete and other extended techniques, the group performed on many of Morricone’s experimental soundtracks of the 1970s including, A Quiet Place In The Country and Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura). The collective improvised live (according to strict exercises) and in the studio (recording for RCA, Deutsche Grammaphon, General Music and others). In 1970 ‘Il Gruppo’ (as ‘The Group’) recorded The Feed-back (for RCA Italy), an insane amalgam of avant-improvisation and motorik Krautrock-influenced beats that understandably has become one of the most collectable ‘Library Music’ related LPs ever issued. In 1971 ‘Il Gruppo’ returned to the studio to record a sequel. This is that record. For reasons unknown Niente was never originally issued but one listen will convince that not only is it the sequel to one of the most sought after LPs of all time, but it is also by far its superior. Brain melting jams collide with unhinged intensity in a hothouse of Italian avant-improv. You have been warned.
Alessandro Adriani – Morphic Dreams [SALP008]
Mannequin boss Alessandro Adriani returns with his second full-length, ‘Morphic Dreams’, this time on Stroboscopic Artefacts. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, ‘Morphic Dreams’ is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements – i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire.
De Bons en Pierre – EP No. 1 / 2 [DE236/DE237]
Dark Entries presents two new EPs from De Bons en Pierre, the duo of Beau Wanzer & Maoupa Mazzocchetti. Beau Wanzer spends the majority of his days sifting through paraffin embedded animal tissues and reading old issues of Fangoria, occasionally breaking his monotonous routine to record in various fits and bursts. As well as solo material, he is also in numerous projects including Streetwalker, Mutant Beat Dance, Civil Duty, and Corporate Park. Maoupa Mazzocchetti is the pseudonym of Florent Mazzocchetti, a French producer based in Brussels. His sonic vision is one which constantly straddles the line between wild experimentation and rhythmic compatibility, drawing influence from early concrète, 80’s tape scene and Birmingham school techno. After working together on the ‘Crepes’ EP that we released in 2017, De Bons en Pierre reunited for a two day recording session in Brussels. The duo recorded 13 tracks that we’ve split across 2 EPs with 6 tracks on ‘EP No. 1’ and 7 tracks on ‘EP No. 2’. Beau says, “We hooked everything up and just pushed play. We didn’t really discuss much about the process….it was very ‘spur of the moment’.” The equipment set up included a Roland TR-808, TR-606, SH-101, CR-78, CR-8000, two Syncussions and effects. Each EP contains 25 minutes of dance floor perversions that tackle an array of rhythmic forms. Sludgy synths, serrated percussion and viscous distortion goops over leviathan rhythms.
Slagmann – Krysalis [TALISMANN007]
Slagmann is the new collaboration between producer Talismann and music ensemble Slagwerk Den Haag. Their first album ‘Krysalis’ is an adventurous synthesis of hypnotizing rhythm patterns, organic soundscapes and captivating scenography – or, as the artists themselves like to call it, a “ritualistic experience.” Sometimes dreamy and dark, euphoric and explosive at other times. This mesmerizing cross-pollination between ritualistic percussion and drum machines will lure you into the murkiest depths of electronica and classical minimal music. For the visual identity of ‘Krysalis’ Slagmann works together with visual artist Heleen Blanken. Who is responsible for the scenography of the live show and capturing the cover image.
Avina Vishnu – Transforma [WEME313.19]
Advanced soundscapes from Avina Vishnu which is a project by Heinrich Mueller aka Gerald Donald and Aina. Their release Transforma is a conceptual project that is focusing on a unification between the natural world and the artificial space of electronic music. It attempts to immerse the listener within a three dimensional sound environment that is exploring the natural physics of music and yet create a contrast between these two worlds.
Black Meteoric Star – Ghost Frequency EP
Black Meteoric Star returns with the Ghost Frequency EP, and this 12-minute hardware techno jam captures the haunted synthesizer sound that the title implies.
Khidja – In The Middle Of The Night [DFA2635]
Romanian production duo Khidja present their first EP for DFA. With four tracks of inner city insomnia, The Middle Of The Night soundtracks the realm between being half awake and asleep. With jagged and pulsating synths and dubbed out howling vocals, we are left disorientated in the underground tunnels that connect the clubs of Bucharest, London, and Berlin. Summoning the spirits of Kraftwerk and John Carpenter, they cast a spell on the dancefloor that is a perfect addition to the ever-evolving DFA roster.
Karamika – 2.0 [OFFEN011]
Karamika is a studio creation from George Thompson (Black Merlin) and Gordon Pohl AKA Dussuldorf’s engineer supreme (Musiccargo / Kunstkopf / The Isolators…). This their second long player is a record full of mind games. Sounds leak from fractal-like holes, and are sedately trodden back into the cosmic fabric of the album. The noise of post cruise carpet.
Harmonious Thelonious – Kabriman [MNSX015]
Harmonious Thelonious’s ethnomusicologic journeys to the African continent continues with a burning package of 3 rhythmic tracks inspired by American minimalist music and African rhythm patterns. A primordial soup of polyrhythms and dense harmonics hypnotise the body into movement, transporting the origins of dance music to neoteric audiences.
An-i live @ Dekmantel Festival 2018
Gil.barte / Lostsoundbytes – Split EP [BT34DDQ5]
The 5th entry on the Discos del Quebranto series continues to rake the kerbside muck of ‘club music’, presenting 2 disparate visions from 2 label heads. KUMP’s mastermind Gil.barte opens proceedings with the stuttering bodysludge of Guédé and Egareur. Two kleine nightmusiks to drag you out of meatspace, with the Kyuss-ala-PCP throb of Guédé especially sure to find favour on fog-bothering 8 AM+ floors worldwide. Tempos pick up and lights turn down on the B-side, with Lostsoundbytes (Vastechoses label head), driving disintegrating delays and snares into 3 Belgiqué-nouveau tools, keeping the rhythm & textures bumping throughout.
Lvrin / Maoupa Mazzocchetti – Split EP [ARMA020]
Arma continues to explore the dark and wild corners of contemporary machine music via a new split 12′ featuring Lvrin and Maoupa Mazzocchetti. Lvrin occupies a sound world where blown out boxes spit out gnarled beats and slimy basslines through an overdriven sesk, with the ghosts of post punk and industrial looming over his nocturnal incantations. Maoupa Mazzocchetti has been weaving defiantly unconventional strains of electronic music. He delivers hhree rugged, body-poppin’ grooves to the B side.
The Hipodrome Of Music 