Techno News

Super high quality techno cuts from John Heckle under his HFP guise. Intense, atmospheric, bass heavy, percussive, raw techno gems for the dancefloor. Includes beautifully crafted + absorbing ambient interludes. A definite nod to Jeff Mills 90's Axis / Waveform Transmissions.

* Mirae Arts presents Hush Residence. We are joined by old friends and new comrades from the Kantō underground.

* C-Kay is co-founder of the Tokyo-based collective Space Baghdad and resident DJ of Constant Value. C-Kay is typically busy shaking dance floors with her hypnotic DJ sets, but also producing music for experimental labels such as Subsist Records and Constant Value Records.

* Saraam is a Tokyo-based sound artist, performer, and DJ under the Constant Value banner. Saraam is also a resident of the yearly Tokyo Festival of Modular.

* Katsunori Sawa and Damaskin return to Mirae Arts in their usual noisy disguises.

* Hush Residence is a compilation featuring four experimental techno tracks from Katsunori Sawa, C-Kay, Damaskin, and Saraam. Mastered by James Plotkin.

* Artwork illustration is done by Sydney based architect, Patti Bai.

* Vinyl pressed at the highly reputable Gotta Groove Records, Cleveland, Ohio.

* Comes with polybag packaging

A Blade Runner feeling of anxiety blends with playful basses or haunting flanger sounds. Hope flashes from time to time and strong piano events moderate the energetic Hyper Jazz, released in two parts on Lockertmatik as the first. Recommended!!

Marco Shuttle is very much part of the Spazio Disponibile label family: he's put out his Systhema album and various EPs with Donato Dozzy and Neel in the last couple of years, and now the Eerie boss serves up more of his immersive techno excellence. He starts off in slow motion, with the roomy ambiance and slightly spooky dub of 'Ritmo Elegante.' Of course it's a track carefully filled with little sonic details that make it a very real place to be. 'Arpex' then switches things up with a super urgent, super supple acidic techno rhythm thats overlaid with a widescreen arp that sapiens space and time, and 'Stairway To The Milky Way' is a half time stepper though some trippy sci-fi jungle before 'Qatarsi' rides on a floating groove as sound effects pan all around you and traps you in a state of trance. These are expressive, hard to define and excellent electronics once again from Marco Shuttle.

Rickard Jäverlings music can deservedly be described as playful and searching but for that sake not fumbling or too loose around the edges. On Album 4, the second album release from Jäverling on Höga Nord Rekords, he dwells more in dub than on his prior album release, and Jäverlings skillful songwriting is carried smoothly by the soft and fluffy production: the rhythm section sounds as if resting upon a sun warm bed of moss and elements flows in and out of the production like a freshly rippling stream of water deep in the summer forest. Echoes shoots through the pines, the hills and the valleys and makes the album a premium dub experience which dominates large parts of the album.

Aside the obvious references to nature that comes in mind listening to Jäverlings music, this album is more than a romantic view on the Swedish wilderness. It flirts, like all quality dub from the seventies and eighties with science fiction and space with broad synthesizer sweeps and delay drenched clouds like imploding and exploding stars somewhere in the outskirts of the Milky way, spreading dust over the Swedish forest. On the final three tracks, Ganjaman_72 takes the album out of the galaxy with spaced out-remixes on some of the songs.

With his feet steadily grounded in jamaican music tradition whit a non sentimental and curious view on production, Rickard Jäverling have together with Johan Holmegård (Dungen, Goran Kajfes), Andreas Söderström (ASS, Goran Kajfes) och Ganjaman_72 created the natural follow up to Album 3.

From Mille Plateaux to Leaf, Staubgold and Raster-Noton, ~scape, or on his own label Ripatti, the Finnish artist Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay has been exploring various iterations of the dub culture vs. electronica, since 1997. His sonic crafts and unique signature sound has been sought after by an eclectic range of bands and artists, ranging from Massive Attack, Hauschka, Black Dice, Autopoieses, Animal Collective or AGF.

Somewhere between the old-school electronica culture, the soundscaping, the experimental paths of Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood, ghostly clubbing anthems, minimalism, pop, jazz, without being, influenced, Vladislav Delay is building a drifting and coherent sound enigma.

Vladislav Delay met Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (the most prolific Jamaican rhythm section and production duo) thanks to a series of jam sessions. Trumpet player Nils-Petter Molvaer had been asked by the Jamaicans to join them and he invited Delay alongside guitar player Eivind Aarset to tag along, which eventually turned into the Nordub project.

The result of these jam sessions turned into an album, mixed and mostly produced by Vladislav Delay, released on the label Okeh. It was also followed by an extensive series of live dates. This one-shot reunion was the beginning of another story: a trio composed by Delay, Dunbar and Shakespeare.

In January 2019, Vladislav Delay went to Kingston and spent some days at The Anchor studios, to record drums and bass with S&R, some voice takes and a series of atmospheric field recordings. Back to Finland, Delay started to experiment with this precious material, mixing and overdubbing, in the comfort and quiet of his studio, based on the island of Hailuoto, Baltic Sea, Northern Finland, giving another feeling to the Jamaican trip.

This became a tribute to the 'dub spirit', but in a very personal way, far beyond any influence or "the obvious". 500-PUSH-UP is two worlds collapsing, merging, also showing some intriguing approach of the Jamaican groove, used as a filigree, like the echo or the ghost of reggae, converging and conversing with a post-industrial and experimental approach. To file beside experiments - for instance - such as Lee Perry's 'Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Curse Of The Vampires' or the On U-Sound productions.

Music ‡ Florian Kupfer
Artwork ‡ Conor Walker
Mastering ‡ Lawrence English at Negative Space

Pi Gao Movement presents their first and long awaited release of the HAdES (Humanoid Advanced Engineering Society ) Network concept on vinyl. Originally released as a digital download, Descendants of Starfish Prime introduces Majestic 12 as a genre - blending mavericks of electronic music. Much like the name implies, Descendants takes a still landscape and captures it in time as it is violently uprooted, stripped to it's base elements and becomes something foreign, something unimaginable, something beautiful. This four song release takes the listener through a journey offering little consolation and no apologies; using varying tempos, patterns, structures, and vocals as operators on a clean canvass. What is the HAdES Network Series The HAdES or Humanoid Advanced Engineering Society Network series will be a collection of works from various artists presenting obscure and diverse facets of electronic music. Man creating machines to replace the human being. Who is Majestic 12 Majestic 12 is not a who, but a what. There are no names attached to this conceptual group. It is a cluster of concepts that have been carefully selected through experimentation. Strains have been extracted, combined, and developed

We are very proud to present THIS IS TECHNO JAZZ. VOL 1, a genre defining collection of music from artists coming from the jazz and techno scenes like Distant Echoes, TUN, Tensal, Mattia Prete, VSK, Fabrizio Rat, Gianluca Petrella, Flat Maze, Luigi Ranghino, Wrong Assessment, Irakli, Key Clef and more. Together, these contemporary innovators perfectly define the label's vision for jazz and techno fusions.

This label is all about drawing on the rich heritage of two of the most visionary and experimental genes in music: jazz and techno. Taking inspiration from the freeform creative nature of those two musical worlds, artists on the label mix tradition with modernity, improvisation with experimentation, and create a new sound known as techno-jazz. THIS IS TECHNO JAZZ. VOL I will showcase these ideas across 11 tracks (10 tracks in vinyl limited edition to be released in September).

Dystopian label associate and Out-er co-owner Distant Echoes opens up with 'Faction 200' featuring Gianni Denitto on sax. It is a cosmic adventure with freeform sax lines driving above rippling synths and broken beats. Milan based Wrong Assessment has built up a fine discography over the last five years, releasing his moody techno on the likes of Planet Rhythm and Dynamic Reflection. His deeply hypnotic sounds here feature the experimental jazz quartet Gamapawa, with swirling pads drifting about to make a mysterious atmosphere as distant trumpets bleed in and out of the mix and walking bass recalls the atmosphere of 70's jazz fusion. Heavy and industrial sound designer and audio engineer VSK then remixes the Torino Unlimited Noise trio's 'Jason' into a loopy, glitchy, unresolved bit of deep techno with thoughtful jazz chords and plenty of dubby bass weight.

Tensal is next and links with Torino Unlimited Noise for 'Devourer of Senses', a straight-ahead slice of linear techno that is powerful but also intriguing thanks to the off-grid keys, increasingly intense synths and dark sax motifs. Lecce's techno dreamer and forward thinking DJ, promoter and producer Mattia Prete offers 'Burning Man' Ft. Israeli pianist Uri Gincel and Berlin based experimental guitar player Daniel Calvi. It's a cavernous and absorbing track with freeform jazz drums and heavy drones that zones you out. Dreamy and abstract techno man Chevel can make all forms of techno, and here remixes Antares Mates's 'Movimento 2' into an experimental track with bright synths, sharp sax phrases and melodic rain over a jittery beat that suspends you in the cosmos. Producer and piano player Fabrizio Rat and brilliant trombone player Gianluca Petrella are another accomplished Italian pair and their 'Turn' is an elastic deep techno track designed to melt your mind with its dancing hi hats and increasingly manic trombone hits.





Irakli & Daniel Calvi's contribution is a dark and menacing piece with sci-fi synths that make for a turbulent intergalactic soundtrack, and 'Petardo Boy' by producer Stefano Mori and pianist Uri Gincel aka Flat Maze (who released their Dick Dunker EP on this label last year) is a tender and intimate techno cut with gentle keys and a sense of playfulness in the wonky chords. Last of all, synth magician Key Clef and piano legend Luigi Ranghino are label regulars who close things out with 'Piano Movimento 1', which layers up intricate phrases of jazz piano, evolving echos of drum machines and surging bass. It's poetic, intense, and thrilling.

The digital edition of the release includes also a bonus tracks by Finnish duo Aki Himanen on trumpet and electronics, and Aleksi Kinnunen on drums. “Dystopian morning jam” is an hypnotic progression of tight drum textures and dreamy trumpet phrases which slowly build up to a powerful final musical catharsis.

This is a collection of avant-garde music that breathes new life into both jazz, and techno, with fantastic results.

Colombian label Insurgentes welcomes back one of its own masterminds to present his eagerly awaited debut album, ‘Grial’. Verraco resurfaces as a self-reliant playmaker, willing to display a braindance articulation pulled from the south.

Great Curve is a new London based label. The focus is on exploring music somewhere at the intersection of home listening and experimental club sounds, with a particular emphasis on artists that perform live or work with installations and other media.

The first release (GCR001) is by Will Alfred, showcasing a combination of modular synthesis and various live instrumentation.

Written & Produced by Will Alfred.
Mastered by Rupert Clervaux.
Artwork by Max Jedwab.

Put Your Head Above The Parakeets’ is a brand new EP from HAAi, her second for Mute.

The EP features four brand new tracks including the pseudo title track ‘Head Above The Parakeets’, which exudes a woozy summery heat while ‘Rotating in Unison’ embraces positivity, written in
response to this year’s enforced slowdown.

The final two tracks take us back to the club, where HAAi is known for spinning genre-bending and spellbinding DJ sets.

The EP is available on green vinyl and includes a digital download code.

2x12"

Repress


2018 Konduku took everyone by surprise with his debut called Kiran. It doesn't happen all too often a new artist emerges with such a developed and distinctive sound, delivering an album as debut. Now, a year and three EPs later, Nous'klaer Audio is thrilled to present his followup: White Heron. His singular sound of odd-groove based techno has aged into a sound that's more mature yet still very playful. Konduku further refined his sound of snappy polyrhythmic blips by using a controlled sound palette focusing on the tensions in-between. Starting with the mesmerizing depth of Kenar to the stripped down halfstepper Hermitage, and from the synthetic beat patterns of Kobalt to the colorful dream fields of Belki - White Heron is an album designed to listen from start to finish, but more than anything else meant for the club

On the back of V- Necks re issue Auto and the Lost 1990s Recordings one half of the band V Neck Mark Churcher takes time out from from his Chicago Bee project to deliver his first full length album on Emote.

He teams up with the cult Brighton based experimental artist Alasdair Willis (The Vitamin B 12) who plays saxophone on 3 of the 11 tracks on the album.

The album has all the hallmarks of an Emote record and more. Likely to be listed as down tempo / abstract ambient and blending many different styles together.

If you are in tune with free jazz and abstract electronic tribal music you should find this good home spooky listening .

Supported by Chloe Alice Frieda of Alien Jams and Damo B of the Outer Limits Radio Show

Noor1 is a duo consisting of Zevla and ANFS, which made its debut appearance on the first Vanila compilation from 2019, "ear". Their return here is in the form of an album, hosted by the LP series of Athens' Modal Analysis (MALP02). A.Psi.Mi includes 4 long recordings of Zevla's and ANFS impressions of industrial/noise soundscapes meeting the aesthetics of ambient/experimental.

Absorbingly intricate ambient electronics from Echium, a secluded Manchester producer returning for a 2nd release on sferic, the label home to Space Afrika, Perila, Jake Muir After inaugurating sferic with the ’Synthetic Space’ LP in 2017, Echium now leads the way with a
remarkably refined, even meticulous grasp of sound design steering away from purely “synthetic space” to imaginary spaces that smudge the listener’s perceptions of artificial and organic texture, tone and spatial dynamics. Like the best of its contemporary field, from Vladislav Delay to uon and Heith, the meticulous technical physics of ‘Disruptions of form’ provides the framework for a gently haunting spectra of metaphysical presence or spirited pathos to bleed through and reveal the sort of ghost in the machine that electronic music lovers prize. Collaged from banks of unfinished material, the results resemble a spongiform patchwork of shine-eye ambient-pop gestures and cosmic electro-acoustic parts that smudge and crystalize into a heavy-lidded, quietly beguiling narrative. The 9 tracks resemble an archipelago of interlinked microcosmos, each a variation of the last, following a deformed geologic chain reaction of events through its terraforming sonic sculptures that appear to describe subaquatic
organisms and their environment with close attention paid to both microscopic detail and plangent panoramics. As part of the next wave of artists innovating within dub techno and experimental ambient zones, Echium looks to loosen up its strictures while playing deep within its unfathomable dimensions, literally urging a dematerialisation of mindsets and musical structures with literal titles such as ‘Collapsed Senses’ and ‘Glacial Rust’ matched by meticulous sound design that surely connotes and evokes their meaning in the most elusively abstract, lushly sensorial terms.

Two years in the works, ‘Baroque’ follows from the D&B-styled flux of Ena’s early 2019 collaboration with Felix K (F&E #1) to sound out more unorthodox areas of inquiry of abtruse, Chain Reaction-like sound design and algorithmic decomposition. In terms of the music’s boneless construction and roiling spectral nature, it surely ranks among Different Circles’ headiest and most psychedelic releases following the dread kinematics of Logos’ ‘Imperial Flood’ album and the cult acclaim given to their killer Raime and Szare 12”s in the past year.
Variously recalling the sound of stressed-out machinery or the sferic mystery of The Conet Project, ‘Baroque’ sees Ena transition further from recognisable styles into a richly enigmatic tonal and texturhythmic language. Over the album’s six tracks he uses this futurist-primitive mode to express a detached, meditative state-of-mind that speaks to paradoxical ideals of club music and domestic listening: of being simultaneously in it, yet out of it; of finding yourself lost in the crowd of noise.
It’s a sound that resonates with the short-circuiting AI convulsions of Logos, Mumdance and Shapednoise’s EP for The Death of Rave as much as the hypnagogic mulch of Thought Broadcast or the most abstruse Chain Reaction releases - think a rusted and sunken Dynamo or Porter Ricks in radioactive waters - and comes primed in artwork by Raime that perfectly highlights the music’s strange, semi-organic nature and austere yet psychoactive allure.

For the third chapter of Refined Productions Aleksandra Grünholz aka We Will Fail delivers her third full length album entitled Dancing on her recently launched label with Jakub Mikolajczyk, head of MonotypeRec label and MonotypePressings. Here she tells the story:

'Taking a break from rationality, my first thoughts about the theme of this album were about the night, when our sight is limited and thoughts are corrupted by fatigue. I don't dance anymore, I don't party, I don't let myself go. Some time ago that part of life slipped away from me. This album is like silently entering into a place you shouldn't be in. A lot of rave inspired sounds were used on the album, dreamy pads, arpeggios, simple melodic structures; but this album is not easy and simple.

As head of a graphic design studio in Warsaw, last year was very hard for me, the amount of work started to overwhelm me; I started to feel stupid and possessed by the work, this is how the tracks 'Very Urgent' and 'Economic Maladies' were born. While the track 'Reason' is about losing rationality and how easy it is to do.

'Put Your Hands Up in the Air' encompasses the rave. It's also a kind of question, can music itself tell a story Very often in EDM or trance music there is a story and I like to call it catharsis. A moment, when the beat slows down and melody/pads become solo. I tried to extract this moment, without adding drops and aggressive rhythms.

'So Who's the Man' is about regaining the power, slowly but consequently. This album is a about feeling bold, monstrous and strong. Like looking insolently into someones eyes. You have to be patient with this one, because it builds up slowly. If you listen only for a fragment you miss the whole idea.

'Beasts from the East' was inspired by the thought of being a small peace loving person in a chaotic world that is dominated by stupidity.

The track '2018' epitomises the rave, but more complicated. Each of the layers are a but simplistic and could construct a dance track, but as there are so many sounds simultaneously, it can become disturbing in the perfect way.

'Diving in Plastic' was fit for the last track, I didn't want the album to have a perfect conclusion, I wanted to leave the listener hanging and ready for more.'

Gnashing hardcore spirit meets razor-sharp sound design in a keen collab between Svbkvlt MVP Gooooose and chiptune survivor DJ Scotch Egg, with searing remixes by Slikback and Seven Orbits & TSVI
The debut collaboration between the Japanese and Chinese mentalists, ‘JAC’ was forged in the wake of Nyege Nyege Tapes’ 2019 festival, where Shigeru Ishihara aka Scotch Egg’s playful sense of drama proved an ideal match for Gooooose’s precision-tuned, bespoke software in the studio.
As mainstay of ‘00s electronica, with recent credits in Seefeel and WaqWaq Kingdom, Ishihara appears to lend a sort of cryptic sci-fi story-telling to the exacting, super-crisp contours and pointillist percussion of Gooooose across six surprisingly emotive works that provide a rocket fuel for the remixers, spurring Slikback to run riot while hard drum guys TSVI & Seven Orbits double down on their already excellent work for Svbkvlt.
Bringing Gooooose’s work arguably closer to the devilishness of peer 33EMYBW, title tune ‘JAC’ tweaks a fine line of breakcore, juke and neo-Far Eastern hyperstep that admirably updates what we know of Scotch Egg, while ‘Dengrouse’ cuts a super minimal figure recalling Untold’s vacuumpacked Eski tekkers, and ‘Rolex’ forms a wickedly chewy, turbulent tribute to Uganda’s favourite
street food alongside a lush, choral footwork pinnacle of their efforts in ‘Altered Destiny’.
Cemented with Swordman Kitala’s hoarse holler on the dancehall trample of ‘Goose Egg Dub’, plus the face-pulling G-force of Slikback’s rabid take on ‘JAC’ and Seven Orbits & TSVI’s glorious ambient hard drum remix of ‘Altered Destiny’, it’s all a proper doozy for the dancefloor dreamers and anyone looking beyond the usual rave hotspots for real, upfront thrills.

The weighty and heavily brooding debut album from Simon Shreeve’s Mønic project finally lands on Downwards following releases for Osiris and Tresor and those killer remixes from Burial and Regis. Grey, expansive and low-lit industrial landscapes are the order of the day here, a huge recommendation if you’re into anything from Joy Division to Pan Sonic, Tropic of Cancer to GAS or the rain-soaked zones stalked by Burial and The Bug’s Flame duo, Logos and Karim Maas.
Arriving at a time when we’ve long reached saturation point with user-friendly environmental/lifestyle Ambient, ‘In a Certain Light’ offers an anxious counterpoint for late night immersion carefully framed with a cinematic attention to detail in lighting, texture and space worthy of The Cure’s ‘Faith’, the defining aesthetic of the Blackest Ever Black label and Karl O’Connor’s own industrial frameworks.
The almost impossibly depressed opening vignette ‘From Sun to Sun’ ushers us into a morose, brutalist landscape that descends into the slow motion thud of “Where Can I Find You Now?” sounding like a lost Tropic of Cancer instrumental, while ‘Field Work’ recalls Vainio / Väisänen / Vega’s incredible ‘Endless’ collaboration and ‘Solar Enemy’ deploys tense strings and clipped subs to sharp and deadly effect, like Alva Noto taped on old, worn-out VHS.
It’s the more nuanced cuts that stand out most though; ‘Reversed Language’ could almost be an Elodie recording made in the middle of nowhere, outside, in the thick of night, while the title track unfurls from a dense GAS-like thicket into an unsettling Lynchian nightscape on a moonless night, with faint neon lights flickering somewhere far in the distance.

A strong look for Errorsmith, Evol and Peder Mannerfelt heads - Reece Cox debuts a charmingly daft and animated style of syncopated, technoid dance music on iDEAL.
Berlin-based, ofc, Cox generates playfully raving and nutty results from a concept-driven approach on ‘Clang’, which takes its title in tribute to what he describes as; “…a term coined by American Composer, James Tenney to describe a musical unit composed of discreet elements that come together to form a cohesive and singular
sonic event… a sonic cartoon aimed not at as sophisticated sonic experience, but sophisticated perceptual one”.
So yeah it’s less PLUR oneness and perhaps more techgnostically centred on the body, but the results are dead effective and cohesive, lending his own spin to the whole sound designer techno paradigm in standouts like the warped UKF/Soca-house of ‘Clang 2’, and a gnarled sidespin on Errorsmith tekkers with ‘Clang 5’ and ‘Clang 7’ that come spaced out nicely with the lurid cutesiness of ‘Clang 4’ and a dose of Belgian hoover headfloss in ‘Clang 6’.
Call it braindance, hooligan computer music, conceptronica (lol) or whatever you want, it’s just dead good fun if you like this sorta craic.

Damon Zucconi is a visual artist living and working in Philadelphia. He frequently uses custom software to create his work, and has spent the past decade working as a computer programmer, producing pieces which are typically accessible online. Some of his projects include 'Fata Morgana' a reworking of Google Maps code that hides everything except text elements; a website for the Arca site-specific performance-installation Tormenta; and recent solo exhibitions with Veda in Florence and JTT in New York of physical and digital works. This is Zucconi's debut music release.

Following up 12”s for AD 93 (formerly known as Whities), Timedance, International black, and Yume, Neinzer lands with Where To Now? for a suite of leftfield slow steppers and deep melancholic psychedelia. Having been quietly turning heads for the last few years Neinzer cuts an interesting figure in today’s electronic landscape as someone whose creations walk the lines of heavy, otherworldly, hypnotic Techno, explored by the likes of Avalon Emerson, Metrist, the Hessle Audio crew etc, whilst maintaining a gauzy, acid washed dreamy quality which recalls the work of more restrained, melodic electronica stalwarts such as Floating Points, Four Tet, Clark, etc. Neinzer’s work stands apart from all of these touch points however by utilising an often tense & unstable approach to sound design, but always injecting his worlds with huge flashes of melody, joy, and power.

We dive in with heads down intent on the opener ‘Traum’a’. Deep pads and quick paced percussive flurries shuffle below detuned piano keys, bringing an almost jazzwise leaning to the dance. Next, we lean back with ‘Nabi’, where Neinzer flexes his electroacoustic influences and explores tone & tension by melding a natural pallet of human sound with synthesized pressure to create a unique and destabilising piece.

‘Rassalin’ brings the Machine Funk and slows things right down with dizzying effect, deeply swinging its way with gritty intent through a trembling landscape on the brink of collapse. From here on out, Neinzer shifts his previous beat led focus towards something more psychedelic and exploratory – on ‘Hebdamu’ we find flourishing swathes of freeform melodic beauty build and build, snaking around the precise percussive hallmarks of Neinzer’s sound world, and ‘Shifting Values’ ends with the gloriously dubbed out experimentation of ‘Cause Pan Tact Insoluble’ – coming off like Adrian Sherwood jamming with Popol Vuh.

Introducing Paris-based contemporary sculptor and music maker Erwan Sene joining the exponential Unknown Precept roster. Gathering pieces thought of as little narratives for his debut release, not without a bit French irony around the concept of work, 'I Heard You Laughing' wavers towards mechanical repetition and something more outdated at times. Purposely slowing down the tempo to fit the apparent redundancy of an industrial environment and its steadily running engines. An eroded atmosphere of sorts, analogous to the smokestacks emanating from factory chimneys. Accentuating the ambiguity of a wild thought which is hard to grasp. Despite its machine-driven aspect, Sene primary questions the difficulty to manage one's life stuck in a primitive mindset, making intuitive associations in a grid pattern. Carbon copy music for the tangled minds out there, leaving room for nothing but sedated feelings.

Following 2019’s Dupla Ritmica EP, Banlieue is back with a 7” record featuring four tracks produced by Jose Fleury, a Berlin-based producer affiliated to the Infinite Drift imprint which he runs with Banlieue alumni Matthis Ruffing.

Throughout four short tracks, the listener is transported into Fleury’s world: cinematic at times, lush and synthetic but never devoid of humanity, these tracks would fit easily in the IDM / forward-thinking electronic music category yet that would not fully encompass the producer’s idiosyncratic sound. With Acacia’s futuristic electro feel, Garden’s lush and dubby atmosphere, Aue soft haze’s blissed-out mood and 610's upbeat flurry of beats, there are far more diverse textures, emotions, rhythms and soundscapes than one would initially imagine, a good reminder to always remember that there's always more than meets the eye.

‘Alterity’ is compilation of fifteen warped, experimental and deconstructed club music tracks featuring artists from almost every continent. It pieces together shared sounds that connect disparate scenes across the globe. The music is fuelled by a desire to dissolve borders and transcend perceived norms to promote the existence of alternate viewpoints, lifestyles and identities.

The listener travels to a parallel plane through amorphous techno wormholes, caverns of industrial beat science and colossal panoramas of glistening hyper-stylised trance. Each creation espouses local sounds and adapts global musical styles creating a singular, holistic map of modern dancefloors that champion diversity and inclusivity.

The cover art of a manipulated city shows an ordinary urban landscape remodelled as another world. It hints at an endless, borderless macrocosm concealed within.

The gatefold double LP is pressed on yellow vinyl and comes with a digital download code and printed inner sleeves.

Senthulà is one of the many aliases of musical jack of all trades José Guerrero, a long standing figure in the already rich underground scene of Valencia. In this solo excursion he explores the vast possibilities of mechanical repetition, the machine funk of dirtbag rhythms and proper boogie DIY synth music, sculpting a syncopated sound that is both modern and atavistic. Coming from a deep knowledge and ability to communicate very diverse sounds, slow jams unfold into dance music for clear eyed lounge lizards for whom sleaze comes not dizzy but focused. Whitened african rhythms beat up no wave disco pleasure points, managing the hard task of being very cool and nonchalant, but also hot and dedicated.

This closed door nightclub music will appeal to fans of the new developments in dance music that put Cabaret Voltaire, impLOG or Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou into XXI Century basements. The record comes also with a killer remix by Tolouse Low Trax, probably our favourite producer in modern rhythmic music.

“Don´t go out there, you might get shot” was the warning from Donna Maya relatives when she visited Detroit two years ago. That makes her even more curious to explore the city. Disturbed by, as well as fascinated from the dystopian state of Detroit she recorded many places that made (industrial) history, including the Ford factory, the world’s tallest, now abandoned central station and the once magnificent Michigan Theater, that was brutally converted into a parking garage. Donna Maya transformed the sound recordings into artificial sound sculptures combined with electronic beats. Every track is dedicated to one of those places and makes it musically alive. With her theremin Donna Maya guides the listener deeply inside. The result of Donna Mayas 6 weeksstay in Detroit is her album “Lost Spaces -> Detroit". “Lost Spaces ? Detroit” is about how to handle crises, how individuals get along with it and the relationship of society to its culture. Donna Maya understands Detroit as a perfect example for what capitalism does when people give up cultural values. With “Lost Spaces ? Detroit” Donna Maya draws a musical picture of how she experienced Detroit that shows that not only a city got lost, but a living space for everyone: Pure urban experimental electronics with theremin.

Faitiche presents a new album by Frank Bretschneider. abtasten_halten was made as part of the raster.labor installation first presented at CTM Festival in 2019. It is perhaps the most radical work in Bretschneider’s distinctive oeuvre: abtasten_halten is a self-generating composition for synthesizer modules whose sole sound source is the movement of two VU meter needles. The resulting percussive sounds coalesce into rhythmic combinations – all random, without repetition. The album resembles a meditation on infinite rhythmic variation. abtasten_halten is Frank Bretschneider’s first release on Faitiche.

One sound can give birth to thousands of tones through self-fertilization. Pierre Henry, 1982

Frank Bretschneider on abtasten_halten:
abtasten_halten (sample_hold) is a largely self-generating composition for a modular synthesizer system. Self-generating here means that as soon as a current flows, the various modules interact, but within limits set by the composer via the connections between the modules (patches): timing, tempo, timbres, dynamics. These conditions are kept variable to a certain extent or left to chance, so that the composition created is always similar but never the same. On the one hand, the use of random generators opens up possibilities that would not otherwise have been considered. On the other, it offers the fascination of the unfinished and the unique: totally unexpected musical events that you might hear only once.

abtasten_halten combines my preferences for percussive music in general and electronic music in particular. Largely avoiding repetitive structures, the piece is more like a free improvisation, quiet and diffuse, but also extremely dense, in ever-changing contrasts and transformations.

The tone generators are two modified VU meters whose needles, driven by trigger impulses, create a simple one-bar pattern by hitting against a metal spring that is connected to a piezo element (thanks to Gijs Gieskes / Gieskes.NL). The tempo is continuously varied over a period of about ten minutes by several mutually modulating LFOs, ranging from about 0.06 Hz up to the lower audio range of about 18Hz.
The percussive sounds thus obtained are then passed through low-pass filters with moderate resonance and random frequency modulation to additionally colour the sound. Further processing is then executed by an echo module whose tempo and repetitions are again determined by random parameters. Finally the audio signal is occasionally enriched with reverb to add more spaciousness to the sound.

The concept for the installation raster.labor was developed by Olaf Bender, Frank Bretschneider and David Letellier. Many thanks to raster - artistic platform.

On Frank Bretschneider:

Frank Bretschneider works as a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin, making mainly electronic work based on complex rhythmic structures and interlocking textures, whose many-layered sound is inspired by the experimental set-ups of modern physics, often supplemented by perfectly synchronized computer-generated visualizations. In 1986, he founded AG Geige, one of the most influential underground bands in East Germany. In 1996, he co-founded the label raster-noton and has since released many solo albums.

Isolating is the industrial solo alter ego of London-based, Stephen Hindman, one half of The Golden FIlter. Coming off of their moody 2020 debut EP on Optimo Music, On August 28th, Isolating will release an analog, lo-fi, gritty full-length LP called Perennial on their own 4GN3S label. Disquieting and dystopian, the album shifts from the beatless drone of ‘Mortification’ to the IDM inspired electro in ‘Sacrament’, each track melding into each other with an unsettling anxiety.

The LP mirrors the concepts behind ’Perennial Philosophy’ by Aldous Huxley. Solitarily created in London room on a Modular system, ‘Perennial’ tackles the perspective in spirituality that views all of the world's religions as sharing a single, metaphysical origin, with a nod to the Lucretius quote; “To such heights of evil are men driven by religion.” The album photography of Stephen is by Agnes Haus.

Utter presents Danny Wolfers' aka Legowelt's cult spywave album 'Schaduw Horizon' on vinyl for the first time. Initially released on CDR on Wolfers' Strange Life label back in 2008, this DX7-drenched soundtrack was influenced by real locations near Wolfers' coastal dune studio in The Hague.

Set in the depths of the cold war at an abandoned zoo, it scores the imaginary story of Percival, a NATO animal parapsychologist researching the extra-sensory powers of a Siamese cat and a chess-playing chimpanzee named Albert. After the Soviets discover the project, Percival's team members are assassinated one by one, forcing him and his animal friends to escape in a small sailboat towards a mysterious island...

The album has been remastered by Wolfers then transferred and cut by Helmut Erler at D&M. It is housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve that opens to reveal detailed stories behind each track, while the entire back cover is a life-size chess board for any budding Alberts wishing to play a game. A special 'confidential documents' envelope completes the package and contains a map of the abandoned zoo, a top secret letter including coordinates of the locations featured in the story, DX7 schematics, foldable chess pieces and a 'Schaduw Horizon' sticker.

After a two-year hiatus Georg (co-founder of Light of Other Days) is back with a new EP and a new moniker. As usual the five tracks on the EP «A Million Pieces» are hard to pinpoint and are highly personal pieces of work. On «A Million Pieces» Slow Glass takes us on a journey from dark ambient spaces to carefree dancefloors. «A Million Pieces» starts out in a state of tension but over the course of the EP, Slow Glass takes the listener to a place of relief. The productions are mainly based on heavily manipulated fieldrecordings and everyday sounds. Slow Glass creates dense soundscapes which build the frame for light-hearted harmonies as well as playful percussion and gloomy synth lines. The EP closes out with «Relieved», a rhythmic dance track with hopping synths and airy guitar that could almost make for a summer song. «A Million Pieces» is an adventurous EP for curious listeners. It is loaded with quirky sounds, rhythmic arpeggios, and impulsive percussions. The digital package comes with three remixes by the likes of Thunder Tillman, Belia Winnewisser and Gee Dee. The cosmic travellers from Thunder Tillman turn «Release» into a psyched-out journey into space and time. Belia Winnewisser delivers a powerful, club-ready version of «Strained» adding her trademark drum-sounds and label-mate Gee Dee gifts «Release» with a treatment of analog warmth.

After the success of his alchemic Relapse EP, Fedbymachines returns to Shipwrec with his brand of genre splicing electronics. The 12" opens in the blurry haze of "Rest Rain." Drenched in static, dubby notes trudge next to whispered hi-hits as liquid notes sparkle. A deftness of touch permeates the entire record, coming to the fore in the gentle currents and sways of "Bestill" before the cascading resonance of "Solos." Nothing is overstated in this journey into deep absorption and introspection, instead Fedbymachines carefully crafts his soundscapes in complementary levels to construct fluid musical feats. The finale comes with "Bound." From an understated opening, the track comes to life as a textured beat takes hold allowing radiant keys shine. A multi-layered release from a multifaceted musician.

An electronic beat-driven side project created by Android Lagowski to release tracks on Sleepers Records.

First double on Sleepers Record from Manchester electronic music pioneer Eric Random.