ASOK – Better Deat Than Alien [MOS025]

ASOK - Better Dead Than Alien

M>O>S Recordings kick off 2019 with a new EP from the Liverpool artist ASOK. With one foot on the dance floor and a mind lost somewhere in the cosmos, ASOK again combines breakbeats, astral synth work and prickly percussion into fresh new forms here. The title track is a twitchy and futuristic bit of house with glistening and distorted textures, Find A Way has a rubbery bassline and old school rave breaks, and Many Locations is a bumping bit of deep Detroit house with a real sense of serenity. Closer Baal ends in the heavens, with celestial ambiance, spinning hi hats and broken beats all sounding delicate yet dynamic as rasping bass ties everything together. This is another timeless and adventurous EP from ASOK.

listen

ASOK – Better Deat Than Alien [MOS025]

ASOK – Inner Circle [MORK013]

Stu Robinson aka ASOK returns with a quick fire reply via Lobster Theremin sub-label Mörk. Applying a similar template of contradictory elements, cobbled into a melded, half-melted mass of aquatic techno, proto-rave and depth-charged deep house, Inner Circle is the transformation complete. A step into the unknown without a shadow of doubt.

listen

ASOK – Inner Circle [MORK013]

ASOK – Virtual Light [LT030]

ASOK joins the Lobster fam proper, blasting down from the icy territories and bringing the cold winds of UK rave of yore to the front of the queue. “Universe 3” is a glistening, glacially slow-moving ambient piece that shimmers and folds through the spectrum, with small sparkles and hints of twinkling optimism peppered into it’s spacial framework. “Track Four” is a crunchy, scourged techno drum heater that bangs the drum of enchantment whilst raising the spirits of long-long civilisations through spiritual pads and alien synth work. Title track “Virtual Light” kicks off the flip. Built around a core of stolid deep house, but drawing on a solid template of NY house and central German deepness. Proper hazy, aquatic vibes into the dark depths. Lastly, and easily the artist and label fave, “I Mean You No Harm” arrives as a subtle reminder of the simplicity needed to conjure the heaviest moments. Essentially an enormous hardcore number just minus any form of breaks and stripped to the core. Nagging sirens and pitched wails sound off into the night air.

listen

ASOK – Virtual Light [LT030]

ASOK – A Mind Forever Voyaging [CRLP13]

Liverpool artist Stu Robinson aka ASOK steps up to Creme Organization with a debut full length offering, A Mind Forever Voyaging, featuring ten tracks of macho yet melodic, tender yet tense analogue house and techno. Something of a late starter, Robinson has fomented his own mystical, nostalgic, inventive analogue sound that makes you jack, as well as conjuring real emotions with his great knack for melody. This album was recorded live then edited down. “So if something doesn’t sound good it either stays in or I re-record the whole thing,” says Robinson, who used things like Maschine, tb303, analog RYTM, JX-8P, Microkorg, some plugins and “a shit load of old rave samples” to create his debut full length. All written at home over a period of a year or so, it proves the artist has plenty of ideas and more than enough skills to carry them off. All unified by a sense of emotion and kinked dance floor groove that has been picked up over the course of 25 years of living and breathing many different forms of dance music, it is an accomplished debut.

listen

ASOK – A Mind Forever Voyaging [CRLP13]

ASOK – Future Wars EP [MOSDEEP024]

ASOK - Future Wars EP

After EPs on M>O>S Recordings and his own well formed Scenery label, Liverpool producer Stu Robinson aka ASOK now steps up with a solo release on M>O>S Deep. With an analogue sound full of nostalgia, emotion and subtle shades Chicago, he perfect fits on this most considered underground label.

listen

ASOK – Future Wars EP [MOSDEEP024]

Asok / Baldo – The Guide EP [GRM006]

ASOK – aka Liverpool-based producer Stu Robinson – pops up on Good Ratio Music with two more far-sighted and fuzzy sci-fi-tinged jams. There’s a delicious shuffle to “The Fifth Book” – all bubbling Motor City electronics and foreboding chords – while “Probability Drive” joins the dots between vintage techno and sparse, otherworldly deep house. Flip for two tracks from Barcelona-based Good Ratio regular Baldo, who impresses with the fizzing analogue rhythms, chords and subtle acid of “Axel Nebulae”. His other contribution, “Seventh Dimension”, comes on like the soundtrack to a drunken late night jog through desolate, post-industrial landscapes.

listen

Asok / Baldo – The Guide EP [GRM006]

ASOK – Hunter EP [SCN006]

Scenery label boss ASOK steps up with the next release, and that it comes with a remix from Dutchman Boris Bunnik in his Versalife guise is the icing on the cake. This is heady and original dance music from Scenery that continues the motion that has been set with the first few releases.

listen

ASOK – Hunter EP [SCN006]

ASOK – Poltergeist [MOSDEEP018]

ASOK - Poltergeist

Asok is the man behind burgeoning house and techno label Scenery Records, and has released on Deep Space Orchestras Use of Weapons and, though he has firm roots in d&b, has proven himself adept at crafting raw analogue jams that fuse house and techno together the jacking way.

listen

ASOK – Poltergeist [MOSDEEP018]