French Sailing Captain had to stop on Parisian shores of Les Yeux Orange to refuel before extending his electronic journey. He teams up here with legendary producer The Advent, delivering “Computer Monkey”, a concept EP coming with relentless lyrics about egocentrism on social networks. Two awesome remixes by electro cult artists Legowelt and DMX Krew round up the package made of crystal transparent copies with pixel art full color sleeves.
The end of the year is always a good time to step back an reflect and for me is also a time to take a look at what our readers enjoyed the most on hipodrome. This is a summary of the top 3 albums, compilations and recordings that our readers liked the most this year. I’m really proud with our visitors and you can see they have a good taste in music.
EPM continue their 20th birthday celebrations with an ep dedicated to electro featuring The Advent, Carl Finlow, Detroits Filthiest and Freddy Fresh. As all good electro-heads will know, The Advent (Cisco Ferreira) is as renowned for electro as he is for techno. On ‘Strangeform’ he works alongside his son and rising talent, Zein to turn in pure electro-funk that’s blistering to the last beat. Another absolute master of the scene is Carl Finlow who brings deep bass notes, carefully crafted melody and his meticulous production skills to ‘Optogenetic’. Detroit’s Filthiest has been wowing listeners with his work for labels like Casa Voyager, Bass Agenda, Philthtrax and his own MCEC. His track ‘Werewolf’ is the electro monster the title suggests – dark and tough Detroit-electro book-ended with a playful vocal. The EP closes with the legendary, Freddie Fresh who after three decades is a genuine virtuoso. Under his Modulator guise he layers beautiful retro synth stylings and sci-fi atmospherics on ‘ProMars’. The third EP featuring four house tracks will follow in July, with the ‘EPM20’ compilation after the summer.
Switching within digital binaries, analogue flux, and all forms of degradation in between, a creature is kickstarted to life, as if awoken with locomotion’s full might. Helena Hauff delivers a mix for Tresor’s Kern series, lashing together a sound world with a potent barrage of industrial dance music. Helena Hauff and Morah, Umwelt, Machino, Galaxian and L.F.T. all contribute with five previously unreleased tracks, exclusive to the compilation. Rare titles are also featured, such as the late Curley Schoop’s “Mayhem” under the name Esoterik, “City Of Boom” by DJ Godfather & DJ Starski, Nasenbluten’s “Intellectual Killer“ and “After Dark” produced collaboratively by Andrea Parker and David Morley.
The Advent (Cisco Ferreira) delivers his first full-length Electro album in 17 years. Released on Sync 24’s burgeoning Cultivated Electronics label, ‘Life Cycles’ finds the past meeting the future. Because, to get a truer feel for this new long-player, we should head back even further to a 1995 classic – The Advent’s debut album, ‘Elements Of Life’. In fact, fans will recognise a nod to the original artwork of that seminal release, as ‘Life Cycles’ takes us full circle, containing unreleased Electro gems from the ’90s, available for the first time. “I have been making electro music for nearly 3 decades now and excited to see that it is in demand with this new wave of talented producers out there. ‘Life Cycles’ is an album where I explore my older past and connect with the future, 2020 and this new electro generation,” says Cisco.
Introducing a new vinyl only Compilation Series from Monotone featuring some top notch producers. Kicking things off the Techno/Electro master The Advent starts things off with a collaboration with his son and this track is a beauty. This has Monotone style written all over it with hard percussion, epic synths and smooth rythyms. Next we have label boss Exzakt coming back to his form with Kreep. Classic Exzakt beats and just a driving composition added with some vocal flavor to make a solid club tune. 214 comes correct on Side B with a riding, groovy jam that will get the asses shaking. To finish things off we have the mysterious EggFooYoung with a rare appearance since taking on the Michna alias he is well known for today. This is a record that is a must have for all Electro Heads out there.
This is the first time any of Heinrich Mueller’s highly sought after remodels/reworks have been compiled together. Many have been previously available only on limited releases and have patiently been awaiting discovery by a wider audience. These 9 specially selected examples embrace all facets of his approach. First up is the ultra smooth and minimal ‘Fadin’ Away’ by The Hacker from 2000, probably one of his most sublime and timeless creations. Then jump forward to 2011 when he serves up an infectious and sparse slice of robot funk for Albert van Abbe’s ‘NCS_0009121010’. By the time of Alek Stark’s ‘Halo 6’ (2014) he’s still got the dance-floor on his mind, but it’s located on an alien or perhaps underwater world in some dimension parallel to our own. In 2009 he works for the first time with fellow Drexciyan traveller DJ Stingray and delivers the hard edged but still quite delicate ‘Drone FX’. Jump to 2005 and he conjures the playfully disjointed ‘P.O.M. (Time Dilation Mix 2)’ for Duplex. In 2000, when he had a close relationship to the label, International DeeJay Gigolo, who were releasing Dopplereffekt and the first fruits of Der Zyklus, they commissioned him to make a series of groundbreaking mixes. On one of which he got to mesh his own futuristic vision with that of Stanley Kubrick on ‘Dave’ by Station Rose. The other closes this collection and is another of his most accessible works, with the best bassline, ‘What Use’ by the legendary ’70s San Francisco band, Tuxedomoon. In 2011 he also produced a darkly atmospheric and relentlessly mechanical interpretation of DJ Stingray’s ‘The Sadist’. In 2003, another of his best production efforts, again aimed off-squarely at yet another form of mutant dance floor, came out of a total revamp of an untitled track by The Advent. Fittingly this was originally included on Recreations, an album where artists were invited to do what Heinrich Mueller does best.
These 3 atmospheric tracks are circulating for a while trough the live set of woo york. With the best combination of epic soundscapes and melancholic melodies, it shows another wide range of dystopic music.
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