Justin Van Der Volgen’s My Rules label is back with its second release of 2016: the Lee Douglas edit of Soulful Dynamics – Jungle People. Given the nod and approved by the band, this is the version you’ve heard and been looking for over the last few years. Now finally seeing a proper release after many requests. Douglas takes the original, teases out the arrangement and turns the psychedelic knob to 100.
Hailing from Mexico, Zombies In Miami are debuting on Bordello A Parigi with a pair of late night burners. ‘Turquoise’ is a sliding snaking piece of synthesizer sorcery. Crisp beats are draped in hazy harmonies, reverb soaked bars rising amongst soaring keys and echoed vocals for a work of true elation. ‘Hipodromo’ follows, and starts as it means to go out. Drums crash before a floor melting synthline is dropped. The swirl of the mirrorball takes over as this duo whisk you into the warm and melting sounds of strings, rich bass and climbing claps.
Following hot on the heels of Tadd Mullinix’s ‘Skein’ – Bopside’s second album release for 2016 comes from label owner Tadd Mullinix’s dancefloor destroying nom de plume who needs little introduction: JTC An 8 track concise body of work perfectly calibrated for DJ use and home listening alike, where the beats hit hard and the melodies linger in your brain. The self-titled LP starts with ‘Caskadia’ – a call to arms for dancers with call and response synth lines and broken beats. ‘Atmospheres Pt.2’ takes things out into deep space, and ‘Nexus Ship Core’ is an acid drenched burner with glacial synths. ‘Infoline’ then makes it’s first appearance in a remixed guise by Rephlex alumni Ed DMX, then closing out the album with its recognisable lead line in its original form. Things take a deeper turn with ‘Dusselmorph’ before the full on breakbeat assault of ‘Blitz Puff (High Position Mix) takes things up a gear, then dropping you off safe and sound, though a little shaken with ‘Atmospheres pt.5 (Hemi Mix).
Noleian Reusse (half of Africans with Mainframes) and Thomas Cox (one third of Pittsburgh Track Authority) got together in the studio in Pittsburgh during a week of extreme social unrest in the USA in late 2015, resulting in these recordings. The tracks are crafted with a stripped back electronic funk and a stark, relentless feel that reflects the energy in the air at the time.
MERC welcomes Mark Seven as guest editor on E-Versions 7. It took a long time, a lot of telephone conversations, a lot of pleading, digging, sweat and tears to simply find out what Tony’s Slice was after hearing it on Mark’s Parkway Mastermix. Turns out its MKVIIs attempt at recreating a live mix by Tony Humphries he heard on Kiss cutting 2 copies of the phone conversation back and forward forever. With EV#7 looming we knew this would be a perfect opportunity to have a guest on the series, so we persisted and broke him down and he finally gave in to the pressure.
In addition to Tony’s Slice, MKVII has turned in a superb acid work out in the form of Case Study #9.
David Vunk’s Moustache records is back with the New “Moustache X” featuring on A1: Alessandro Adriani – Death Move 1# acid new wave techno rocking hard, A2: ENDFEST – Seutek Boogie Boy (A tribute to Cor Vaandrager) west coast electro pure analogue a true hardware story, B1: Unit Black Flight – Shortwave Radio Antenna Down (Antoni Maiovvi Remix) Love on first sight discovered while playing Magic waves dj set Hassan style B2: D’Evoe – Need U. Chicago franky K. arpeggio 1993 style with twin peaks kinda beautiful strings.
Next up for the brand new DKMNTL UFO series is Rohan Walder aka Randomer. The Londoner graces our new platform with his signature sound that blurs the lines between big boned.
02AM is an 4 track EP by the young producer Hekkla from Eindhoven. The first track is ‘Sunset Strip’, a slowly build house track that moves like the last waves of heat at the end of a hot summers day, walking home feeling satisfied, all ready for the night. ‘Saturday Morning Sentimentality’ is a hard to pinpoint track that sounds like the bastard son of a trio between the melancholic side of Cyndi Lauper, Alphaville and the echoes of a cheesy saturday morning cartoon theme song from the late 80’s. On the other side ‘Memories of Tau Ceti’ feels like tumbling into space with only the memories left of a good time on an alien world, accelerating faster and faster but still enjoying it, even though you know that the vacuum of space will eventually kill you. Finishing with the hardest track ‘No Math’, because, boys and girls, it’s no math.
Green Village presents Village Elders 001, a compilation EP featuring new material from artists who have already flown the flag for GV. The A-side is held down by the Plan B duo of DJ Spider and Dakini9, purveyors of the Metro Area’s dirtiest and deepest house sounds. Spider gets toxic a second time, following his 2013 Instruction drop with ‘Toxic Trace 2’, a thickly layered deep house cut whose seedy percussion underbelly contrasts vividly with the more traditional deep house pads that accompany it. Dakini9’s ‘Lost Paradise’ is dark and mysterious like its title, the hats, trumpets, and vocals emerging in tangled webs of dub effects, a strong follow-up to her dope EP for the label. Disaroen, a duo from Toronto, half of which previously appeared on GV, turns in the most barren of the four tracks, ‘Serious Doorman’, heads-down techno that crackles to life halfway in and an auspicious debut for a promising new group. Last is Nicuri, a rising star whose ‘Ripples of Time’ closes the EP in his signature searching, melodic style.
DJ Qu returns with his sophomore album ‘Conjure’ out on Strength Music Recordings. Five years on from the release of his debut album, Gymnastics, Ramon Lisandro Quezada finally serves up a follow-up. ‘Conjure’ is a fine set that neatly showcases the varied sides of the prolific deep house producer’s output. So, we get Iberican tribal drums fused with hazy trumpet solos (“Feed Off Of”), dreamy ambience (“Candlelit”), groovy downtempo beats (the hip-hop influenced “Supafly”), sumptuous and sensual dancefloor deepness (“Lotus (In Memory Of)”), and dark, intense, occasionally dubbed-out late night business (“Whistle Song”, “Visitation”, the stripped-back hip-house of “Toc”). There’s little in the way of filler or fluff, and plenty of playable, club-ready material.
London trio Decius are back with the “Rupture Boutique EP”. Three tracks of sleazy/acid/sex music.
Killer old school analogue hardware jacking acid tracks by Perseus Traxx. Expect those raw bunker/acid planet vibes on this new Barba release.
From the jagged electro tinged ‘Seattle City Light’, through the drifting hazy levels of ‘Blacked’ and ‘Pisces’ to the kicked back paradise of ‘Untitled Monday’, Rudolf C serves up a masterclass in blissed out backyard house.
Dog in the Night staple Robert Crash gets back at it with a new EP of house madness. The Italian producer once again shows us why he’s the boss, clocking in with another four tracks of acid fueled beaters. Off kilter beat tracks that are sure to get the tweakers in a frenzy, this is what house is and should be.
Burbling basslines. Hissing hi-hats. Snapping snares. Soulful synths. Streams of machine currents meander and merge in The Red Hour, Mark Du Mosch’s debut EP for Pinkman. Four cuts of compelling and complex electronics, each track offering a different side of Du Mosch’s sound. Textured techno from the margins.
Following his acclaimed North Bend album of 2015, Chris Roman, known as 214, is back on Shipwrec with the third in their series of single sided odysseys. A haze of bass descends for “I See What You Did There”, a clipped drizzle of percussion falls before thick acid bars tremble into position. Echoes, reverb and decay merge, groan and bend as the preconceptions of ambient, electro and techno are pulled apart. In one breath dense and complex, the next grooving and future funk dipped. An epic example of 214’s talent. Single sided 12″ with a silkscreen printed B side.
Giallo Disco dark overlord Antoni Maiovvi delivers a sprawling italo beast that will conquer all your inhibitions. On the flip, Lucas Savidis of the Rattler Proxy delivers a remix reminiscent of Badalamenti on acid.
The Hipodrome Of Music 