Amir Alexander returns to New York’s Plan B Recordings with three dusty house trax. “Channeling” kicks things off with a sullen, funky bassline and intricate swings of percussion backed by distant piano keys, whereas “Deep Banger”, as the title suggests, is more of a straight-up house jerker, and “Nocturnal” fuzzes things out with its growling bassline and eerie background atmospherics.
While Larry Heard only ever produced two 12″ singles under the Gherkin Jerks alias, the ragged acid tracks featured in those EPs have been hugely influential. Certainly, they made a lasting impression on Jamal Moss, who earlier this year decided to record a bunch of tracks inspired by Heard’s infamous blend of rugged drum machine rhythms, twisted acid lines, and heart-aching deep house touches. 4 This Is My Gherkin Life Volume 3 continues where installments one and two left off, delivering eight more killer machine jams which temper Moss’s usual balls-out approach to Chicagoan acid with a few melancholic, melodious touches. The result is another impressive set of analogue box jams, from the bass-heavy bounce of the intoxicating “Track 8”, to the spacey electronics and Detroit drums of “Track 5”.
Neither L.B. Produce or mysterious production outfit Phrased give much away, aside from a few hints at their love of old music-making hardware. That trait comes to the fore on this third Phrased 12″. Musically, it’s pleasingly varied, moving from the fluctuating acid lines, Detroit electro swing and sci-fi electronics of “Star Making”, to the hypnotic, becalmed, ambient dub flex of closer “Morello”. Along the way, they also find time to squeeze in a dash of ultra-deep IDM (the blissful “Diatom”), and an impressive excursion into classic, dubby deep house territory (“What’s Good For You”).
‘Empty Patterns” is a collection of tracks named after empty, programmable user patterns founds in most modern sequencers, synthesizers, and drum machines. All tracks are DJ tools and is geared towards DJs and dance floors. Lots of Chicago jacking house style drum patterns and bass synth stabs, with added reverb and distortion for grit and color.
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.
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.
Tabvla Rasa is the second vinyl release for the new London based label Kapvt Mvndi Records, a Blackwater Label project about Techno. An experimental and post techno EP based on the historical events of the Second World War. The first track CXIX is about the days of Bombs in London during the War. The second track CMXI is about the connection between the indian Swastica and the esoteric symbolism used by the Nazists in the same period.
None of the Above aka N/O/T/A is an escape from reality plan. Made in between London and Toronto, it joins Dinamo Azari (AZARI & III) and Mixhell’s Laima Leyton and Iggor Cavalera (SEPULTURA). Eager to collaborate and make music in a non compromised way, the trio brought together live and electronic drum beats, strong bass lines, unexpected samples and dark synths to an unknown place. It is none of the genres we are listening to nowadays but it still brings together a live feeling of techno, industrial and acid.
The Bedouin imprint continues on with its quest for the sublime and exotic in modern techno and house music. Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being & The Truth Theory Trio delivers more of his signature dusty lo fi electronics but gets an industrial tinged stomp on with “Keep Your Mind Open” and it’s absolutely killer. On the flip is “That Is The Name Of The African God” which is an analogue jam that sounds more like the Hieroglyphic Being we know.
Cute Heels screamed onto the scene with his debut album on Dark Entries. The Colombian’s blend of EBM and minimal synth with driving rhythms electrified interest with Juan Atkins describing him as “the new blood and spirit for the next step in techno music.” Tough words to live up to, but this talented artist has done Atkins proud with his excellent five tracker, Nepotism EP. Measured and thoughtful the EP is packed with eclipsed wave and bold beats. Future classics shine from the drop. “Nepotism Structure”, with its blackened chords and stark chords, is brimming with a primal energy. “Madame Counsellor” ups the tempo, adding some extra squalor with wretched 303 writhe. Cute Heels refuses to sit in one genre, electro coming to a head in the shimmering mechanics of “Cabaret Literal.” “The Pulse (Sex Drive)” closes in a seedy blur of neon lights and showing synthlines.
Already moving forward towards the 5th addition to their catalog within barely one year of existence. The Rotterdam-based Self Reflektion imprint continues to expand their crew presenting a four-track sampler with music from the likes of Logotech (Manifesto/IT), Hiroaki Iizuka (THEM/JP), Remco Beekwilder (Self Reflektion/NL) and Lenson (Paling Trax/NL).
Dyad is a collaborative music project and label by Ben Gibson and Fundamental Interaction. For their third release they deliver two pieces of mesmerizing warehouse techno in ‘Zou’ and ‘Fully Automated’. To round things off they’ve assigned Irish techno master Lee Holman, who weighs-in with a devastating remix of ‘Fully Automated’.
Rubber is a new label from The Hague with a motley mixture of off-radar electronix for both the experimental clubber and home listener. Rubber001 is a bold three-tracker. Mannequin Records head-honcho Alessandro Adriani hits the nail on the head with his secret weapons. Secondly, reigning from Finland, 0.5W pans across the room like running with titanium scissors. The cherry on top is this piece of Dutch drum-laden ”poetry”, probably on illegal medication, about a bicycle mechanic from The Hague by legends Unit Moebius, Reverend Cor Gout and Salo Mentale.
Tilburg based producer Drvg Cvltvre did another outstanding job. Four extremely mean tracks ment for bombing dark basements, nasty party’s and late get togethers. New label based in Berlin ran by Rotterdam producer Charlton / Tapirus together with Nick Dunton.
Vactrol Park is an honest outpouring of thematic obsession, a celebration of championed studio components and the mastery of their nuance, an avant garde collaboration between Kyle Martin (Land of Light, Spectral Empire) and Guido Zen (Gamers in Exile, Brain Machine). Simply entitled “I” (the first of a 2 part series), this debut EP opens the door to a world of ebb and flow, layers of oscillation falling in and out of sync, keeping us on the brink of vertigo and, as cliché as it may sound, we find solace in its chaos. This homogeneous release plays with the notions of systems as beautifully symbolized Mario Hugo’s capsule of cardiology—yet another visually arresting module in the ESP Institute catalogue.
New Flesh Records presents the return of infamous Umwelt delivering another collectible output on his own electro label. Much anticipated “When Future And Past Collapse” combines firing snares with rolling 808 kicks, acid lines, sub-bass and driving futuristic melodies, all packed in this sophisticated EP. Umwelt’s aesthetics and dystopian vision has never been so dazzling. Expect nothing but depths, terrific tales, and authentic secrets about the origins of mankind in this must have five-tracker.
No Nonsense jagged-edged deepness. Young gun Tom Dicicco kills it with these two slices of strobe light euphoria for those dance floor moments when you forget where you are.
The Hipodrome Of Music 