DJ Glow introduces his Populist alter ego with his first release on TRUST since his 2007 Pulsinger collab. Four fiery, dense electro cuts to feed your paranoia.
experimental
Ultradyne – Ocular Animus [PGM012]
As with all Ultradyne works there is meaning in everything. Ocular Animus delves into the mindset of humanity and breaks away from the usual EP format – Three tracks – five songs. This release explores the terraforming of humanitity as seen through the eyes of the machinists as they look into the mirror at it’s underbelly. Solid rhythms, shifting beats, eerie synth lines splatter across the canvass of this new release feeding the beat hungry and philosopher alike. Fear. Uncertainty. Hate. A glimpse of the possible future or the deconstruction of a paradigm. You decide if you like what you see.
ENA – Bridge [FIELD027]
Dutch label Field Records is back with another special album project, this time from Japanese producer ENA aka Yu Asaeda. Bridge is an introspective soundtrack for a documentary also called Bridge – out this Spring – which is about the Dejima bridge, a reconstructed symbol of the Dutch-Japanese trading history in Nagasaki, Japan. The album finds the producer stepping outside of his usual remit of dark ambient and experimental music, and instead comprises ten shorter tracks that touch on abstract and rhythmic sounds that define the essence of Japanese culture. Although he has worked with the director before, this is ENA’s first Original Sound Track and finds him freely inspired by the movie and heading in exciting and unknown directions. Hugely atmospheric throughout, there is hypnotic repetition of sounds, strange audio design and a mixture of melancholic moods with more dreamy synths. Sometimes gloopy rhythms gently ripple beneath soothing harmonies and at others times a micro-rhythm appears through the constantly shifting and evolving found sound loops. It’s a compelling and unusual album that seamlessly mixes human emotions with a mechanical sense of industry.
Trux – Untitled [OFFICE13]
Trux’ second EP on Berlin based record label Office is a bow to the many outstanding moments in the history of Ambient music. Allusions to Brian Eno are just as recognisable as to the charming concepts of Pop Ambient or Clicks & Cuts. It’s between these poles that the four tracks on the a-side oscillate and manage to capture the listener with vibrant and diverse soundscapes. The flip side sees Trux drop a stunning melodic breakbeat tune besides remixes by Workshop’s premier Techno chef Lowtec as well as a freestyle Electronica version by O$VMV$M. The much loved Super Quiet tops the record artwork off with another remarkable example of his casual and airy black and white photography.
Borusiade @ Lente Kabinet Festival 26.05.2018
Phuong-Dan @ Lente Kabinet Festival 26.05.2018
Lena Willikens – Selectors Podcast 020
Phuong-Dan – Inverted Audio MIX 280
Muziekkamer – II – Popmuziek [CYRE01]
Left of centre experiments from the Dutch underground of yesteryear. Muziekkamer was the name of the home recording studio that gave birth to the twelve tracks on ‘Popmuziek’, an intriguing document of sketch arrangements and primitive, fairytale sampling wave cuts. This is music which excels due to its inherent naivety; the limitless ambition of ‘Black Box’ almost sounding like a precursor to the 90s ambient techno of Likemind or Stasis. On ‘Being Home Tonight’ we can hear an early form of what the likes of Tolouse Low Trax have been bringing to the forefront of contemporary club culture whilst the erratic art-rock of ‘Walkman’ mirrors what Leven Signs & co were doing over the pond. In trying to create something which represented ‘intrusiveness’ as a contrast to an earlier ambient tape the trio incidentally blurred the lines between various musical fashions to come. An amazing snapshot of time and place.
Plant43 – From Deep Streams [SHIPLP07]
Emile Facey (Plant43) has been at the forefront of electronic for more than twelve years. During that time the British producer has released on a host of seminal labels, expanding his style and sound in new directions. Although Plant43 is typically classified as a purveyor of electro, behind those driving rhythms and steely percussion a tenderness has always been present, an emotion expressed in lilting melodies and complex harmonies. It is these melodies and harmonies that come into focus on Plant43’s debut ambient album. On “From Deep Streams” is a rich and textured tapestry of synth work, a soundtrack that organically unfurls from nightime woodland walks and city stargazing to mindful solitude. The eight tracks offer the listener a calming journey into stillness, an excursion through gentle audio currents and a moment to pause and take in an inspiring vista of sound. Recorded over the space of 3 months, this album gives the quiet, the subtle and the sometimes underappreciated centre stage whilst casting light on yet another side of Emile Facey’s ever-evolving music.
Vactrol Park – Music from the Luminous Void [MTLP003]
Vactrol Park continue surprising, this time with a full LP in the shape of ‘Music from the Luminous Void’. The album sees them delve much deeper into more atmospheric realms. Using modular synths and unexpected drum machine sequencing they leave the 4X4 beats behind in favor of off-world rhythms and ever growing bass.
Actress x London Contemporary Orchestra – LAGEOS [ZEN251]
Following the release of the ”Audio Track 5” EP, electronic producer and musician Darren Cunningham AKA Actress and the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO) are to release a full album of their collaboration entitled ”LAGEOS”.
Articulat – Best of Manikin [07AM]
Articulat is the new artist name of Ovidiu Stanciu, a Romanian dj/producer living in Rotterdam. Under the moniker Manikin, he worked on several concept albums with titles like Popular Mechanics, Taxim and Grandma’s Attic Revival over the last couple of years. The A-side includes three thriving and pounding slow-beat bangers, while the B-side shows a Articulat’s more versatile style. Expect experimental electronic songs inspired by themes like Steampunk and Romanian folklore, very precisely engineered to experience storytelling in the most physical way.
DJ Richard – Dies Iræ Xerox [DIALLP040]
Following 2017’s ‘Path of Ruin’, DJ Richard returns to Dial with his much-anticipated sophomore LP, ‘Dies Irae Xerox’. Undoubtedly one of the most distinctive and fully-formed electronic producers in recent memory, DJ Richard imprinted the sound of a bubbling US underground with his label, White Material, founded in 2012 alongside Young Male. Now firmly settled once more in his hometown of Providence, ‘Dies Iræ Xerox’ is a personal and uncompromising journey that finds the Rhode Island native in reflective form, journeying without compromise into both his creative influences and personal psyche.
Automat – The Invisible [BT28CHR02]
Brokntoys welcomes French producer Raphael Vendramini aka Automat. Known for his electro output on labels such as SCSI-AV, this 5-track EP showcases excerpts of his unique dark and atmospheric sound and includes the haunting ‘Dark Days’ previously released digitally on Parisian label Milles Feuilles.
Muslimgauze – Maroon [ARCHIVEFORTYTWO]
Separated from both its reputation and its sleeve art, the music of Muslimgauze explores the relationship of visual sensations – space, colour, depth, illusion – to the listening experience. The music on ‘Maroon’ is dub-like inspired techno music, laid back with voices appearing randomly in the mix. The thick drums and rich found sounds that densely populate the soundscapes on “Maroon” give materiality to the warm presence of the synth washes. The music is so layered and textured that it ceases to be aural and exists almost solely in the realm of sight and touch. Devoid of reference to any external reality, Muslimgauze’s Ambience gets remoulded by subjective experience and moved around in the memory. By shifting the quality of perception with the producer’s sleight of hand, Bryn Jones (the Mancunian behind Muslimgauze) makes explicit the interiority of the senses. Thus, the fact that our inner life determines our relationship to the world outside becomes the music’s unspoken subject. Divorcing Muslimgauze’s music from its image is like listening to Take That without seeing Robbie’s pelvis or Mark’s pouting. This is precisely why the music is so effective. Relocating music’s power within the listener instead of as an external force acting upon the listener forces reappraisal and reinterpretation. The muezzin’s wailing call to prayer and the shrieks of women mourning the dead conjure up images of a fierce ‘death-to-the-infidels’ fervour in the Western imagination, and are recast as holy prayers for the ultimate, womb-like peace that most Ambient music aims to express. The usually easy exoticism of sampled tablas and ouds instead hint at the dread on the road to the water coloured bliss of run-of-the-mill Ambient and force the listener to internalise difference and confront the received images of Islam that Muslimgauze detour by such strong powers of suggestion.
Frak / Jack Pattern – Jack Frak [CPG010]
Distorted drums and eerie melodies on this split between Frak and Jack Pattern on Cosmic Pint Glass.
Morphology – Traveller [FS011]
The Finnish duo Morphology joins FireScope Records for their 10-track ‘Traveller’ LP, a vision of travel to destination unknown. Morphology’s third album continues their intensive deep-space exploration at the intersection of electronic/electro music and scientific discovery. Awash in the beautiful sounds of hardware-derived music direct from Morphology’s command center, the album takes listeners into their skilfully crafted universe. Each track is a new world in itself of crisp beats, deep basslines and melancholic melodies. Interspersing the frenetic pace of hyper-speed travel with ethereal landings, ‘Traveller’ is an intergalactic trip without taking off your headphones.
Șerb – A12 Proceedings [NDWAXLP01]
Night Defined Recordings presents its first full-length album so far: Șerb’s „A12 Proceedings“. A record made in sparse moments while living between the crooked walls of an old apartment building in Bucharest.
Harmonious Thelonious – Background Noise [KM051]
Harmonious Thelonious returns to the Kontra-Musik family with an absolute gem of a record. This is everything we want dance music to be: characterful, playful and impossibly funky. Harmonious Thelonious is a master of crafting organic sounding rhythms but arranging them in a manner that reminds one of a 1970’s car factory. Primal pulses running through modern assembly lines, gears and pistons covered in green lianas. The result is a perfect symbiosis between living tissue and mechanical parts – dance music for primitive cyborgs.
The Hipodrome Of Music 