Beats News

FEAT. MCL

Krishna Goineau is well known for his starring role in ‘Los Niños del Parque’ with Liaisons Dangereuses and in other projects such as Velodrome and Xeroox. Through one of his friends we have been lucky enough to receive a hard disk on which there are a variety of unreleased tracks by Krishna Goineau with MCL (Micro Cheap League) recorded in the year 85-86. Krishna lived in Barcelona at that time and was involved in different groups while traveling through Germany and Belgium to create new projects. After dissolving Liaisons Dangereuses in 1983 Krishna started a new project with MCL where you can identify the essence and influences that he had at that time, touches of EBM and metal synthesizers with vocals in Spanish as in the track ” No Information ” These tracks are preserved in excellent quality in which Alden Tyrell has done the mastering on vinyl and digital. Having something like this is like finding a treasure in the middle of a secret island. To finalize the release we have edits from Silent Servant, Curses, Esprit Divers aka Coyu. Deckard & Lucient.

After the success of his latest works, Moderator comes back with the EP In The Garden, a refined jazzy blend of genres so typical of the producer, as shows the track ‘Half Light’. A sweet and sour instrumental that takes the listener on a sensitive and introspective journey through melancholic chords.

Hailing from Athens, Greece, Moderator has been producing his brand of cinematic beats since 2012. His debut album The World Within (2015) established him as a serious player on the downtempo/trip-hop scene. His latest works, Sinner’s Syndrome and Midnight Madness hit the #1 best-selling album on the Bandcamp music platform selling thousands of records. Dazzling with a distinctive production style that leaps across genre boundaries like psychedelic, lounge, horror film soundtracks, surf, Memphis soul, and rockabilly, his influences phase in-and-out. His music is similar to calmly turning the radio dial to a random station, yielding a surprising but pleasant discovery.

Four chewable techno entities from Berlin’s Piska Power

The multi-media project Kraftwerk was started in Düsseldorf, Germany 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. They set up their electronic Kling Klang Studio where they conceived and produced all Kraftwerk albums.

Kraftwerk created the soundtrack for the digital age of the 21st century. AUTOBAHN 1974, RADIO-ACTIVITY 1975, TRANS EUROPE EXPRESS 1977, THE MAN-MACHINE 1978, COMPUTER WORLD 1981, TECHNO POP 1986, THE MIX 1991, TOUR DE FRANCE 2003. Their compositions, using innovative techniques, electronic sounds and synthetic voices combined with computerised rhythms, had a major musical influence on Electro, Hip Hop, Techno and Synth-Pop. 

Picture Vinyl "A balance between things that you know people will like and things that you think people will like" is what John Peel had to say on his BBC homepage about Apparat's music programming concept. Apparat then appeared at the Peel Session in May of 2004 substituting like with die for in JP's statement. Indeed, it's sad but true: John Peel passed away a few months later to a heart attack while vacationing in Peru. Apparat could only find a more fitting farewell mood with the rerecording of his session: a sonic dedication to the huge mentor John Peel from Shitkatapult and their people.

Apparat is known as a fluctuating mood-maker by way of his computer companion. In this case he leaves his garb behind. Apparat swings the composer's stick with emotion to give yearning its segway by conducting pieces of lonely melancholic beauty with godly discretion. New strings are thanks to the violin and cello of Kathrin Pfänder and Lisa Stepf aka Complexácord, whose soul-drenched expression lets your mind sway.

The trio harmonizes with dream-like perfection. It reminds one once again of the experimental modus operandi combining classical instruments with electronic music. Singer Raz Ohara and clarinet/sax player Hormel Eastwood find their chosen virtuous and emotional space on this promising cloud. What remains are warm dark drops of elegiac pop the pour down the back of your heart.

This Apparat John Peel Session was remastered by Bo Kondren at Calyx Studios in February 2019 incl. the digital bonus track - Komponent as Telefon Tel Aviv Remix.
The physical appears as picture disc featuring the wonderful original design by Hanna Zeckau & Carsten Aermes on vinyl.
The original release from 2005 (Strike 153) also contained more Remixes by Bus, Rechenzentrum and Apparat himself.

E2-E8 continues to put new local talent under the spotlight. This time it's the Orphic duo, made up of Kieran Jandu and Babak Faraji.

Shelter EP is perhaps the release with the clearest, most identifiable sound that we've put out so far. ACSXD and Macoubea are firmly rooted in deep techno that wouldn't sound out of place on labels such as Delsin, Hypnus, or Semantica. Ména is geared for peak-time with its relentless beat and vocal snippets. Half Ten is angular, articulate and colourful.

If all this wasn't enough, Marco Shuttle steps in with an atmospheric, almost beatless remix of ACSXD which reminds us of some glorious Aphex Twin moments. We can't thank him enough for contributing with such a delightful piece.

Early support comes from Sunju Hargun, Sybil, Pyramid Of Knowledge, Marco Shuttle.

“24” is Minuit Machine’s 4th LP. Electronic masterpiece, subtle mix of dark wave, techno and electropop, “24” is both surprising and seductive. Authentic, emotional and powerful, “24” is a real immersion into Minuit machine’s dark, dystopian and futuristic world. Through this LP, Hélène and Amandine are facing all obstacles and disappointments life brings on their way. Each track is a self-affirmation, a rallying cry and an urge to live. The instrumental part is clearly marked and contributes to create the band’s unique sound. The strong beats are a call to dance while the synths, stabbing and emotional, will definitely move you. Finally, the deep basses give the tracks an “EBM” touch. Vocal lines are more pop, with less reverb. They are meant to obsess and stay in your head all day long. They were thought of as a 90's dance music chorus, but with feelings. As usual, the lyrics are very personal and describe several states of mind. Since their creation, Hélène and Amandine kept on reinventing themselves in order to translate their inner questioning and emotions into music. From this point of view, “24” could be Minuit Machine’s most accomplished work since each track sounds like a confession.

Great Minds Think Alike, would be a good argument to define the merger of the two minds behind Immaterial, the eleventh release by HC Records, signed by Siarem, a producer from Albacete who previously starred in the label's third release, and Estrato Aurora, legendary Valencian musician former member of Lontano, Pajaro Dune and Mini Service. Both have found a complicity and joint impulse that have brought their creative character together in this fruitful union.

Navigating the dunes of the planet Arrakis has never been so delightful, since Peace, the track with which the record begins, takes us to dreamlike landscapes of infinite horizons in which a deep intimacy develops along the way. A warm broken rhythm, relying on a hypnotic and thick bass, leads the development while being wrapped in multiple sound layers in which velvety pads, melancholic synths and pulsating keys caress our ears like raindrops, thus recreating a mysterious atmosphere typical of unexplored universes, advancing towards the second part of the song, where a second group of harmonies answer and complement the main ones generating a genuine electronic ode.

The second part of our dreamy journey reaches with Teleonomia, an exercise in sound synaesthesia that projects a golden and brilliant musical landscape in which a succession of harmonic sound layers and robust bass lines intertwine with surgical precision around a broken rhythm with a firm and surrounding impact.

The B-side of the vinyl takes us out of our reverie with the pure, and at the same time evolved, EBM by Siarem, a concept that Deeper Side exudes. This one is a track that reminds us of the best B-sides of the pioneers of the Belgian sound but with the sharpness and definition of the 21st century. Rugged basses and gritty voices encouraging urban combat. This track was chosen by Techno Baron Dave Clarke on his White Noise show to kick off 2021.

The influence of the American sounds that arrived in Valencia at the end of the 80's leave their mark on La base Medi, much more than the typical dj-tool with which to wreak havoc in the dance floor. A forceful bass drum in line with unsyncopated cadences, a dominant bass and a multitude of percussions of different nature in almost six minutes of infectious hypnotic dance.

In My Dreams gives the finishing touch to this release by delving into the helical gliding compositions inspired by 70's psychedelia, inducing the listener into a complex trance state close to nirvana.

400 ppm is the first of the digital bonus tracks that accompany the vinyl, an exercise in hypnotism and rhythmic meditation built on the basis of enveloping frequencies and a marked and devastating broken rhythm. The second and last broadside in digital format arrives with Vectors, a sidereal trip to the beat of crystalline electro charged with emotion and reflection. Quite a potential anthem.

The graphic aspect of the album has been the responsibility of Dani Requeni, who has focused on the vaporous and evanescent aspects of the work.

Finally, and as usual since the first release, the album master was conducted at Black Monolith Studios London by Steve Voidloss.

Transparent vinyl in full gatefold sleeve. Professionally manufactured, packaged and shrinkwrapped with numbered certificate of authenticity and download card. CD in eco-friendly vinyl-style gatefold wallet. Professionally manufactured and packaged in clear re-sealable eco-bag. Fifteen years ago, prolific UK innovator Justin K Broadrick — who rose to fame as guitarist for Napalm Death and founder of seminal industrial group Godflesh — began once again doing what he does best: experimenting. Originally intending to create sketches for his project Jesu, Broadrick realized his new form of beguiling and hypnotic compositions didn’t fit Jesu’s signature guitar-noise assault. This was something entirely new. Thus, Pale Sketcher was born. Written and recorded primarily between 2009-2013, Golden Skin was originally slated for release on Richard D. James’ (Aphex Twin) Rephlex Records prior to it shuttering, and it evokes fond memories of the height of experimentation in IDM/braindance while still resonating heavily with the here and now. Unearthed and completed by Broadrick specifically for its unveiling on GIVE/TAKE, the full-length album reveals itself as a devastatingly beautiful and essential new entry in the artist’s repertoire. Dripping with smart style, shimmering electronics, and complex dream-like vocal sampling, Golden Skin propels the listener through a truly heavy, affecting experience, bordering on ecstatic, from the LP’s melancholy, yet hyper-breaks driven opener “Today,” to the minimal and dusty trip-hop-laden finale “Hymn for Light.” The first Pale Sketcher output in years, Justin K Broadrick’s lost treasure Golden Skin is now available for pre-order.

An echo through the ages, channelled and tuned by Young Marco. Feelings of tactile, loved-up naivety, transferred to musical waves of colour, rhythmic energy, and hallucinatory aural visions. This is ‘I’m Still Mellow’ and the psychedelic yin to its’ yang, reverse alternative version ‘Wollem Lits M’I’.

Both are imaginative 21st century takes on ‘Mellow’, a long-forgotten Amsterdam-born sub-genre of dance music that took the house template and re-imagined it for Dutch dancefloors in the early ‘90s.

'Beileid' is the seventh album by the jazz/ambient band Bohren & Der Club Of Gore (the slowest band in the world), initially released on CD in 2011. The album is now being released on vinyl for
the first time ever.
'Beileid' features a cover of the song 'Catch My
Heart' by German heavy metal band Warlock. This cover is also the band's first track to feature vocals, delivered here in fine style by Mike Patton (Faith No More)

Following Notte Infinita's 'I Lost All My Data' release on INDEX:Records, the Berlin-based artist mediates the balance between dub-laced frequencies, introspective melodies and atmosphere on the next Oscilla Sound release. His propulsive Atmosfera three-tracker focuses on digital signal processing and embraces the shimmery, hyper-realistic synthetic quality of FFT manipulation. Notte Infinita explores emotional narratives through sonic gestures and textures, taking inspiration from spaces, dreams and the experience of manipulating digital artefacts.

Clear vinyl LP. The Missing Brazilians, a project helmed by Adrian Sherwood, released Warzone in 1984, it's a
collection of spaced-out dub, on which Sherwood is not afraid to make things noisy and heavy. Includes vocals
from Shara Nelson, known for her work with Massive Attack.

After a two-year hiatus, New York's finest purveyors of flash-fried power pop and disco-punk return with their sixth full-length. Despite being 18 years into their career, there are few signs of tiredness on the predictably vibrant As If. While potential sing-along moments are plentiful, it's the looseness of their grooves and the incessant funkiness of tracks such as "All U Writers", "Ooo", and the thrillingly low-slung "All The Way" - in which the Brookyln-based outfit brilliantly fuse springy dub-disco grooves, wild synths and classic house riffs - that catches the ear. Interestingly, the strongest influences this time round appear to be Prince and early Red Hot Chili Peppers, giving the album a particularly kaleidoscopic aural hue.

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60k+ and counting Soundcloud plays over the first 24 hours
Currently charting #2 on Billboard's 'Emerging Artists' chart
'You'll not hear anything else like this today' Zane Lowe BBC R1 show premiere (covered by Huw Stephens) (@ 47m15s)
'SOPHIE's Lemonade is the most bonkers track we've heard all year' Guardian
'song of the day' Diplo on Twitter

'one of the best things I've heard all year' Stereogum
'"Lemonade" is a bouquet of ephemera, and we shouldn't be surprised that Sophie hid a firecracker in the bundle.' Pitchfork
'impossibly infectious' Gorilla vs Bear

Columbia Records release this very limited (1000 units) edition 12" picture disc of the recent Calvin Harris single, featuring Justin Timberlake, Halsey and Pharrell Williams. Includes extended radio edit + instrumental versions.

Within just one year, the Leipzig-based label Self Learning System has established itself as a serious and cheeky contender in the electro scene, and the third release aims to live up to this claim once again. DJ Unisex surprises with Chromatic Stimulations, as his four otherworldly tracks unfold a no-frills attitude on par with a trippy sound design between a revealing in and outro. This EP is not afraid to present raw and unsettling machine noises and rather revels in the bubble bath of reverberating and resonating synths from late night hardware sessions.

Latency 009, from Tokyo: four eerie, multi-rhythmic, bass-heavy excursions, with roots in abstract hip hop and the classic d&b of Photek and Source Direct.

Limited edition reissue of this legendary, rare and dreamy electronic ambient new age album.

Originally created and released in a small edition in Japan back in 1987 by the mysterious musician/ magician Shiho. The album features floating shimmering synthesizer textures. It's unique and extra ordinarily serene with shifting tone colors and spatial textures bringing the listener to a special magic place. It's as beautiful as it captivating. There's also a haunting edge to parts of the album sounding like what could originally have influenced David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti when they composed the soundtrack to the original Twin Peaks series. Shiho who loves to make improvisational music began studying classic piano at the age of five. She says she gets inspiration from the celestial realms but she never considers melody. She draws a musical picture. Creativity is the unfolding of the unknown realms within the self. Through our chosen ways of expression, each of us is daily creating a unique universe, a unique environment.

The universe created by each and every being in endless repetition are messages of the universe. The breath of this music, expressed from my present environment, flowing through a myriad of places as environmental music is my expression of The Body Is A Message Of The Universe. Part of the album also saw a limited US CD release in the late 1980s which is hard to come by today.

Although Shiho Yabuki continued her career in Japan, both as a musician and magician and became a pioneer of healing music in Asia, for most western listeners it was like Shiho was one of those mysterious artists who puts out an album and then is never heard from again.



Tracks: Tomoshibi / Samadhi / Winterland / Tenshingoso (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Spirit) / Forestland / Tawamure/Cosmic Dance / Energy Flow/Ki No Nagare (The Way Of The Energy Flow)

For the next installment on Rødhåd’s WSNWG imprint the label boss joins forces with Berlin based producer and live performer JakoJako. The two artists present ‘In Vere’, an album created in a week-long jam session during Spring 2021 perfectly echoing the seasons mood and positive energy. Covering a wider range of styles from ambient over electronica to techno, the track names relate to the flowers and animals found during this period. Jakojako’s influence is apparent throughout the release showcasing her signature ambient style arpeggios that are flawlessly blended with modular synths and organic sounds.

London-based leftfield electronic label BleeD makes a worthy return from a lengthy sabbatical, reinvigorated with a diverse collection of tracks from Berlin-based talent, Lårry. Having previously established trusted relationships with leading artists including Daniel Avery, DJ Nobu and Peder Mannerfelt, BleeD ably assists in delivering on the promise of one of the most notable young talents currently working on the fringes of contemporary techno. Thus far showcased on impeccably curated labels such as Uncertainty Principle, Super Hexagon, Fusion Diagnostics and Awkwardly Social, their flair for surgical sound-design and off-kilter arrangements puts them in good company with equally exciting contemporaries such as FFT and Panarorman/Patrick Conway.

The EP covers a lot of ground across 6 tracks, from the gloomy atmospherics of 'Plunicceteh' and 'CMml CoE3", and the peak-hours stomp of 'systems_component' on the A-side, to the warmer and more uplifting B-side tracks, 'Ria Ilso', 'We Are We Are' and 'Over The Why'. It's a fine showcase of an artist with a broad range of influences who with each successive release is carving out a genuinely unique sound.

London jungle punk fusionists, Asian Dub Foundation, celebrates the 25th anniversary of their critically acclaimed album “R.A.F.I” recorded at the legendary On-U Sound Studios in East London in 1997 ! Entirely remixed and remastered, this new version sounds as fresh as ever, while the politically/culturally conscious rap, traditional Asian instruments, breakbeats and samples remains in full effect. The artwork has been re-worked for this new edition that also includes 3 bonus tracks.














n D2. Free Satpal Ram (Original 7″ Version) Bonus
o D3. Naxalite (Mad Scientist Dub Mix) Bonus
Bonus

The debut of Hamburg trio Cloud Management stages the meeting of three proven exceptional figures: Thomas Korf and Sebastian Kokus have been responsible for some stunning leftfield neo-kraut releases with their band Love-Songs in recent years; Ulf Schütte has been one of the most productive, and innovative protagonists of experimental electronic music in Germany for many years (see Datashock, Phantom Horse, or his most recent collaboration with G. Steenkiste/Hellvete on Umor Rex, for example). Following Love-Songs' highly acclaimed collaboration with Schütte, »Spannende Musik«, released in 2021, the formation of Cloud Management as a group in its own right marks a new beginning, which is celebrated with the long player on Altin Village & Mine.

The album is characterized by a dense texture of repetitions in which (modular) synthesizers and bass go head-to-head. It is on this foundation that the formal grammar of the album develops over its nearly 45-minute running time, organized along precise interventions into the hypnotic pulse: What is recognizable as echoes of 1960s/70s minimalism or Cluster functions on »Cloud Management« not in the sense that the sequences or the sequencers are left to themselves, but as highly concentrated, microscopic work on repetition. This virtuosically arranged, groove-based and even danceable density of the seven pieces never sounds strained or as an end in itself, but floating, cloud-like. The polyrhythmic workouts are at all times in the service of a refreshing expanse that opens up from the sonic saturation and is far removed from the formulaic box-checking often associated with the attribute ›kosmisch‹. »Cloud Management«, thus, marks not an exercise in the traditions of a musical past, but a distinctive position within contemporary electronic music.

All songs are written, recorded and produced by Ulf Schütte, Thomas Korf and Sebastian Kokus.

We Smile were part of the Hamburger Schule back in the early Nineties: expressive vocals, associative lyrics in German and English, brittle guitars and overall a quite broad interpretation of the general idea of Pop. Now, 30 years later, Hamburg label Couldn’t Care More releases these spectacular remixes of songs from We Smiles album “Für Die Anderen”: Glasgows JD Twitchs (Optimo) turns “Sack Voll Drogen” into one twisted colossus of a track, made from electro, breaks and rave , Tokyos Tentenko fires up the Casio for her two versions of "31 24 42" and Hamburgs Mense Reents (Egoexpress, Die Vögel, Die Goldenen Zitronen) builds the most extraordinary elegant Pop song from the sparse "Can't Resist (Popmusiker Sind Auch Künstler-Version)". Also included is the formidable (and remastered) original of "Kind Und Kegel".

Uusi Aika is a fresh new ensemble from Finland. Their self-titled debut album will be released by We Jazz Records on 25 November 2022. The band's music could be described as introspective and meditative, but that's only a part of the story. The instrumentation is acoustic and their sound organic to the bone, but the music's slowly unfolding character brings to mind some deep abstract electronic music or experimental dub explorations at times. That is, there's power just under the surface, just beautifully out of focus.

Otto Eskelinen says: "Lately I have been playing mostly folk music and using traditional instruments, such as ancient flutes. Now I felt that I wanted to play the saxophone again, and to do it in a small group setting, while searching for new compositional approaches and also ways of playing together with others. I wanted to create a band that would play something connected to free jazz, but with a distinctly melodic approach. I wanted the sound of the band to be gentle and peaceful, all acoustic. The main inspirations here stem from the history of Japanese sound aesthetics, new age, early 20th century art music and jazz giants such as Lester Young and Jan Garbarek."

Uusi Aika has already debuted live in Helsinki, where their performance at Odysseus Festival this summer was met with remarkable enthusiasm.

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"The haunting ambience of Beat fit somewhat with the then-popular Massive Attack and Portishead, but the album's subsonic drone made it more of a minimal mood piece than a collection of songs." MAGNET

The second in a trio of albums released by the core duo of Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener, Beat is without doubt their definitive artistic statement.

Coming 20 years to the day of its original release, this is the first time this album has been available on vinyl in almost two decades, and the first ever U.S. vinyl release. (Was released here on Beggars Banquet, original copies very hard to find..)

The second album from New York City's Bowery Electric was released in late 1996, less than 15 months after their self-titled debut, but it found them having traveled light years musically in the interim, the group having seemingly decided to see how far they could take the guitar/ bass/ drums/ vocal setup into the atmosphere.

Every aspect of their approach had been refined and focused: squalling, distorted guitars had been transformed into hazy, sensual sheets; the live drums transmuted to sampled rhythms more in debt to the blossoming downtempo sound of the day; bass lines reduced to their most basic diagrams; vocals submerged to become one with the narcotized fog of the instruments; even the lyrics were reduced to a few minimal lines used sparingly so as not to overshadow the dynamic.

Beat is a lush and dense mantra of shadowy percussion, barely-there vocals and immersive drones that envelops the listener in an opiated blanket of sound.

quotes:

"Bowery Electric have made something utterly astonishing here. So deep, so wide, and somehow as intimate as a train crash. The first six tracks are just the most crushingly beautiful thing I've heard in 1997; the last five are even better. Good god, THIS IS IT." Melody Maker

"While cymbals shower down over the songs like a torrent of shattered glass, their austere beauty is never static. Ambience has rarely sounded so messy." Exclaim

A near-perfect mix of shifting dance beats, menacing electronic drones, analogue bleeps,
syncopated rhythms and ethereal vocals." Now UK

Copenhagen-based HVAD releases a new solo album entitled YUG, an electro-acoustic shrine. The double LP also serves as the second release on HVAD's newly founded, self-owned label ULLLU. The album YUG consists of nine separate tracks but breathes as one unified piece, presenting something for the brain, something for the body and something for the soul in alternating measures throughout the one hour long release. YUG is Hindi for era or an age of time, framing the musical material by HVAD made over the last few years. The album reflects a continuum of creating a personal, musical language; building a new home by drawing upon classical Indian instrumentation as well as electronics, in total making for an expression that has been the foundation of HVAD's practice for more than a decade. The cover of YUG portrays HVAD's grandmother and her two sisters, bringing to the foreground family roots as a cornerstone of the album, ancestral ghosts running through the music. As a prerequisite of eerie emotion, this weaves together material across a broad musical spectrum with both determination and sensibility. Some tracks are in steadfast 4/4 while others are stretched out in free form with each their pulse or ambience, always seeking ahead towards some place that is even more free than the last.

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Rhythmic Brutalism' is the title of this release, available as a two CD set or two separate LPs, the title is also a very apt description of the music itself. Romanian-born Alexandra Atnif was fascinated by the harsh, grey concrete beauty and minimally repetitive force of the brutalist post-war architecture of her homeland, and this fascination has given rise to the music here. Vol. 1 is an EM Records edition, compiled from an earlier self-released double CD featuring recordings from 2014-15. Vol. 2 consists of previously unreleased recordings from 2015 to 2017. Using elemental, inexpensive technology, Atnif' s music is heavy and harsh, stripped down to distressed skeletal frameworks, rhythmic noise, rusting metal and weathered concrete, a distorted DIY realization of her beautifully brutal vision. With a background in European modernist/avant-garde music, Atnif has been influenced by early rhythmic industrial music such as Throbbing Gristle, Esplendor Geometrico and Muslimgauze, as well as later practitioners of rhythm and noise including Pan Sonic, Autechre, Winterkälte, Prurient and Scorn. Across the relatively brief span of years contained within these two volumes, we hear the rhythmic structures begin to fracture and fray, and the outlines darken and become more obscure, with Antif's sensibility evident throughout.

Vieze Meisje is the singing, performing and all-encompassing second self of the mere mortal Maya Mertens. She writes idiosyncratic poetry that is at once heartwarmingly honest, hilariously funny and, at times, brutally elegant. Vieze Meisje has a fangirl/fanboy collaboration going on with her producing brother-from-another-mother Azertyklavierwerke, who composes acrobatic beats, loops and sounds for a deconstructed dance feast that ends incomplete sonoric mayhem. Once you have heard and/or witnessed Vieze Meisje, you are forever part of life’s Vieze Cirkel.

Restock

Marcela Dias Sindaco's music captures the essence of Gated as a label, sitting half way between so many genres: bass-heavy electro, funky breaks, squelchy synth-boogie... but driven by Marcela's breathy Portuguese vocals, expressing the depths of her carioca soul. Marcela grew up in Rio de Janeiro, and as a classically trained pianist and cellist, music was in her blood, but it was her dad's obsession with Krautrock that influenced her early music taste. Later, travelling around Europe as a model, she discovered the clubs of Berlin, Paris and Milan and incorporated what she heard into her own music, using a studio filled with analogue equipment. The result joins the dots between heads-down club stompers, electrofunk, Prince, and Brazilian samba. In a word: fresh!

Valley of Tears reach the end of the saga with this double vinyl full of collabs or bands to offer the maximum exponence of the saga.

Curated ona gatefold sleeve mixing the art design of Greta Haga with all the power of the music.

The Queen in tears needs to rest...Will she come again?

Mid-summer, 2021, Waleed quietly released his debut single 'Se Rompen'. The response was anything but, with the track immediately taking hold as a sleeper hit that summer, being played out by the likes of Four Tet, Floating Points, Daphni, DJ Boring, DJ Seinfeld, Tourist and more. With word already spreading, an inclusion in Ben UFO's winter Essential Mix solidified the desire for more from this surprising new producer.

Last month, Waleed announced his signing to City Slang (Caribou, Gold Panda) with a re-release of 'Se Rompen', offering the track on ultra-rare test pressings (50 / sold out already) for the first time.

Today, we announce the pre-order of a white label 12” with “Se Rompen” and his new single “SuenÞos”, limited to 300 units worldwide.

Born in Washington DC to Iraqi/Puerto Rican parents, Waleed works in coding by day. Built around ready-made for the dancefloor kick and chopped vocals, 'Se Rompen' is an ambitious debut that showcases his focus on sound design. Waleed’s meshing of cultures and references gives 'Se Rompen' a unique perspective on dance music. At once melancholic and high energy.

“A beautiful euphoric/melancholy fusion of cut-up vocals, soft electronics and two-step beats.” The Guardian

“Highly refreshing, 'Se Rompen' has a rare immediacy, a feeling that it has always been a part of your life." Clash

Another limited pressing of 2 classic and very rare electronic tracks. Old school B-boys and electro fans will instantly recognise these 2 huge tracks from Miami's Freestyle, both absolutely groundbreaking and either unavailable on 45 or incredibly rare. Only 300 copies, so don't miss out.

MAX COOPER announces new album Unspoken Words, released 25th March on Mesh. Today he shares lead single "Everything" and its accompanying video.

"Everything" is an excitable expression of freedom and joy, an explosion of colour referencing classic synth sounds from Max Cooper’s formative years and the golden era of idealism in music and popular culture of the '80 and '90s.

“I love feeling that anything is possible. It feels like I’m bursting and need to find some expression," says Cooper. "The synths seemed to carry the hope of everything I could imagine, condensed into the simple chord progression, improvised pads and layers of distortion. It was a lot of fun to work with, and spending time in that creative mindset generated lots of ideas which could be shot down later under less manic conditions.”

As an audio-visual artist, Cooper often goes to the medium of video to enhance his music and the ideas and stories which inspire and inform his work. "Everything" is one of 13 short films combined into Unspoken Words and the metanarrative which will be released as a film on Blu-ray to accompany the album on 25th March.

Cooper developed the visual story for ‘Everything’ with long term collaborator Nick Cobby and photographer Andrey Prokhorov, who has a huge library of imagery from around the world.

About Unspoken Words

“I’ve always struggled with words.

"Trying to communicate anything meaningful about my internal state, in any way which seems to do it justice, has always been beyond me.

"But music bypasses language. It is my means of expression, which is why I make a lot of it - I’m compelled to create.”

- Max Cooper, January 2022

Unspoken Words is Max Cooper’s most revealing work to date, leading the listener through experiences of escapism and connection with personal stories of reflection, acceptance, grappling, idealism and rejection.

The raw expression of Cooper’s own mental state illuminates the universal experience of being human. Unspoken Words offers common ground, a unifying space for anyone who faces internal discordance and feels the need for greater connection and greater expression.

Speaking about the process of writing Unspoken Words, Max continued: “I find existing inside my mind to be a sometimes beautiful, sometimes intense, sometimes abrasive, messy, baffling, relentless experience, and I’ve tried to put as much of that feeling and form as I could into the album.”

The deftly mixed audio is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films by a range of visual artists commissioned and directed by Max Cooper, and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound.

Now pressed on vinyl after an elusive run on tape earlier this year, D.K. meets downbeat mystic Sabla for a devotional offering on his fledgling Worship label; a smoky, moonlit, dubbed-out special, like some lost mid 90’s Mo Wax x Chain Reaction collab.

Offering an absorbing switch-up from the musclier ‘Gate of Enlightenment’, Sabla here pulls D.K. into a far more furtive parallel dimension where their familiar ingredients of tuned percussion and pads take on a more brooding character, one akin to Sabla’s ace debut LP ‘Music For Melted Floors’ as much as Đ.K.’s more reserved, yet richly atmospheric works for 12th Isle and Good Morning Tapes.

Call it trip hop, illbient, ambient beats, or whatever you like, ‘Totem Society’ is patently built for introspective times and not for club use. Across the six tracks we can isolate residual traces of experimental post punk from the likes of 23 Skidoo and O Yuki Conjugate feeding forward via the squashed beats of DJ Spooky and even Muslimgauze’s more opiated, somnambulant works to limn a place and time out of joint.

The stark gamelan dub of ‘Ocra Flat Lands’ sets shadowy parameters where the drums of ‘Dove’ bounce off the walls to contrast with ‘Bamboo Houses’ style synth progressions, and ‘Nubes Shepherd’ lightens it up a smidge with something like a quasi-speed atmospheric D&B production, before nastier neurotic acid line complicates the feel. The penultimate ‘O’ likewise dials up jazz-fusion influence via Source Direct-on-quaaludes sorta vibe, and ‘A Minute’ beautifully sees it off with more impish synth voices hinting at Coil-esque zones.