Originally from the UK, now San Francisco based artist Oliver Vereker makes an amazingly strong vinyl debut with three crushingly tense and off-kilter techno tracks. All three tracks contained within are designed to rip the listener apart like a sickened animal on the loose.
Elect Pt1 becomes the latest collaborator in The Exaltics Meets series following prior introductions to Morphology and Gosub. German speakers will be able to decipher Elect Pt1’s “Drei Chinesen Mit Dem Acidbass”, a potential retrospective nod to Bunker’s “acid planet” squat parties. A flabby kick, crushed hats and white noise sounding more like a baby robot tantrum than synthesis opens “The Party”, before unexpected doo-doo-doo vocals become the tracks centrepiece. The Exaltics opens his side of the 12″ with throbbing drums and hardedge acid in “The Midnight Connexion”, which later gives way to uplifting chords. Acid and breakneck drum loops make up “Nichts Aber Auch Nichts” which also receives some euphoric synth treatment.
MRSK coming with yet more styles on Skudge, this time he darkens up the rave and goes into some serious warehouse territory.
EPM Music welcomes The Third Man to its label roster in 2013 with his ‘Beyond The Heliosphere’ album due for release in the Spring. As a precursor to the album are two EPs, the first of which is ‘Double Dawn’ featuring remixes from John Heckle and Claro Intelecto.
Big follow-up of Dolly Dubs 1 by Martyn. Both ‘Newspeak’ and ‘What is room 101’ are ecstatic contemporary house tracks making you remember once again what this music is all about. Pure bliss. ‘Oceania’ on the other hand goes deeep, very intense track with beautiful broken beats and mesmerizing melodies for the more adventurous dj
Throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, the Missile imprint was responsible for releasing a slew of blistering techno cuts from production heavy weights DJ Hyperactive, Inigo Kennedy, Frankie Bones and DJ Slip. In 1998 the label released Heiko Laux’s Re-Televised EP, which 15 years later has earned itself a repressing on New York imprint Thema. It has commissioned two 2013 remixes in Donor and Truss, the labels New York connection and Stroboscopic Artefacts boss man Lucy. Haux’s original may lack the weight of their modern day reworks, but its stone-crunch kicks certainly don’t lack punch. Donor & Truss share the B-Side with Haux’s exemplar, creating a quintessential ’90s infinity loop, intermittently injecting a rough samples from “Re-Televised”. Lucy’s remix remains loopy also, only adding dour and industrial atmospherics, unsettling children’s voices and Strobo’s trademark low end.
It’s increasingly hard to keep tabs on everything Boris Bunnik does these days, but one of his most loved aliases is Conforce. It is that identity he assumes here for a return to one of his most regular homes, Delsin, following the still excellent ‘Escapism’ album he served up at the end of 2011. This Time Dilation EP is designed for deeper dancefloors: ‘Nomad’ roams in dark and derelict spaces with the clatter of machines off in the distance and a sense of tension never far away. ‘Receiver’ is a more purposeful cut that rolls on vast techno kicks as glassy tinkles and ominous synths colour the backdrop before ‘Last Anthem’ bangs the hardest of the lot. It’s techno, but techno stuff with cinematism, techno that really traps you in the imagined alien world of Conforce from start to finish. Closing out the EP with ‘Embrace’, Bunnik brings you back to earth with a softening dub cushion that glides forwards through more huge open spaces that sound like underwater caves. Few design sounds as evocative as this man, despite the fact he does so on such a regular basis.
Vape is the new Italo-techno project of the Riviera band. Their first tracks range from the charming pop womanly appeal of “Antonello” to the pesticidal harshness of “Raid”, across the gross provincial anthem “Radioactivo”. Vulcano is the joint venture of Marco Shuttle and Perseus Traxx with the Vape manufacturers at the Brenta Studios. Their poisonous bits sprayed on this 12″ are the state of the art in pest control. These cats are really pushing things forwards here, the B-side especially is some out-there sonic manipulation. “Ugly Faders” reinforcing the feelings one might get if trapped in a malfunctioning space station. “Vulvano” continues the anti-gravity aesthetic and smudges the whole thing in a thick acid wash.
Holland’s FAH (aka Robin de Bekker) presents his album of braindance influenced electro Fahzers Set To Earth. Tight, punchy electrobass riddims, operating on the cusp of Rephlexian electro a la DMX Krew and Drexciyan aqua-funk, Fah cycles from the skating 808 patterns of ‘Not Enough Fahzers’ to the whirring syncopations and jazz chords of ‘Casting The Rod’ on the front, while paying tribute to James Stinson on the flipside’s woozy ‘Glowism’ and the skewed, angular hyperfunk programming of ‘Magnetic Freedom’.
Having been dormant for over three years, New York label Satamile returns to continue spreading the gospel of proper electro music with a six-track EP from The Ghost That Walks. Drexciya enthusiasts will be all over this record; the rubbery melody of “The Angriest Angel” recalls the Detroit duo at their most playful but with a simmering undercurrent of tension that is very much the producer’s own signature style. Similarly great are the searing analogue synth buzz of “Seven Deadly Sons”, the tribal 303 stomp of “Urban Jungle” and the 808 rattle and Belgian rave tones of “Resident Evil”.
Versalife aka Boris Bunnik returns to the Clone West Coast Series for more under sea level electro-techno. After his debut 12inch series Night Time Activities, here a full length album inspired by the horizons and emptyness of his home lands in Friesland. Accompanied by beautiful artwork of fellow Frisian, and one of Hollands most talented painters, Robert Zandvliet (who happens to have his atelier around the corner of the Clone Hq). His amazing painting ”Winter by Jouswier” (spread among the front and backside of the digipack) symbolizes perfectly the rhythm of the open spaces in Friesland. Especialy in the whitened more abstract and cold winter landscape thats almost synonym for Versalife’s abstract ice cold electro techno.
It has been over 10 years since Reckless Ron had a release. Last year he appeared on Big Strick’s Resivior Dogs with “Night Moves.” What better way to bring 2013 in than “The Lost Tapes”, the new EP from Reckless Ron Cook. Here we have four high adrenaline first generation pure Detroit Techno tracks.
Germany’s #1 electro project The Exaltics joins TRUST for a special EP: ‘Muted World’ shows the project at its most original, pairing subaquatic electro and electronica with acid touches and epic synths. Bristol hotshot Kamikaze Space Programme (DecaRhythm) supplies a sharp and hard hitting, AFX-inspired rework.
“A Dead Summer” is the highly recommended first album by Der Noir , a Roman trio offering a dark and gloomy sound reminiscent of early Bauhaus and the Sisters of Mercy. This is the remix album, released by MinimalRome and featuring Heinrich Dressel, Mick Wills, TeslaSonic, Newclear Waves and Alessandro Parisi.
The Hipodrome Of Music 