Function / Vatican Shadow – Games Have Rules [HOS425]

Here’s something to excite those of an experimental techno bent: a collaborative set from veteran producer Function and drone/industrial sort Vatican Shadow. Given the qualities’ of both producers, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Games Have Rules is rather good. Like any good collaboration, it tempers the more outlandish aspects of each producer’s work, delivering a set bristling with icy textures, bittersweet ambience, dreamy atmospherics and, perhaps most pleasing of all, sprawling techno (see the brilliant “Bejewelled Body”). Highlights are naturally plentiful, from the crystalline mood of “A Year Has Passed” (reminiscent of Selected Ambient Works era Aphex Twin) to the murky textures and spooky electronics of “The Nemesis Flower”.

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Function / Vatican Shadow – Games Have Rules [HOS425]

Richard H Kirk – Never Lose Your Shadow [MW055]

Cabaret Voltaire member Richard H. Kirk with an experimental electronic release including the great dancefloor track ”Never Lose Your Shadow.” On the EP, there’s tracks originally recorded between 1978 and 1987, which have never before been released on vinyl. The title track, Never Lose Your Shadow blurs the lines between harsh industrial, dance floor, and no wave. The other three tracks are more experimental and reference ideas Kirk was exploring in Cabaret Voltaire at the time.

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Richard H Kirk – Never Lose Your Shadow [MW055]

Russo – Wild Metals [VV013]

Deeper and advanced electronix on Valcrond Video, the label run by sound and image artist Luke Wyatt (Torn Hawk). Ari Russo is an NYC based multi-artist whose engagement with abandoned media finds an outlet in the video bursts he culls as OfficeFern. As a programmer, he’s produced innovative music generation tools such as the Diamond Arpeggiator. He returns to his own music with this collection of challenging and transporting structures

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Russo – Wild Metals [VV013]

Richard H Kirk – The Many Dimensions Of Richard H Kirk [DS110]

This collection of recordings by Richard H Kirk is now released as a 3xCD box set by Die Stadt,in association with and under license from Intone.The box set contains the three albums for the first time on CD. CD 1-Richard H kirk-Reality is Opposite (guitars, breakbeats, electronics and digital interference in the sound of insurrection.) Cd 2- Orchestra Terrestrial-Umladen(classical analogue mood music) Cd 3-Richard H Kirk and the Arpeggio 13-Anonymized (minimalist analogue arpeggio workouts). All three albums were recorded between October 2010 and December 2011 as cities around the world were in turmoil. Richard H Kirk is a co founder and now sole member of electronic music pioneers Cabaret Voltaire and last year celebrated 40 years as an audio/visual artist.

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Richard H Kirk – The Many Dimensions Of Richard H Kirk [DS110]

Actress – Xoul [WDNT012]

Outta nowhere Actress projects four mystic visions inna black label style. It’s some of his sweetest, darkest, psychoactive gear, flitting from the electronic gremlins and piquant melancholy of ‘Xoul’ to its inverse image, ‘Xoul Dark Chamber’ and the contemplative, effervescent keys of ‘Xoul Particles’, which sees the introduction of some haunting digital synth strokes that also colour the slanted swagger and reverse loops of the EP’s most beguiling piece, ‘Pharoah Moon Rising’.

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Actress – Xoul [WDNT012]

Campbell Irvine – Removal of the Six Armed Goddess EP [INF013]

Infrastructure presents the debut record from Campbell Irvine, the 23 year-old outsider talent who hails from Australia and has recently re-located to Berlin. Part industrial mantra, part musique concrète, this immersive and captivating debut continues Infrastructure’s re-launch, bringing genuine new talent to the table.

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Campbell Irvine – Removal of the Six Armed Goddess EP [INF013]

Severed Heads – City Slab Horror [MR035]

Their most varied, interesting work, City Slab Horror includes stark synthesizer workouts, several tracks of pure rhythm and noise, and, thankfully, little of the unambitious tape music for its own sake of Since the Accident. “Cyflea, Rated R,” “4.W.D.,” and the title track provide several examples of the best experimental synthesizer tracks of the mid-’80s.

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Severed Heads – City Slab Horror [MR035]

Metasplice – Vertia / Tiled Eighths [DOSER023]

This weighty double sider on Morphine delves into the paranoid / submarine dwelling / meta-hacker / soundtrack territory they are often known to enter when performing live. Vertia snakes like a virus. Tiled Eigths is pure fever.

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Metasplice – Vertia / Tiled Eighths [DOSER023]

Morgan Buckley – Shout Out To All The Weirdos In Rathmines [RHD-016BUCKLEY]

Word to the weirdos. Morgan Buckley’s vinyl debut with so many ideas and so much energy it’s almost hard to take it all on board in one listen. The sound of a man soaking it up and pouring it out.12″ comes with insert and a touch of ★magic☆.

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Morgan Buckley – Shout Out To All The Weirdos In Rathmines [RHD-016BUCKLEY]

Inigo Kennedy – Vaudeville [TOKEN043]

This fourth album from British techno veteran Inigo Kennedy – his first since 2010’s decidedly ambient September Pieces – has something of a “catch-all” feel. You see, Vaudeville refuses to stick to one sound, style or groove, instead referencing the many styles of techno and experimental electronic music that have inspired the popular producer over the course of his 18-year career. So, there are murky, IDM-inspired techno floorfillers (the melodious but faintly foreboding “Requiem”), early British psychedelic techno (“Plaintive”), dense, darkroom grooves (“Vallecula”), classic Yorkshire bleep and bass (“Petrichor”), Kompakt-ish organic techno (“Winter”), and spooky, droning ambience (“Narrative”).

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Inigo Kennedy – Vaudeville [TOKEN043]

Gunnar Haslam – Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom [MSNTEN001]

Gunnar Haslam is a long-time regular at The Mister. By day he’s a scholar of particle physics and signal processing, and by night he makes very heady music, some of which has made its way onto our very first ten-inch release.

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Gunnar Haslam – Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom [MSNTEN001]

Weber – Eins [HOLGER004]

Philipp Weber is a musician living and working in Leipzig, Germany. His main focus when creating music is to capture the moment by using all kinds of instruments in a playful and intuitive way, experimenting with rhythms, sounds and melodies.

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Weber – Eins [HOLGER004]

Abdulla Rashim – Unanimity [NE010]

Defeating apathy by creating his own world, Abdulla Rashims music thinks before it speaks. Untangled energy and drive breathes life into the rigid rhythmic structures, where the wild, almost primal, core illuminates the heartfelt and soulful layers within in his music. This musical contradiction between thought and letting go, acts as the base foundation in Abdulla Rashim’s music. As a celebration and as a aural development, Abdulla Rashim releases his ‘Unanimity’ LP on Northern Electronics.

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Abdulla Rashim – Unanimity [NE010]

Sons Of Melancholia – Beauty Is Imperfection [20DIAM]

A new artist in the Diametric roster is delivering his debut album as Sons of Melancholia. Being a long time contributing artist in the techno scene, David Nizet, better known as Ozka, has put his heart and soul into this album. It is an album of sheer beauty and pure emotions and will enchant you with its honesty and rawness in places. The music is a mixture of harsh metallic percussive elements, abrasive sounds and breathtaking moody strings and pads. The clash of these elements makes this album so special and we at diametric. HQ believe that this will indeed become a classic electronic music album. For fans of early Autechre and 90s IDM music such as Beaumont Hannant, Stasis, Likemind and B12 but also with a nod to nowadays artists such as Vatican Shadow for example.

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Sons Of Melancholia – Beauty Is Imperfection [20DIAM]

Ron Morelli – Periscope Blues [HOS405]

The LIES bossman delivers the third chapter in his ongoing series of electronic concoctions for Vatican Shadow’s ever-brooding Hospital Productions. Whereas Spit was an LP which wasn’t sure whether it stood in the techno realm or the noise pool, Periscope Blues is firmly grounded in Morelli’s most experimental frame of mind. It feels like a continuation of one concept over 30 minutes, a testament to his obvious passion for beatless, chest-pounding hardware experimentation. Comprised of eight tracks, Periscope Blues is the culmination of a mission gone wrong. Music for the stranded, the lost, those backed into a corner with nowhere to go, or maybe a reflection of sad individuals panicking on a tropical vacation gone awry. Somber yet very tense drifting off radar machine electronics that feel like a blistering sun beating down on decaying beach remains as time crawls on. That or the equivalent to working the grill summers at Jones Beach and stealing from the register just to get a little more.

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Ron Morelli – Periscope Blues [HOS405]