Be As One welcomes Valent as their new exclusive signing to the imprint. The German producer debuts on the label with this 4 storming acid tracks EP, acid meets techno again on the Be As One catalogue.
techno
Marcel Fengler – Kyu EP [IMF007]
Strength lies in calmness – and vice versa. Marcel Fengler returns on IMF and offers three new inspirited musical pieces that protrude from the club context just as well as cater for your home stereo, picking up on the diverse musical moods defined by his debut album Fokus (Ostgut Ton, 2013) while concentrating on intertwining sound aesthetics.
Africans With Mainframes – Faces of Africa [MATH090]
Noleian Reusse and Jamal Moss team up again as Africans With Mainframes for ”Faces Of Africa EP”. Think early Ibadan or Smile records B-sides of murky excursions in Tribal and Techno.
Faces of Drums – Popping Off [MATH089]
Returning for another spastic floor beating with jack tracks and Gherkin acid experiments from Steve Poindexter and Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being, this 3rd Faces of Drums EP on Mathematics does not disappoint.
John Heckle – Tributes To A Sun God [BDN010]
John Heckle is remarkably prolific, but still manages to maintain an impressively high quality threshold. On Tributes To A Sun God, he’s in a remarkably melodious mood. While opener “Alexandria” comes blessed with his usual tough analogue beats – not to mention the hissing cymbals of Detroit techno – its’ most endearing features are the drowsy pads and undulating melody lines. A similar approach can be found on the more acid-centric “Mesopatamia”, which pops and spits with dancefloor intent. A fine package is completed by handclap-heavy drum workout “Track 4”, and the Ambient House era electronics and sparse drum hits of “Track 2”.
Frak – UH006 [UH006]
Since 1987, Frak have been everyone’s favourite, premier Swedish synthesizer-touching weirdos. Even if most people hadn’t heard of them until 4 years ago. And yet, world of Frak is as long as it is wide. As blue as it is black. As ominous as it is glorious. As dirty as it is hairdryer. Sweet it is as yellow paper As. All of the above is a perfect example of how trying to convey what Frak is in the crass form of words is ultimately fruitless. Here is a double 12” vinyl product from Ultimate Hits featuring eight audio recordings from Frak: three men who have known each other since at least 1987. The sleeve was lovingly hand screen-printed at the studio of House of Traps, and features the colours commonly known as pink and black.
Cliff Lothar – All It Takes [TURBO179]
Cliff has clearly been smoking something special. “All It Takes” is one of his richest efforts to date, and that’s saying a lot coming off a consistent roll of terrific releases. A-side “Devotion” answers the EP title’s question with a masterclass in heavyweight groove-building. It’s an instant cult anthem, gritty but buttery compression, warm, wet bass, driven forward by stoner-friendly organ solos and the vocal call. It’s a perfect afterhours gear-shifter, squelching with the sweat of one hundred thousand hours of studio jamming and countless seasons of acid. “100 Dollars” is wiggly pork bun of a beat, our old friend Roland never sounding fatter or more luxurious. The only question here is whether this super-kush urban house bomb is more well paired with a low-slung indica driving in an elite automobile, or a punchy sativa dancing in a world-exclusive night club. “Big Brother” is a paranoid romp through the dark corridors of your dance-algorithm, a wonky, dissociative funk experience for heavy heads trying to unlock their own brainwashed brain and seriously dance. Rounding things off is “Xenit”, a relatively placid, deep, trancey trip that transports you 8 hours in to an amazing party, when you’re loose and well oiled with positive feelings.
Borusiade – Feelings Of Entropy EP [COR044]
Romanian born, and Berlin Based, Borusiade (aka Miruna Boruzescu) makes her Correspondant debut in dazzlingly bleak fashion. Over a four track EP the artist manages to channel a wealth of disparate sounds, referencing Giallo disco, New Wave longing and Pitched-down ghetto techno amongst other dark and otherworldly tropes. All of the music on offer here possesses a slow and dark drive that purposes it for the dance floor, but also contain such a wealth of loss despair, and a perverse pathos that elevates them from simple dance music and move them in to a more artistic realm.
Seixlack – Bed Bug Bites EP [XK004]
Hot off the back of his debut LP for Delroy Edwards’ LA Club Resource as alter-ego Innyster, Seixlack serves up an EP of trademark, super raw, machine funk. Spanning the full gambit of dredged up acid, synth stacked daydreams and straight up 4×4, the breadth of this EP showcases a real talent.
Amato – Le Desordre Et La Nuit [CITI020]
Michel Amato aka Amato is a French producer more widely known as The Hacker. Alongside Miss Kittin, Amato has been a cornerstone of the European house, techno, and electro scene, dropping singles and album like bombs. Having contributed to a previous split 12″ on Cititrax, Amato returns to Minimal Wave’s sister label with a wondrous homage to industrial, EBM and electro in Le Desordre De La Nuit. The difference between The Hacker and Amato? The sounds of The Hacker are more constrained than this particular whirlpool of pseudo electro and gargling quasi techno. Whatever you want to call it, these four slammers are all made for the dark room dance, each one nastier than the other and all of them audibly produced by an artist with plenty of experience and effectiveness know-how.
Ron Morelli – Dekmantel Podcast 079
Hipodrome Podcast 020 – Roxxete
The 20th podcast from the Hipodrome Series makes a premiere, is actually the first female dj that has a podcast on our site. Roxxete aka Roxana Zangar is a young dj from Cluj, but she is making a name for herself for quite some years already. Her style is very melodic, strongly rhythmic, with great attention to detail. With a strong curiosity for the spiritual side of music, she believes in sharing her feelings, moods and beliefs through sound.
Johannes Volk – Fanzine Podcast 041
Head Technician – Zones [E022LP]
Ecstatic label catch Martin Jenkins (Pye Corner Audio) in Head Technician garb for a slippery set of slow, plasmic acid workouts that were originally issued on a super-limited tape, and now sit heavy on wax. Over the years Jenkins has used the Head Technician alter ego as a sort of evil engineer Hyde analogous to his day-to-day Jekyll, a sort of hyperstitious studio partner in a time-honoured tradition of sleeve credits ghost chasing. Where Pye Corner Audio’s pieces may tend to be lustrous, optimistic, the Head Technician’s Zones LP hems to the shadows of the ‘floor with a furtive, noirish quality that works a treat in the right situations, whether soundtracking gaslamp-lit raves or midnight street patrols seeking out ne’erdowells and laudanum dealers.
Fired on a classic trinity of Roland TR-606 drum machine with an MC-202 (a beast to program, he admits) and TB-303 to sequence his baselines, it clearly makes explicit reference to the early days of Detroit techno and UK bleep ’n bass, but the vibe is more anachronistic, out-of-time, possibly thanks to his patented, lagging basslines and slowly unfolding arrangements, bridging that imaginary, dilated gap between fuzzy dancefloor head melt and curtains-drawn next day gouch out.
VA – #3 White LP [US012]
3 Year Compilation LP. There’s something undeniably old-fashioned about this latest missive from hyped imprint Nous Disques. By gathering together seven unheard tracks on one slab of wax, they recall thoughts of classic compilations from early techno labels. Musically, it’s undeniably forward thinking, gathering together a range of dancefloor-friendly cuts from label artists old and new. Highlights are plentiful, from the flexible disco bass and new age chords of Mutual Attraction’s “Track 2”, to the stripped-back, drum machine thump of Moodcut’s “Sleep In 808”, via the cybernetic techno fizz of “Azoui” by Fetnat. Elsewhere, you’ll also find some fine Larry Heard style deep house revivalism from Breakin Moves, and a mid-tempo blast of colourful synthesizer love by Cofaxx.
Echo 106 – Shifting Multiverse EP [AF004]
Analogical Force is introducing Echo 106 to the family. The Swiss duo serves up more hard-wired fare for those who like their dance music intense and rugged. Opener “Frontal DN-2” sets the tone, layering ragged acid lines, psychedelic electronics and creepy chords atop a crispy TR-808 rhythm. There’s more 303 abuse to be found on the more electro flavoured “Shifting Multiverse” and “Myrtle Acid”, with the latter arguably being the pick of the bunch. Naturally, the most banging contribution to the EP comes from remixer Ceephax Acid Crew, who turns “Myrtle Acid” into a trippy stomper.
Daniele Cosmo @ FemurClub, Specka (Madrid) 01.07.2016
214 – Fuel Cells [CPU00100000]
Seattle-based electro artist 214 (Two Fourteen) aka Chris Roman has made a welcome, if not inevitable debut on CPU, with 4 tracks of icy beats, bass and bleeps. He begins with the panicked electronics, bubbling synths and snappy rhythms of “Overbridge”, before diving deep into purist electro pastures on the funk-laden brilliance of “Fuel Cells”. Flip for the similarly funky 303 lines, intergalactic melodies and hissing electro beats of “Keep Right”, and the darker, spacier and punchier “Greenbelt”. If you’re on the hunt for some “proper electro”, look no further.
Lok44 – Bous [TRUST025]
Lost spaceship Lok44 returns to its home planet, and it has been mightily upgraded with alien bass technology since dropping ‘Ghetto of the Mind’ and ‘Derailed’ on TRUST over 10 years ago. ‘Bous’ is a vigorous comeback, touching on lean and mean electro funk, broken house, and hypnotic outer-orbit bleeps across its four tracks. Lucky owners of ‘Bous’s two highly sought-after precursors will recognise common stylistic threads spanning the decades, but just as before, Lok44 prefers to veer off on tangents, sketchily exploring unknown bass music quadrants. Second release in the ‘Covert Systems’ series, limited quantity.
CN – Obscure Fragments [SLPR003]
Wonderful, driving, Drexciya schooled Electro refreshment from CN aka Stian Gjevik on Sleepers.
