As we always do at the end of a year, we take the chance to thank you, our readers, for your continuous support and we also have a look at what you enjoyed the most on hipodrome. This is a summary of the top 3 albums, compilations and recordings that you liked the most this year. I’m really happy and proud to see that we have very similar taste in music.
The 2022 edition of the Ombra Festival will start tomorrow in Barcelona, with a location change. The festival program was suppose to take place for the last time at UTOPÍA 126, but the new owners of the location canceled in September Ombra’s reservation. Probably this beautiful industrial relic will make space for something more modern and cost efficient construction.
The 2022 edition of the Ombra festival will take place from November 24 to 27 in Barcelona. Ombra is a project born from the hand of agency Ombra Agency and label Oraculo Records with the aim of creating a meeting place for lovers of analogue and avant-garde sounds that do not fit in the current cultural offer.
Mick Wills is no stranger to Frigio Records, the German Dj and producer has turned his hand to edits and remixes on previous releases and now arrives with his own 12” of edits for the volumen 4th of the label’s Ecdisis series. The source material for the two pieces on offer comes from Brazil’s Simbolo, a band formed in 1988 and still active with a career spanning more than thirty years, was a central player in South America’s EBM and Synth scene. MIck Wills has selected two tracks from the Brazilian’s back catalogue, the first being “Mind.” Industrial influences come immediately to the fore, complex drum patterns give way to a juddering groove in which guttural vocals depict a scene of hurt and pain. “Synchrono” occupies the flip. Taken from the 1995 album, In the Danger Zone, the original two minute piece is extended into a seven plus minute epic. Following on from “Mind”, “Synchrono” melts stuttering bass-lines and textured percussion with indecipherable lyrics counter-balancing heady strings. Two cuts of emotive and impacting electronics.
Always hot on the hard-as-steel plates and murky subterranean atmospheres, Public System turns in a haunted double package from the crypt. Spanning hi-octane indus bullets, half-baked mutant salvos and shadow-clad juicers from a host of reputed names and rabid underdogs, this new comp collates ruff’n’tuff joints from gritty techno don Container, genre-unbound explorer E-Saggila, Berlin’s electro arsonist Privacy, acid-spitting hydra DJ Loser x Penelopes Fiance, basement guerilla Yabboq Penuel alias Le Syndicat Electronique, neo-punk beat thrasher Crave, Yves Tumor collaborator and sine-wave crusher Anthem, expert circuit dissector Beau Wanzer, Liquid G as remixed by Mick Wills, Night Gaunt’s Lower Tar, occult machine funk preacher Maenad Veyl, DJ Chupacabras under new guise 110, soundwaves cross-pollinator DJ Richard, vibrant mood-scapist Gavilán Rayna Russom, as well as label boss Myn going ubiquitous with studio fellows Kluentah as Myntha, and NYC’s R Gamble under their Fade Accompli moniker. A much desirable feast of raw, unhinged, all-round spine-tingling jams for both inside and outside the club.
This is the first selection of recordings from Intergalactic FM Streaming Festival 2021, which took part at the end of May. This was is just a part of of the recordings that were run continuously for more than a week.
Scientific Dreamz Of U debuts on Pinkman’s Broken Dreams white label series. Merging elements of punk-tinged industrial and atmospheric mutant techno, Self Assembly Of Myriad Heterostructures spins the listener into a swarming vortex, where a blistering array of harsh tones oscillate between deteriorating vocals. On the flip, the record includes a remix by Pinkman favorite Mick Wills and a forward driving Dance Mix. Limited to 100 copies, for the true night-wanderers out there.
Ecdisis Vol 3 is fresh and ready to wreak some havoc. Up first is Vinilette’s rework of Flux of Pink Indians’ “Nothing Is Not Done.” A brood of beats, this rhythmic romp is inspired by the 1986 piece on Uncarved Block. Layers of kick drums, bongos and toms echo and judder as a cold line circles and closes ever tighter. Following we have the head honcho, Juanpablo with his extended edit of Mac Blackout’s “Do The Dance In Your Head”. The intro is given room, adopting a doom disco march, before the fearsome crash of strings. The lyrics, a lurid tale brimming with menace, are sweetened with twirling notes in this grisly stomper. The final attack sequence comes care of Mick Wills with his amazing cut of an unreleased track by Argentina’s great producer NGLY. Dark and looming this distortion streaked encounter will leave bodies and speaker cones raw.
December returns to Pinkman Broken Dreams with 4 hybrids of arranged chaos where rugged rhythms and breaks wrestle with dystopian melodies and occult vocals. A complete meltdown which viciously takes you into a delirious state. The future is near…
Includes a free download for a Mick Wills cut!
The highlights for us were Mick Wills, who opened the festival for us on Thursday, Solar, who we are really happy to finally hear live for the first time and the b2b between Intergalactic Gary & Pasiphae which marked the closing of festival for us on Monday. Another premiere for us was listening for the first time live the Romanian duo Khidja. They really rocked the place and the chilling rain made it even more memorable. Also Rabih Beaini‘s three hours ritualistic performance at sunset was one of the best performances from the festival.
One of the highlights of the festival was the IFM Boat Party with Identified Patient & Pasiphae, Intergalactic Gary. There is a special vibe on these boat parties and IFM one was one of the best so far. Unfortunately there are no recordings from this party, yet.
Essential supplies of lethal dancefloor munition on the first release on Artificial Horizon label. Opening up the compilation is Antoni Maiovvi’s android lullaby ‘The Wolf Void’ followed by the pulsating analog rhythms of Das Ding’s epic (almost) 9- minute synthetic trip ‘Insect Apocalypse’. On the flip, Itako carries forward the sinister momentum leaving us in a dark state of hypnosis with its spectral synth and acid lines. Last but by no means least, Timothy J. Fairplay closes off the release in classic Fairplay style with an FX laden soundtrack for dystopian dreams that ascends to ethereal heights.
The bandcamp includes a free download of a Mick Wills cut for M Track.
Dekmantel Selectors is now over, we are back to our usual life, or we are trying to, but the vibe of the festival is still buzzing through our vines. The turquoise waters of Tisno, the shade from the pine forest, the rocky coastline, the incredible sound of the cicadas that is worth of a representation in one of Rabih Beaini’s mesmerizing ritualistic performances, the music that was filling every space, will stay with us for days.