This 12″ contains some true oddities. Frak is not known for doing remixes but here is one of the few that exists. A nice acid remix of Dave ID – Soul reprise. Also they did a special track to finish off the 2013 tours and here’s the splendid studio version of … phase.
Four parts in one Qaudrolio of a release. 7″ double pack release. Features customizable artwork from the man himself.
Continuing the current vogue for surprise albums issued with the minimum of fanfare we now have Teenage Tapes, a mini-LP from LIES artist Delroy Edwards consisting of production originating from his youth and more recent fare. Those expecting the grizzled ghetto house tools of Delroy’s output for Ron Morelli and his own LA Club Resources label will be disappointed, with this eight track release of untitled productions taking on more of an experimental note. Issued via The Death Of Rave label Teenage Tapes will appeal to fans of Minimal Wave, Diagonal or Gooiland Electro with the fare ranging from frazzled synth experiments to flexing primitive EBM brutalism and unsettling noise.
Ghettoville is the bleached out and black tinted conclusion of the Actress image. Where the demands of writing caught the artist slumped and reclined, devoid of any soul, acutely aware of the simulated prism that required breakout. Four albums in and the notes and compositions no longer contain decipherable language. The scripts now carry tears, the world has returned to a flattened state, and out through that window, the birds look back into the cage they once inhabited. Spitting flames behind a white wall of silence. The machines have turned to stone, data reads like an obituary to its user. A fix is no longer a release, it’s a brittle curse. Zero satisfaction, no teeth, pseudo artists running rampant, but the path continues.
Ron Morelli returns to stare down the ‘floor with four pieces written during the stress-busting sessions for ‘Spit’. The muggy, droning welt of ‘Public Consumption’ kicks off with the sound of New York techno shot from the hip, while ‘Another Hit’ vents a vintage era-Regis style built on skull-chipping snares and effluent acid modulation. The album’s writhing batacuda banger, ‘Crack Microbes’ reappears here as an extra-ferric extended Version, sustaining the hypnotic intensity for nine minutes of panic attack acid and febrile cowbells, while ‘’Rushing Again’ escorts us to a close with triplet techno shook down by railgun snares and a grotty synthline.
Hexagon Cloud RMXD 2.0“ celebrates even more of the diverse influences on Erika‘s debut solo release, the critically acclaimed „Hexagon Cloud“ 2xLP on Interdimensional Transmissions. Deep Space & Midwestern Underdog mixes by Donato Dozzy, Isreal Vines, Outer Space (Emeralds) & Patrick Russel.
… In a soft night of confusion the ape was born into his lion mother’s lair. As he grew older, he danced in countless circles around his father’s fallen empire. Spent by fires of ecstasy, the departed reptile king appeared in his sleep and told one love will show you how to fly, and he sang forget the world, ’cause no man will ever wake up from that insubstantial world of cycles…
Valcrond Video, the label of Brooklyn-based visual artist and producer Luke Wyatt presents it’s very first vinyl issue in the shape of two new tracks from Torn Hawk, one of Wyatt’s aliases. First coming to the fore in a musical sense with a set of distressed guitar and asphalt beat attacks on the LIES White Label series, Torn Hawk has been closely associated with Ron Morelli’s label ever since with Wyatt subsequently working with Karen Gwyer, Secret Circuit and Willie Burns. Distancing himself a bit from the grime and grit some associate with his productions, the two new tracks have more in common with the more expansively voiced compositions on Emotional Response release Teen Hawk, or the cinematic melancholy of the untitled EP he released under the alias Lossmaker. Clearly Wyatt is building towards housing all his musical instincts under one roof.
It’s been a busy couple of years for the producer behind the Shifted project. On top of an extremely well-received album for the Mote Evolver label, the producer has edged further out into the fringes of electronic music under a number of aliases, taking in noise/ambient variants as Covered In Sand, as well as more distorted, technofied productions under the Alexander Lewis moniker, a sound described by the Blackest Ever Black label as “S-M techno.” His new album as Shifted, Under a Single Banner, finds the producer converging these strands into a lucid re-imagining of techno, starting off from the toughened, purist templates honed down by the likes of Sandwell District and Marcel Dettmann, and stretching out into more textured, sometimes noisy, often introverted and melancholy signatures. It’s a perfect fit for Bed Of Nails, a label that’s given a platform for the more direct dancefloor mutations of Dominick Fernow’s own productions as Vatican Shadow, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, and Christian Cosmos, as well as familiar Hospital Productions affiliates such as Kris Lapke under the Bronze Age guise. There’s a rich and earthy warmth to Under a Single Banner that’s perhaps at odds with the puerile fixation on all things noisy at the fringes of techno these days, but for the most part, the tension and momentum keeps the album definitively aimed at the floor without ever resting on its laurels.
Positive Centre (Mike Jefford) brings his unique submerged electronics to Sigha’s label for 007 with his ‘An Assembly’ EP, fusing detailed sound design and acute attention to spatial sonics with a throbbing low end. This release is a departure from the label’s usual tempo but the palate remains the same. One for fans of deep, immersive techno or those who just want to get lost in the dark…
Madteo’s return to Morphine. Really expanding his electronic pallet for this one and going into some heady experimental realms. Insider continues down the distinct path the fast talking Queens resident Madteo took on last year’s Sahko long player with “The Hiding Hand Principle” a particular highlight. It’s a sparse, sinister affair, with a high pitched drone wailing just under distorted vocals lurking just out of earshot, and a crawling kick drum that seems to drag itself along the ground like a wounded animal.
Farah (formerly Darling Farah), joins Don’t Be Afraid for his first release of the year, and his first under the newly shortened pseudonym. The itinerant young producer adopts a uniquely non-conformist approach to house and techno on this EP, as evidenced by the arcade game-sampling Cloudy Apple and the deranged funk of Lockhead. Speak On The Spotlight meanwhile presents a deeper option, whilst Humming and Pieced Apart hint at Farah’s sound design credentials.
Juan Mendez goes solo for the third release on the Jealous God label. Classy Techno trip w/ dubbed out vintage synth feel.
Given his stated role as curator at the head of the ‘non-stop’ LIES, it makes perfect sense that Ron Morelli would look elsewhere to issue his debut album. Gravitating towards the Hospital Productions label run by Dominick ‘Vatican Shadow’ Fernow makes equal sense given their shared appreciation of noise, ambient and industrial music. Apparently the first of three planned releases on Hospital from Morelli, it’s no little surprise that Spit arrives with much expectation. Spend some time with the eight tracks that make up the LP and you’ll begin to understand why Morelli has used such words as pressure, monotony and stress to describe the motivating emotions behind Spit. The corrugated growl of “Modern Paranoia” and the broken metallic rhythms of “Crack Microbes” are considered highlights!
First surfacing with an impressive debut EP for the Horizontal Ground label, it makes perfect sense that Berlin-based Samuel Kerridge should then gravitate towards Downwards to further expand on his own brand of industrial techno. You get feeling that the knowing sense of humour apparent in many of the titles to Kerridge productions appeals to someone like Downwards label boss Karl O’Connor. After several EPs for Downwards, Kerridge unveils his debut album A Fallen Empire which comes brandishing “7 pieces of sonic warfare” that lodge the producer ever deeper into the crawlspace between jagged industrial techno and white noise laden experimental sounds. B side behemoth “Death Is Upon Us” is a morbid highlight.
James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas are getting crustier and more experimental with every passing year. Recur, their fourth full-length excursion, is decidedly fuzzy and discordant. Seemingly intent on pushing experimental electronics to its limits, the formerly Bristol-based duo serve up a challenging but rewarding set based almost entirely around half-rhythms, white noises, drones, feedback and hissing atmospherics. It’s spooky, intense stuff, all told, occasionally enlivened by sparse, pared-down concoctions that sound like a smacked out take on Autechre. But for all the bleak, out-there sounds, Recur is strangely involving, due in no small part to its immersive nature.
Recorded in Madrid and Rome during 2013, this is the new album by the influential electronic duo ranked as industrial music pioneers. Ultraphoon is a leap ahead as for production and sound quality, with a stunning and brutal outcome, richly detailed nonetheless. Rhythms, noises and processed voices from different sources come together in hypnotic –bordering on trance– soundscapes along the lines of previous releases such as Pulsión (2009) and Desarrollos Geométricos (2011). Most of the meticulous mastering process has been carried out by Francisco López, internationally renowned as one of the top sound art and experimental music personalities, giving a new twist to the usual Esplendor Geometrico sound.
Two years after his last full-length titled ‘Second Son’, which was out on Jamal Moss‘s Mathematics label, John Heckle has returned with his second album ‘Desolate Figures’ for Tabernacle Records. ‘Desolate Figures’ revolves around vintage-tinged Detroit techno, gritty Chicago house and experimental hybrids of the aforementioned genres, with the overall result sounding deliciously and uncompromisingly nasty. The album opens with a wonderfully warped slab of Detroitish techno in the form of ‘Blindman’s Bluff’, a track deeply rooted in spacey synth and string structures that gradually transforms into a superb dancefloor track. From that point on, Heckle continues to present his broad view on house and techno across a set of track that seem to stray away from pre-fabricated song patterns, instead drawing on more abstract and less rigid textures. This ethos gives the LP as a whole a very personal and organic touch, as if it were recorded in a single take while creativity and intuition were peaking. Tracks such as the emotive ‘Inhuman Nature’, ‘Something For Your Distorted Mind’, and the acid-driven, Legowelt-esque ‘Never With You’ are all examples of Heckle’s signature blend of flowing melodics and raspy rhythms, while the industrial and very minimal ‘Love-Lies’ and the nervously rattling ‘Crazy Metal’ add a dash of experimental flavors to the LP. Its diverse content and overall DIY-attitude turn ‘Desolate Figures’ in a somewhat unorthodox package, but if you don’t shy away from experimental house and techno (or if you’re just a fan of the Crème Organization and Tabernacle labels in general), then you simply can’t afford to miss out on this one.
Boris Bunnik has finished his third full-length album as Conforce. Entitled ‘Kinetic Image’, the ten-track album is the sound of Conforce producing without the dancefloor in mind. It’s the sound of him moving away from the past and into the present. The album has very much been designed to be heard in one sitting, as a complete experience that moves away from regimented 4/4 beats and into slower, more surreptitious tempos. The result is an all consuming sonic journey of intriguing and inspiring sounds that range from full on cerebral excursions into vast open spaces that throb invitingly (Scientific Trajectory) to underwater daydreams that suspend you deep in an ocean as various mycobacterial details float by. There’s also more industrial sounding fair that depicts a desolate warehouse in perennial decay (Semantic Field) and mysterious echo chambers that spread out all around you as celestial light beams and haunting melodic ripples gently float by as per the excellent Temporary Reversals.
The Hipodrome Of Music 