After years of silence, the ”Petit Enfant” series which focuses on all things synth pop is back. Europ Europ never sounded so rhythmic before, but their typical (post)-industrial style is also there of course, resulting in two tracks of weird post-industrial disco.
Tadd Mullinix returns to the lesser spotted Charles Manier avatar for the second album release on his Bopside label, and the first under this guise following releases for Nation and Ghostly. The resulting 11 track album is mostly new material with a lineage of inspiration that can be traced back decades, from box banging EBM club trax to spectral beatless excursions. Drawing influence from a variety of sources but still a cohesive, engaging listen – ‘American Manier ‘ is destined to become a future underground classic.
Journalist turned producer Chris Alexander is something of a hive-mind of information when it comes to obscure horror film music, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that his new album sounds like a pitch-perfect tribute to synthesizer-heavy, Italian “Giallo” soundtracks, and the horror-disco style perfected by John Carpenter. It’s made up of tracks Alexander wrote and released – usually via obscure, CD-R only labels – over the last decade. More importantly, Murder Music is actually rather good, with Alexander offering a perfect balance between clandestine synthesizer motifs, panicked beats, clanking industrial textures, hypnotic guitar lines, and chords that seem to creep up from behind.
At first sight, ‘100 EP’ is the most abrasive techno output of Portland duo ASSS. Alex Smith and Sean Sumler have crafted an excellent four-track assault of propulsive drum sounds filled with industrial textures. Across the frequencies of ‘101’ to ‘104’, dense dynamics and unpredictable manipulation of modules reflect their own spontaneous, improvisational style into a new highly destructive release.
Six synth/field recording/techno noise tracks by Ryan Huber. Recorded, mixed, mastered 2015 on a Tascam DP-03SD.
Minimal Wave sublabel Cititrax announce a full length album by artist Broken English Club. Oliver Ho (also known for his Raudive alias) expands upon the themes in his earlier output. Now though, he is presenting Broken English Club as the multifaceted project that it is. He fearlessly exposes a range of emotion through varying sound, texture and song structure. The result is a manifestation of his influences (post punk, noise, techno, grindcore) melded into his own unique vision and culminating in an album that sounds absolutely massive, both on and off the dance floor.
Dead-Cert label have unearthed and reissued this curious record from Mecanica Popular. Originally coming out of Madrid back in 1984 and now available for consumption by a new generation. Because of its relative obscurity it’s difficult to say whether this has been influential or not but these guys were certainly ahead of the curve in many ways and were absorbing influences from great sources, remoulding them into their own vision of electronic music. ‘¿Qué Sucede Con El Tiempo?’ is a diverse and vibrant collection of tracks.
A fusion between Maoupa Mazzocchetti, DJ Coquelin and PD Cloarec.Dark, guttural, noxious analogue filth and noise experiments here loosely held together with some kind of nod to the dancefloor.
Last year, Abdulla Rashim took time out to develop his alternative Lundin Oil project, delivering two EPs of in-your-face noise and industrial techno textures for Northern Electrics. Here, he switches back to his main creative name for a second Abdulla Rashim set that joins the dots between intense, beatless ambience and modular techno box jams. Despite the general bleakness of his sounds and method, A Shell of Speed is surprisingly picturesque and melodious in parts, with the brilliant “Crossing Qalandiya” delivering the kind of trippy, delay-laden electronic soundscapes that recall the halcyon days of IDM and ambient. Even so, it’s his more surging, rhythmically intense compositions – see “Red Pool” and “Ador Tracers” – that arguably stand out.
A Gathering Together is Ron Morelli’s second full-length for Hospital Productions: a ‘techno’ cacophony brought to its granular detail and reduced to its most elemental tonal depths. A cohesive fusion of surreal and feverish deja vu loops, brittle noise, fucked rhythms, scrap metal percussions, pro-one metal synths, and an injection of near-buried, Drano vocal samples, it’s a fearsome celebration of brokenness, of amplified surroundings. Stereo-shifting drones and driving rhythms that tell the stories of those now gone, more a soundtrack for a wake than 4/4 crafted for the dancefloor. There’s a naked anxiety at work that doesn’t turn away from loss, but runs with an excited melancholy that looks to a future that won’t exist. The boldness of the gestures are not to be confused with exuberance. With this effort Morelli has shown remarkable restraint and patience most notably highlighted on title track ‘A Gathering Together.’ An intense cut born from rapid-paced dead-end urban environments that force people together. It’s a calling to do more, include more, and celebrate the many forms within those inconspicuous places. Upon numerous listens, it’s clear the sound design is a reflection of heavy compositional themes that suggest a greater whole. This is hard, dirty techno–humid, reduced, bare bones, yet dense and dissolved to its electronic soil. Heavy without being oppressive, it is the culmination of many elements pulled from all spheres of modern electronics, eaten, digested, and spit back out.
Hailing from Brussels, Maoupa Mazzocchetti debuts on Mannequin Records with a killer 3 tracks proto electro / industrial single, anticipating his debut full length planned for the beginning of 2016. Deep, dark, stripped-down, Mazzocchetti’s tracks regurgitate the lesson of the 80s Belgian ebm/minimal synth legends in a new and fresh nervous musical urgency
Cosmin TRG’s Fizic label release its third EP, and a second missive for 2015. Once again it comes from the Romanian label owner and ever evolving producer, and this time features four more fierce cuts that take abstract inspiration from musique concrete or Ballard’s High Rise novel. Opener ‘Sever’ is an expertly stripped back bit of concrete basement funk with scurrying alien sounds, frosted lo-fi textures and firmly rooted, propulsive kick drums driving the whole thing along. It’s an absorbing affair full of distant menace, and then comes ‘Redus’, a hunched over, forceful dub track again riddled with abstract lifeforms, distorted radio frequencies and muffled sirens that all bristle and brim with sonic debris. ‘Sirena’ is once more built upon thudding, firm kicks but here synths howl and spray about like a UFO in a storm, a harmonic hook rocks back and forth and modulated lines add life and depth to the burrowing groove. Lastly, ‘Motoric’ goes arctic, with cavernous chambers of sound full of echo and reverb as kicks thump out a groove. It’s a fourth and final bit of physical music informed by the musical and visual noir undertones of Under the Skin, cementing a robust alliance between form and function. Music and artwork by Cosmin Nicolae Mastered by Matt Colton.
Elegies-in-waiting to the monotonous dread of exploitative labour, dosed with elliptical distortion, industrial noise and ear-crushing bass. Vexd veteran Roly Porter drops by with a sci-fi reinvention of Council Flat, trading in IFs mogadon footwork and megaton polyrhythms for a less apocalyptic, more introspective blend of modern classical, dark ambient and dirty stinking breakbeat.
Adam X is back with his third album release under his industrial guise, ADMX-71. Adam returns to the L.I.E.S. front with Coherent Abstractions, a brand new album of singular experiments that pull from every corner of electronic music’s landscape into a comprehensive and propulsive full-length. Coherent Abstractions pulsates with fractured rhythms, vacillating melodies and mesmerizing compositions that showcase Adam’s impressive history working in all aspects of the underbelly of electronic music. Noise and industrial elements seep into the album’s 11 songs, churning the cold and abrasive into feverish new territory. Though Coherent Abstractions operates primarily in sounds of solitude, guest vocalist Janina joins Bound and Broken for a rare vocal collaboration on an ADMX-71 track.
New Powell (Diagonal) single continues to blur the lines between contemporary club music, punk and forward-thinking computer acid. Describing the music is a challenging prospect, but dancing to it isnt.
Jamal Moss (aka I.B.M. – Insane Black Man) is a lost warrior of sonic truth. Digging through shoe boxes of cassettes, video tapes, and mini discs, we have collected the secret tapes of one Insane Black Man. This is an archive of the impetus of his genius, containing perhaps the holy grail of all Jamal Moss tunes The Land of Rape and Honey and Tribal Retribution. Artists on labels like LIES are still searching for these originals. We have taken them from their dusty and damaged condition and painfully & meticulously restored them. Now we can present these fragile raw and pure visions with the greatest level of quality. Finally the full impact of these ideas can be felt.
The Hipodrome Of Music 