After a fashionably long hiatus between drinks, Melbourne’s Animals Dancing returns with its third release, this time from Boroondara’s Tornado Wallace. Strap yourself in and feel the G’s.
experimental
Vincent – Fast Forward [MFM024]
Music From Memory return, this time with four tracks drawn from Virgil ‘Vincent’ Work Jnr’s little-known cassette only debut from 1987. This album reflects a more stripped back and raw musical approach from the St. Louis musician. The ‘Fast Forward’ sessions grew out of a series of late night jams with Vincent’s brother Scott who was then living in Kansas. With nothing planned in advance and no written music involved in the final recording sessions, the songs that would form ‘Fast Forward’ very much evolved out of improvisation. As Virgil himself explains, the title of the album in fact came about because it felt “as if I had fast forwarded to a different sound”. Although the album received a good response from local radio DJs and music magazines, the album sadly never gained enough momentum or demand for a further run of copies. Fast forward to 2017, exactly thirty years are their production, and Music From Memory are delighted to be able to finally make Vincent’s music commercially available again.
DMX Krew – Strange Directions [HYPELP009]
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.
Villa Åbo – Straight Forward Acid & Low Bit Swing [BORFT150]
“Feeling numb from all the electronic dancemusic coming out?, moaning about how its become a bit samey, or are you just tired of your shitster friends saying its not like in the 90’s anymore. This record will shut everyone in the room up. A1 is a deeply psychotic acid death march into confusion, so minimal and primitive (kick, snare, acidsquelch) it will challenge every beard and armpit and might even hypnotize the dj to the point he cannot mix in the next one. A2 is a straight up Commodore 64 SID track with mongoloid data elephants tooting over a wobbly and tarded electroish beat. B1 is a dystopic dreamy rave stomper, starting out kinda datacuddly but gets more and more serious, with choirs of fable mooers taking you into that virtual bad trip you need. b2 continues as expected with more c64 SID madness, so snary I cant even determine if its in 115 or 230bpm. But it leaves you with the feeling your ears and mind just been wrestled, smacked and poked at, and thats the point. This is no record for the safing chickenshit DJ.”
Señora – El Barrio “La Plata” [LURID009]
Senora are Dani & Diego from Barcelona. Their debut release features two ayahuasca journeys into sound plus a remix from island god Black Merlin.
Warp Factor 9 – The Atmospherian [ESP056]
Warp Factor 9 is a one-off project by John and Russell Kilby of esoteric post-rock bands The Crystal Set and Bhagavad Guitars respectively. The Atmospherian originally appeared on their self-released 1993 album Five Days In A Photon Belt. Carpentaria made an edit of the track linearly and replayed certain elements from scratch along with some re-recorded vocals from John. During this process, Tamas and Paul generated elements that would subsequently be used for a remix by fellow Aussie producer and prodigy Tornado Wallace.
Harmonious Thelonious – Abel [VER117]
Stefan Schwander aka Harmonious Thelonious is definitely not a newcomer. He has been around for a long time and has already released lots of amazingly varied music on labels such as Emotional Response, Italic, Meakusma and Diskant. He’s also an integral part of the infamous Duesseldorf / Salon Des Amateurs axis that is an obvious hotbed of talent. He describes his style as “American minimalism vs. African drumming vs. European sequencing”, a heady mixture which is clearly evident on this EP though with a definite Middle Eastern twist. Here at Versatile HQ we were introduced to this clutch of tracks by one of the members of Acid Arab and we were totally blown away. Stefan has a very unique production style, fusing all of the above elements with a hint of Gamelan, a dash of tweaked FM synthesis type sounds with a dose of warm ambience and finally his own singular touch on the mix. We are very happy to present you these 4 tracks to you, an essential EP from one of European music’s true originals.
RA.586 Zadig
Shamnos – YO 2TH [YO2TH]
The 2nd release on Youth comes from London artist Shamos. He comes with a heavy 4 tracker bringing the punkier dregs of new wave, dreamy abstract house and tripped out hardware jams, on limited red vinyl.
Khidja – XLR8R Mix August 2017
Identified Patient – Digital Tsunami 131
Nick Klein live @ Macao (Milano) 08.07.2017
Retrograde Youth – Phormix Podcast #91
Parrish Smith – Genesis Black [KHD001] [FREE DOWNLOAD]
In the second part of the Unlocking Sounds collaboration between the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s RE:VIVE initiative, the Research Center for Material Culture and Amsterdam’s Tropenmuseum, Dutch producer Parrish Smith digs through the Tropenmuseum’s ethnographic music archive and reads between the lines of ethnomusicology to confront the Netherlands’ colonial past. Assisted by the writings of Surinamese slave resistance writer Anton de Kom, Smith delivers a gripping social commentary entitled GENESIS BLACK.
Indoor Plants – Udacha 15 [UDACHA015]
Udacha just gets better and better with every release, branching out into ever more exciting shapes and styles beyond their house and techno foundations. On this album from Vyacheslav Shutov aka Indoor Plants, wild fourth world visions collide with hardware processes in a dazzling display of transcendental music for those who like their thought-provoking tunes to pack a punch. The likes of “Targitaus” deconstruct club music conventions in a quest for new rhythmic purpose, and yet the soundsystem pressure is expertly sculpted out of the daring shape of the music. Elsewhere there’s surrealism in abundance, as on the wonderfully weird “Hunch”, and that’s just scratching the surface of this truly essential LP.
Charles Manier – Luxus Steroid Abamita [BOP007]
Tadd Mullinix’s Charles Manier project returns with a third double-LP, Luxus Steroid Abamita, an edict of nine new amorphous transmissions and clustered, clangorous, hemi-synthetic funk. This is experimental machine music: it’s inspired by the fringes of dance, but skirts petrified arpeggios and other stock Wave and Technopop emblems. Its spirit elicits Sheffield Post-Punk and Düsseldorfer NDW desiderata, but exploits are crisp, psychedelic, and expansive. Lyrics come as laconic Dada, sociopolitical impressions—in counterpoint to concrète tape smears, echoing guitar deluges, and entrenched in ever-shifting grime. A wide spectrum of density is proffered. Atmospheric zones are submerged, modulating knells. When tempos increase, sample & hold mutations make synthesizers sputter and writhe. The title track and opus,“Yopo (Calcium Tree)” carry this with heavy pulses—storming like locomotives.
The Hands – The Hands EP [ESPHB001]
Freaked out crunchy psychedelic trips on ESP. label promo text:”Whilst on a Balinese surf safari searching for a secret spot where pink dolphins populate the line-up, The Hands would be my guide. I’d been warned he had recently been busted trying to purchase human flesh on the black market. Bombing through the jungle, The Hands hit play and the truck was bathed in Gothic Berlin toilet techno. ”Holy shit,” said I,“what is this?” The Hands said, “The Hands.” But what else was I to expect from an Austrian/Balinese techno cannibal? —DJ Harvey”
Porn Sword Tobacco – 2017 [ACIDO026]
Audiophile presentation of dreamy, dubby pulsating ambient beauties from Porn Sword Tobacco on Acido Records.
Serial Experiments – CS Podcast 251
Khidja – Microb [MT011]
Khidja are back on Malka Tuti and this combo cannot and will not dissappoint. They continue their current direction of leftfield-club music exploration, this time in the form of Microb, a track that is a wolrd of its own, fusioning heavy industrial vibes with their own take of “worldly music” to create this peak time dancefloor bonanza. On the flip side Salon Des Amateurs Tolouse Low Trax delievers two takes on the original track, stripped down and turned upside down, adding those Massive vocals. These takes are hypnotic as they are groovey and they complete a unique package for the modern dance floor explorers.
The Hipodrome Of Music 