Techno News

The welcome and wondrous return of Lyon musician Baptiste Martin's aerial ambient identity, Les Halles, following a year's sabbatical from recording, Zephyr takes its name from a light westerly wind, which aptly evokes the warm, weightless, whispering spirit of these beguiling ambient designs. Working entirely with a computer for the first time, Martin's sample bank swelled in both depth and detail, giving his compositions a crisper focus and finer grain. Slovakian fujara flutes shudder and shimmer, offset with rippling PVC panpipes, chimes, and gentle webs of delay.

The tracks are titled according to their sample source, designated with one of three words that are same in French and English: horizon, mirage, and distance. Martin speaks of these pieces as conjuring 'landscapes with almost no human traces,' and his criterion for completion is simple: 'When I feel like I'm losing the perception of time while listening.' Nine new divinations by one of today's most attuned waking dreamers.

Belfast-producer Space Dimension Controller, a.k.a. Jack Hamill, may be landing his debut release on Dekmantel, but he's definitely no stranger to their shores. With the three-track EP 'Gaining Time' clocking in at over 35-minutes, phasing between cosmic kaleidoscopic house, and serene, epic ambient, — a sonic atmosphere reminiscent of the background resonance the galaxy permeates on a daily basis — Hamill's Dekmantel debut is closer to that of an album, than your average set of club 12's.
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Hamill began his production career with the space-disco EP 'Journey to the core of the unknown sphere', a record that truly set him apart from his peers, showcasing his technical nuance, and love of melodics. Since then he's further established himself through conceptual-album projects on Ninja Tune, experimental dancefloor EPs on R&S Records, and experimentations on techno through Royal Oak. With his penchant for techno, and inclination towards painting musical narratives around science fiction and electro-futurism, Hamill is the next step in evolution towards Detroit-like, future music, albeit from Northern Ireland.

His latest EP kicks off with 'Everything is Better Now' and a countdown that blasts off into a trans-dimensional 14-minute journey of warped kicks, pads that phase in-and-out of our conventional timezone, a bassline that doesn't pop-up until the four-minute mark — like a gravity fluctuation abruptly peering through a temporary wormhole—, melody, character, and a free flowing story arc worthy of the Space Dimension Controller himself. 'Everything is Better Now' is an epic, techno-futurist journey of progressive, fluid, epicness. 'NRG Intersect' is a beautiful 15-minute ambient transmission from outer space, played out with synth chords, across strummed melodies and a tape deck hitch here and there, like an uncoded language from a far off land - as if Brian Eno himself has forgotten to include the track on his lunar, legacy record 'Apollo'. 'Still Returning' takes the ambient coding and minimises it yet further, like Solaris itself beckoning from its cloudy, deep, mystic blue oceans.

Deeat Palace is the solo project of Marion Camy-Palou, no wave musician from Paris.

** 8" clear disc in sealed clear & silver bag **

When we started The Bunker New York label in 2014 there was a short list of artists whose music we knew that we wanted to get out into the world. Lori Napoleon, aka Antenes, was high up on that list, although at the time the Brooklyn-based Chicago native had yet to release her recorded music at all. Five years on, after acclaimed records on L.I.E.S. and Silent Season, residencies at Issue Project Room and Bell Labs plus a busy global touring schedule as both a DJ and live performer, we are proud and excited to present Lori's Ante Meridiem EP under her Antemeridian production moniker. She tells us that the Antemeridian project is a special outlet for her more melodic synthesizer compositions and the name Antemeridian refers to morning light and the meridian lines of the planet, the view you would have from above if you were already in the sky/space/seeing the atmosphere also from a great distance.'
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With this EP, Antemeridian has created nothing less than a masterwork of synthesis comprising unique soundscapes unbelievably detailed and crisp. We asked Lori to tell us a bit about her production techniques, which include home-built machines from unorthodox source materials including vintage switchboards and telecommunications equipment. She actually built her first synthesizer out of an antique telephone switchboard we donated to her from The Bunker HQ! I use a combination of synths and controllers/sequencers that I've made along with commercially available/ bought or modded analog synths and field recordings that have gone through a number of effects chains. There may be a crackling sound that emerged from the modular which made me think about a flame sparking and burning out, recalling a very organic process in nature - but in a composition it's a drum element. Perhaps the sense of detail comes from how I work on finding sounds before arranging them in a track so when I find one with little nuances and textures, then I'll be inspired to compose with it. Visceral sounds are very important to me, and sounds that you may not instantly identify with this or that synth model - which is why I like the idea of designing my own palette for portions of tracks.'

price tba! Mutant Beat Dance has returned with their debut self-titled 25 track album, a record album booklet consisting of 6 records in 3 different formats of 12"s, 7"s and 10'. Huge!

The debut album from renegade trio Mutant Beat Dance (Traxx aka Melvin Oliphant, Beau Wanzer and Steve Summers) takes the wild and free sound of Chicago's Music Box era into the 21st Century. Over twenty-five tracks the album mines an oft cited but rarely understood ground at the intersection of Post-Punk, Minimal Wave, Industrial, Disco Dub, EBM and proto-House / early-House. 'Mutant Beat Dance ' is an epic journey into a classic American ideology that had its apex in Chicago.

This aesthetic has already proven influential on many artists across the globe. Least of which is the Grammy winning LCD Soundsystem whose members Tyler Pope and Patrick Mahoney back Melvin on vocals here on the Martin Hannett and Howard Devoto inspired 'Feed The Enemy' - a cut that shows how wide and deep this epic record goes. Another LCD member Gavin Rayna Russom also provides vocals on the later cut 'Geometrical Disease.' That these collaborations are included here should come as no surprise to anyone who caught the recent LCD tour - Traxx was the opening DJ on that nationwide tour.

Mutant Beat Dance was originally a duo made up of Traxx, and molecular biologist, Chicagoan Beau Wanzer. Traxx and Beau have been working on this concept in various forms throughout the last decade on solo and duo releases for Discos Capablanca, Rong Music, Hour House Is Your Rush Records, L.I.E.S, Light Sounds Dark, Rush Hour, Jealous God, Beau's own untitled label and Traxx's own Nation label. After this rack full of releases the duo began to refine their concept from 2015 on into its most thoroughly developed state - the result is this epic 25 track, 200 minute long debut M.B.D album for Rush Hour.

Given the scope of the material for the project it became logical and necessary to expand the unit to include its newest member Brooklyn based Steve Summers known for his releases on Clone Jack For Daze, Confused House and others. Together this hard-working trio has completed an album with an enormous diversity of song styles unlike anything they have ever done before. Unique in its musical range and content from obscure electronics with subliminal messages to funk laden machine grooves, industrial soundscapes, Detroit dirge, cryptic ankle bitter anthems and beyond this is a genre-bending challenging monster of an album that may scare you at first but push forward and deep rewards lie within.

Guttural, pained screams from beyond converge with mangled corrosive rhythms on the sophomore EP from DiNT for Horo. 'Hooker' convenes an impromptu post punk band out of undead skeletal pulses and spits a frustrated barb to anyone in earshot. 'Shovel' slams nails in relentlessly with an excruciating vocal refrain grinding over the band of zombies undulating bass riff, decaying as it loops. 'Skewer' drags the undead to the dance-floor with a primitive rhythm that rises and ducks, wringing out the intensity with macabre vocal commands reaching through a wall of distortion.

On remix duties, Ontal turn Shovel into a peak time industrial techno weapon, while ANFS grinds Skewer into a jagged amen experiment, and Codex Empire fuses Shovel and Skewer into an anthemic sludge. Oake wraps up the experience by taking Hooker into another realm, convening another band of tortured souls stuck in purgatory, wrecking the rhythms with adrenaline-fuelled pitch black energy.

Príncipe kick off 2018 in a big way with the remarkable début by P. (as in 'Producer') Adrix, a 22 year old artist originally from Lisbon, now based in Manchester, who is equally adept at crafting full tilt, teched-out bangers as effervescent electronic soul music. His first release, Album Desconhecido is a supreme example of the innovative scenius in Angolan-Portuguese music, ratcheting the thrilling dynamics of Lisbon's ghetto bass sound with deadly edits and pressure highly compatible with the UK's jump-up jungle, drill or soca grime vibes.
Building on ground-breaking work forwarded by producer/DJs Marfox, Nervoso, Nídia and Lycox in recent years, Album Desconhecido is jaw-droppingly fresh, even by Príncipe's up-to-the-second standards. And like Lycox, who hails from Angola and Lisbon via France, it's fair to say that P. Adrix's relative detachment from Lisbon has also led him to break the kuduro mould in scintillating new ways, effectively mapping out and recombining a glowing flux of ideas circulating the Black Atlantic diaspora.
Delivered in 9 short sharp stings between the seasick drill of Zelda Shyt and the laser-guided trance lixx of Viva La Raça, Adrix trades in a mix of virulent, adrenalised energy and soulful rollige that sets fire to any 'floor across the breadth of Album Desconhecido. It's clear and present in the turbulent, rug-pulling subs and febrile polyrhythms of Bola De Cristal, and to blinding degrees in the high-wire tension and bone-freezing edits of 6.6.6, whereas the zipping flutes of Ovni bind roots and future with breathtaking, needlepoint incision, leaving Sonhos to provide a dead sweet, even romantic contrast with the melancholic meditation of Tejo for fine measure.
After encountering Album Desconhecido, there can be little doubt that Adrix is making some of the most exciting dance music in the world right now - a boldly expressive and immediately effective sound that drives listeners to a rare but timeless sort of rave ecstasy - thrillingly synthetic and infused with an unmistakeable lust for the dance.In the right hands, it's dangerous stuff. You've been warned!

Repress


Colón Man is the exceptional debut album proper by visionary Jamaican dancehall artists Gavin Blair (Gavsborg) and Jordan Chung (Time Cow) plus their extended crew, aka Equiknoxx - once again for Demdike Stare's DDS label. Where their widely acclaimed Bird Sound Power primer compilation, issued on DDS in 2016, brought the rest of the world up to speed with the music produced between late '00s and 2015, their first album now brings a 2020 sound into sharp, technoid focus thru a baker's dozen steely, heat-seeking riddims galvanised with clinical electronics and a Midas Touch approach to sampling.
The record's title, Cólon Man refers to a Jamaican tale (and song) about a mysterious character, whom, like Marcus Garvey, was one of over 100,000 Jamaicans who returned from working in Cólon on completion of the Panama Canal - regarded among the greatest feats of engineering known to humankind, physically connecting the greatest bodies of water on the planet. In context of the album, Gavsborg and Timecow take the story as a metaphorical foundational for a roots and future sound, acknowledging the vital groundwork of previous generations of producers, whilst soundly contextualising their mutant new advancements of
Jamaican Dancehall.
Recorded between December 2016 and June 2017, the results of Colón Man form a stark, stripped down and conceptually blinding record. In tone and texture, the duo favour far colder, more abstract sounds, crucially lit up with sparingly used samples that lend the record its dissonant, harmonic colour and bittersweet hooks, stylishly feeding forward their playfully weird sense of humour into a rugged, nutty and even noisily imagineered set.
Bookended by the gauzy, Detroit-compatible synth looks and acid hall grind of Kareece Put Some Some Thread In A Zip Lock, and the mesh of Motor City sleekness with Far Eastern strings on Waterfalls In Ocho Rios, they distill and diversify their bonds in myriad ways across the album. There's a killer dancehall/trap hybrid in the percolate chorales and man trills of Plantain Porridge, along with the secretive dub-into-dancehall transfusion of Addis Pablo's melodica in the belly rolling Melodica Badness, while Ceremonial Eating Dog and the hyaline designs of We Miss You Little Joe - a tribute to their pal Alty Nunes - are arguably the most fwd Jamaican riddims you'll hear in 2017, and Enter A Raffle... Win A Falafel uncannily recalls the clockwork mechanics of Haruomi Hosono's Alternative 3, from his S-F-X (1984) LP.
No matter what electronic box or boxes you subscribe to, Colón Man is a hugely inventive, compelling album for the ages, a remarkable iteration of Black Secret Technology for 2017 and far beyond.

Guttural, pained screams from beyond converge with mangled corrosive rhythms on the sophomore EP from DiNT for Horo. 'Hooker' convenes an impromptu post punk band out of undead skeletal pulses and spits a frustrated barb to anyone in earshot. 'Shovel' slams nails in relentlessly with an excruciating vocal refrain grinding over the band of zombies undulating bass riff, decaying as it loops. 'Skewer' drags the undead to the dance-floor with a primitive rhythm that rises and ducks, wringing out the intensity with macabre vocal commands reaching through a wall of distortion.

Following the hugely appreciated reissue of Stanislav Tolkachev 'Why are you so frightened' we proudly present 'Catacomb Saints'. Two songs written during the same period as 'Yes, Today' and 'Imago', originally planned to come out in 2011 but halted due to a severe traffic accident in label manager Rivet's life followed by years of hospitalization. But times are brighter now! We hope you enjoy this quite weird and simply singular 10" by the eastern genius that is Tolkachev.

Black suitcase over Bank transfer. Music for the Vodka Booth. Presented to you by Max Gee & Funkycan

extended Ambient Techno excursions

Mica Levi presents her latest, stunning soundtrack, this time to the Phil Collins-directed anime short Delete Beach, on Demdike Stare's DDS label.
Following on from the maverick pop auteur and film composer's European Film Award-winning score to Under The Skin, and her Jackie soundtrack, this is Mica's first musical accompaniment for animation, by revered designer Marisuke Eguchi, animated by STUDIO4ºC.
Delete Beach is a sci-fi anime set in a near future where carbon-based energy is outlawed.
The film supposes a paradoxical scenario, one where fossil fuels - the ostensible accelerator of humanity's progress and decline - become energy for the toil against state oppression and enforced inequality. In doing so, it resonates with anime's strong tradition of exploring ecofeminist themes and power dynamics, both socio-political and technological.
Using a signature palette of dissonant strings and combustible electronics laced with skeletal percussive treatments, Levi paints a series of sweeping backdrops to the short's blend of classically-schooled anime and up-to-the-second CGI designs. The central Delete Beach theme, a diaphanous section of airborne synth-string contours and charred guitar distortion carved in pirouetting turns-of-phrase, appears in Japanese and English-narrated versions and an Instrumental mix. They are divided by the beat-driven Interlude 1 and interlude 2 parts, recalling a mix of string slashes mixed with opiated chopped 'n screwed rhythms comparable to Micachu & The Shapes deconstructions of London Sinfonietta.
After her work underlying and exploring complex characters in Jackie, a biopic of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the alien-woman metaphors of Jonathan Glazer's Under The Skin, her Delete Beach soundtrack follows suit with an impendingly tense, viscerally affective sound that reflects and conveys a sense of independence in the face of uncertainty, of a struggle against imposed forces or control systems. It's another beguiling testament to Levi's role as one of the most original and eminent composers of her generation.

The second release on Sbire furthers the on-going collaboration between label co-founder Gaspard de La Montagne and Nathan Baumann. 'Spectres' is a bold, seductive and wonderfully-unhurried record which shows the breadth of the Sbire sound world.

The title track is orchestral and profoundly alluring, with an earworm bassline creeping out from behind the kick drum's refined thud. You're pulled further in by the lengthy intro of 'Aube', where floating pads, draw from the instrumental flair of classical music. Mid-way through they give way to a stripped-back bassline, exemplifying the nature of this collaboration.

B-side opener 'Masque' has harmonic beams of light swirling over its foundations. The melodies transfix and the drums keep time. 'Perspectives (1 & 2)' occupies a thin veil of haze, tempering the beat and bringing out the groove in the baggy percussion. In fitting style, it ends a record whose grace comes in the striking interactions between elements far-removed.

PG TUNE presents CENTRIFUGE ONE - the first label compilation in a series of thematic installments. In the focus this time are Moscow raised producers and live performers, sharing a fresh vision of the globally evolving dancefloor universe.
NEW DANCE SOUND OF MOSCOW features music by Philipp Gorbachev, Obgon, Interchain, DEKA, Dubrovsky and ushi333. Artwork by Artem Stefanov (STFNV).
key selling points:
- D-scription is Philipp Gorbachev's first solo work since 'Unlock The Box' LP (PG TUNE, 2016)
- 2 x 12'' coloured vinyl sleeve includes insert with very special pictures of Moscow
- CENTRIFUGE started with a Moscow rave party in 2016
- All music was recorded live for dancing in new Moscow clubs (ARMA17, Rabitza), streets and DIY garages
- Features artwork by Artem Stefanov, fundamental mural artist, known for his contributions at major music and art festivals (OUTLINE, 4GB, GEM)
- DEKA is a new Moscow supergroup and will release an album in 2018
- Very early DJ support from Barnt, Ivan Smagghe, Anastasia Kristensen, Inga Mauer...

NHK yx Koyxen walks at any speed and on any surface he desires to trance-scend. His "Parallel Tempo EP" takes a mindful plunge into layers of rigorously murmuring gestures. Speed is relative to size. As they are streched and bent, the planes engage in parallel movement. This is an exploded drawing, unlocked from time.

The Japanese artist and producer NHK yx Koyxen contiunes to unveil his unique vocabulary, as the "Parallel Tempo EP" builds on a series of releases for L.I.E.S., Diagonal, DFA and The Trilogy Tapes. Publishing drawings and music alike, NHK yk Koyxen aka Kohei Matsunaga offers playful and sometimes unexpected glimpes of the "almost common". Performing on electronic music's timeless DNA, he offers those who step in a resonating space, in which loose objects are bound to embrace each other.

LP There's been an air of hypnagogic mystery surrounding Acid Test's sublabel Avenue 66 from the start. Joey Anderson's oblique, Prince-inspired incantation "Above The Cherry Moon" set the tone for a label that's sound that has found beauty in the furthest recesses of the dance floor, in the murkiest decay of kick drums and rave stabs. Fitting then, that the first album on the imprint comes from Trux, an artist who has chosen to reveal nearly nothing about themselves. Following a cult classic mini-LP for Office Recordings, "Orbiter" bears out the anonymous producer as a master of liminal, conceptual dance music. "Orbiter's" ten tracks have a vaporous, shape-shifting quality, threatening to topple over into full-on kick drum bliss or vanish into ambience. Opener, "With It," moves from heady ambient rush to skeletal piano, while "Blinko" and "Roy's Garage" spell out a hazy memoriam for the UK continuum. Forlorn pianos ring out amongst the field recordings, excitable toms and jungle bass all softened in the enveloping gauze. "Orbiter" positions Trux as an unknown auteur who puts evocative world of tone and echo into dizzying motion, content to watch from the wings.

For the 23rd release on Pinkman, Rotterdam based Mitchell Goor delivers a 4 tracker of slow, raw and warped Techno. The contrast between unpolished percussive instruments and ethereal melodies reoccurs throughout the release and gets polished and refined by haunting vocal samples and pungent acid bass lines. This gives the record an ability to take audiences on rollercoaster rides through tension and anger as well as hope and promise, powered by permanent, adrenaline stimulating, raw energy.

With releases on BNR Trax, Minimal Wave's Cititrax and a regular on Zone Records, French producer and RAAR co-founder Maelstrom makes his debut on CPU with 'Alph4', a seven track electro-leaning mini LP of one-take recordings.

Maelstrom's sound on Alph4 is comparable to Aphex Twin's more restrained Analord output. Focussed, highly detailed production alongside an abundance of evocative synth melodies will ensure these tracks become firm favourites with forward thinking DJs and electronic music fans.

Swiss artist and veteran producer Ripperton contacted the ESP Institute out of the blue mid-2017 to share a gorgeous mix of self-produced material, a collection of pieces made without any agenda outside of representing the self, not geared toward the dancefloor or a specific environment but simply a bi-product of introspective exploration. We were floored, the mix was on constant repeat in our world for weeks, then was subsequently pulled apart into separate titles to form this beautiful double LP, Ripperton's debut with the label. The title Sight Seeing speaks of someone stepping outside their current reality to look in the mirror, as if to ground themselves and keep sight of who they are in a world of extreme highs and lows. Inspired greatly by expansive landscapes and views from airplane windows (imagine your commute flying over the Alps every weekend), Ripperton describes this collection as postcards to himself, messages from his subconscious recorded on tape (both conceptually and literally), melancholy soundtracks to the Mondays that follow weekend journeys. While musical genres tend to cycle through bandwagon moments, the ESP Institute strives to operate independently of these, and while Sight Seeing is undoubtably an Ambient album, we're simply proud to revel in the chance moment where an esteemed artist such as Ripperton spreads his wings in a beautifully unexpected mode of expression.

Meat Beat manifesto formed in Swindon in 1987 by Jack Dangers (MBM's only permanent member) and "Impossible Star" is the first full length album in over seven years from the seminal electronic band.

Minimal, textural and cinematic in scope, Impossible Star follows the music innovators deeper into more experimental territory. From the thick and discordant soundscape of "One" to the cut-and-paste pastiche of "Bass Playa" to the downtempo of "T.M.I.", Impossible Star is a layered exploration of sounds and rhythms.

MBM's consistent musical invention has led to all forms of electronic musical experimentation over its 30 year history, from jungle to techno to industrial to dubstep to jazz fusion. Its long string of influential futuristic classics includes such groundbreaking tracks as "God O.D.", "Strap Down", "Psyche Out", "Helter Skelter", "Radio Babylon", "Edge of No Control" to "It's The Music"

Digipack, 4C print w/ solid color. Cover artwork expands over all pages, liner notes inside.

2 x 12", silver grey vinyl

5 1 1 5 9 3 is the first full-length album release of Vienna based artist Electric Indigo, who started DJing in the late 1980s, worked at the legendary Hard Wax record store in the early 1990s, and effortlessly manages to entertain the dancing crowd at Berghain as much as the contemporary music avant-garde at Wien Modern.
5 1 1 5 9 3 combines influences of both worlds into a consistent and coherent album. Crystalline metallic objects collide, embedded into fractured endless spaces, sparse rhythmical syncopations shaping grids, holding sonic particles in place. Rare vocal transformations inject a human touch. 5 1 1 5 9 3 offers a unique universe, full of color and light, partially flirting with current club music and at other times diving deep into sublime sonic areas.

Kris Baha turns to Pinkman with a standout 5 tracker blending influences and ranging from EBM, darkwave and experimental electronics. What makes them work together is a shared industrial edge, spine-chilling atmospheres and minimalistic vocals. By finding excellence in diversity this record is equally suited for boiling dance floors and home listening purposes.

After unanimous praise for Talker's "Battle Standards" and play from the likes of Ancient Methods, Headless Horseman, Sunil Sharpe, Mumdance, Shifted and many others, Standards & Practices returns with a powerful set of remixes from iconic UK techno artists Surgeon, Regis, and Broken English Club.

Anthony Child kicks off the proceedings with his first remix in a year, and it's one of his best to date. His version of "Battle Standard" takes the track in a radically different direction, building a hair-raising wall of sound culminating in an unforgettable melodic refrain-beautiful and brutal in classic Surgeon fashion. The A2 track is a special bonus: a Talker cut only previously available on a limited edition CD compilation. Entitled "My Favorite Color Is Gold", this is a dark and cinematic ambient take on "(Gold) Standard".

On the flip, Oliver Ho delivers a remix of DJ favorite "Snub Nose" under his Broken English Club alias. His overhaul is nothing short of remarkable - only retaining a segment of the original drum track, he adds a post-punk-esque vocal while a vicious, monotone bassline snarls underneath, sounding like it slithered off of a Big Black LP sometime around 1985. Regis closes the EP with his brilliant broken-beat take on "Battle Standard", stripping the original to its essentials for maximum dancefloor impact.

As with the label's previous EPs from Stave and Talker, this package features stunning full-color sleeve art from acclaimed graphic design studio Common Name, and a limited number are pressed on silver colored vinyl.

Crackshot wiry techno from Stockholm's Simon Haydo, putting his trusted Korg MS-20 thru its paces for Peder Mannerfelt Produktion after showcasing the semi-modular synth's myriad permutations on Avian, Hivern Discs and Studio Barnhus in recent years.
Working shades away from Mannerfelt's less-is-more style, Haydo becomes the latest in a line of producers stretching from Suicide thru Fad Gadget and Powell to fetishise and utilise Korg's classic, tactile little box for everything from kick drums to melodies and anything between.
However, The Illusion of an Alternative Choice would simply be an academic exercise in asceticism if it weren't for the remarkable diversity of sounds Haydo generates from his chosen bit of kit. Like Lorenzo Senni with his Roland JP-8080, or Mark Fell with the Yamaha DX7, Haydo reveals a wealth of variation from the Korg MS-20, revelling in its textured gradients and tweaky integers between the pulsating, viscous morph and off-kilter dissonance of Let Know to the search & destroy 'ardcore mentasm-style licks of Not For You, thru the dry, blocky roller The Go!, to the sharp-cut jakbeat of Parade Of Unhappy and unstable cosmic fuss of Out.
In effect, by proving you can create a whole record with lots of variation, but only using one synth, Haydo also cocks a cool snook at those n00b producers with expensive banks of kit who produce the most prosaic, tepid and gridlocked house - basically proving that it's not what you've got, but
how you use it.

For this release Metrist delves into a set of carefully constructed and deeply rhythmic but ear-grabbingly idiosyncratic, mixed fidelity dancefloor-geared oddities.

The first three tracks are united, in a fashion, by the artist's skill at programming a series of drum tracks that set a definite tone for the productions. Within a quite partisan field of often microscopic generic variety, largely pinned down to the tempo and timbre of electronic drums, here Metrist has pursued a tricky-to-define path. The bounce of new jack swing is twisted amongst stripped back polyrhythms, equal parts groove and glitch seasoned by some futuristic acid filters that create a constantly shifting aura of space and textural nuance around the individual drum hits. Quite often arrhythmic interjections punctuate these 'grooves', be it the sawing bursts of noise and snarled, incoherent vocals on 'An Soaep', the non-language and playful, bubbling bass surrounding the half time feel of 'On Golden Seize' that builds to something approximating an industrial take on UK Funky or the brash sub-wobbles that intrude 'Pantomimer Tongue's juddering knife-scraping-on-a-balloon stutters.

'Caaacel the Horze' closes the record in a less weighty style, with crunchy arpeggios running on a synth that sounds like it's picking up interference from a radio channel, as snatches of moaned vocals allude to a deeply ambiguous yet chilling narrative behind the music. Thudding kicks intrude on the skittish melody but in a non-rhythmic way reminiscent of someone trying desperately to snatch your attention by banging on the adjacent wall. Gauzy melodic textures in the background provide a calming counterpoint to the uneasy qualities of the composition.

William Gibson's prophetic sci-fi novel Neuromancer inspires Mumdance, Logos and Shapednoise to sensational new heights on their 2nd EP in The Sprawl trilogy for The Death of Rave. The trio's EP2 is all about 'Data Flow', or the relay of information between software, hardware and its human agents, triangulating The Sprawl as biologic semiconductors in a quantum network of emerging AI consciousness, parsing their corrupted memory flashbacks of physical ecstasy, excess and synaptic muscle memory into premonitory visions of future hardcore rave.
Arriving at the project's midway point, equidistant to futures past and the singularity, the trio's 2nd cybernetic merger generates pivotal plot twists and an expanded palette of styles in flux between virulent mutations of noise torque, hardcore techno and sci-fi cinematic memes.
Across its four tracks, each producer's recognisable characteristics are strategically subsumed, consolidated to an inseparable, if fractious, energy that describes and manifests the themes and energies of William Gibson's prescient cyberpunk fiction in hyperstitious form.
The A-side picks up directly from EP1 with the synaesthetically-enhanced sensations of Burning Chrome, titled in reference to one of Gibson's first short stories set in the fictional dimension of The Sprawl - the first to coin the word 'cyberspace' - with a turbulent roil of bruxist shockwaves unpredictably punctuated by lush pads, before the cyberpunk terror of Black I.C.E. hacks into the nervous system with visceral, arrhythmic dynamic.
On the B-side, the story really shifts up a gear or five with X System, a breathlessly brutal 150bpm techno assault that sounds like late '90s Dutch rave or NYC bunker techno dialled in via faulty ISDN connection, which makes for a steep contrast with the shocking emotive pathos of the EP closer Online Seance, where the trio fulminate a transcendent vision of cinematic synth noise redolent of Leyland Kirby's Intrigue & Stuff series, but with a vicious digital edge and serontonin-frying euphoria of their own imagineering.
This is the sound of The Sprawl really coming into their own as a thrilling, innovative, and boundary-probing prospect within the noise techno nexus.

After his well acclaimed soundtrack lp on Hivern Discs,Brussels based producer Lawrence Le Doux is returning to homebase Vlek for his next offering. And what a project it has become: Le Doux, heads first, dived deep into the Belgian national history of electronic music, and came up with a   sampler covering the various fields the Belgians have explored over the last 30 years.  
From digi dub over simple drum computer house to one­man industrial cassettes: 'Host' has it all." 
Lawrence Le Doux opened for   Matias Aguayo in one of Brussels' major venues: Ancienne Belgique earlier this year.   
Lawrence Le Doux' latest album was released on Hivern Discs (Music For Documentaries' -  3,8/5 on RA)
VLEK designer Dimitri Runkkarri's take on the analog type press / glass printing process: With Lawrence Le Doux, from the beginning (with "Terrestre", 2014) we used different materials to print out the sleeves. We used cork, overlapping letters, plastic cross for wall carving.
This time, I had some glass left at the workshop. We wanted to try. We broke it on the press then printed it with all the texture, scratch, accidents caused by the pressure of the press..."

So far, so Giraffe: for a while the Hamburg based project Giraffe loved short musical expressions.

On their debut album Juni' for the Belgium label Meakusma, most tunes stopped living after three minutes. For their latest recordings for the Berlin based - and hard to pigeonhole - label Marmo, they took the epic road and produced two adventurous arrangements that drift along a stretched musical path, that makes their outcome even more magnetic, more bewitching.

With Climate, a new member becomes part of their ongoing mission to find new sounds beyond cliche´-ridden textures. Ju¨rgen Hall, who joined Charly Scho¨ppner and Sascha Demand some time ago for their aim to create sounds that do not want to belong to any kind of genre, enlarges everything with new textures and melodic twists, that makes the sound of Giraffe more "outernational" and enables the group to shape deeper sounds through a free-wheeling improvisation.

As all three musicians can look back on a long tradition in writing and playing avant-garde music and beyond, they unconsciously know how to avoid stereotypes. Their music is unwritten/written. Some parts are ideas that Sascha could have created on his e-guitar, Charly could have punched on his drums and percussion instruments, or Ju¨rgen could have tuned in on his keyboards and electronic devices. But as for Giraffe ideas are just the starting point of a journey, they start to improvise around them, without making real improvised music. To say it in their own words: Giraffe improvises and composes ideas and principles. All live and direct in the legendary Le Garage' studios in Hamburg. All made without any archetypes. Without any reference and foremost without any exchange value. It`s strictly utility value music.

Words cannot express its meaning. Notes cannot spell out its score. For Marmo the trio did not only tune in two epic dateless trips, they also were remixed by Berlin-based Italian producer Marco Shuttle, who transformed their music into a percussive club track that stays calm without forgetting to explode gently. A gripping, detailed gathering of tones that distribute some otherworldly wonderment with passages of polyphony and polymetric juxtaposition over an un-fixed rhythmic cycle. If you join the music, their frequency modulations and rhythmic pulsations will change your very own torso climate for good.

Mastered by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering.

"A kind of crazy Soft Machine Indo / Japanese drone thing going on in there

Interchain are Eugene Gorbunov and Andrew Lee, an electronic duo from Moscow that finds equal inspiration in techno culture, punk music and Russian industrial landscapes. 'Plenum' is an album composed of a series of sketches based on Eugene's and Andrew's childhood memories about Perestroika in the USSR. As they put it, "whether it's a backwards look through the decades of an adult, or the flashbacks of childhood memory to the exact historical period, imbued by the distinctive colors, TV noises, unconscious sounds and images of the time - both perspectives interpret the past/present as a work of art, created by the entirety of society, government and technological progress". These visions are projected into 10 vibrant compositions inspired in a series of elements -from underground clubs to Lenin's Mausoleum and from USSR punk to drugs- that marked the period of political and social reformations that shook the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Despite being grounded in industrial sonics and its sparse backbone, the music in 'Plenum' has an oddly delicate and ghostly quality to it. Tracks that, in Interchain's own words, "wash away pressing issues of the day, revealing a transcendent picture, image and aesthetics - ethereal feelings far more real to the observer than actual bygone dates, events, people". The result is fascinating to say the least.

Ahrpe Records co-founder Amandra navigates a unique space between droning ambience and polyrhythmic funk on 'Dame De Bahia', his first release to emerge on Italian imprint Obscura. This is the French, Warsaw-based producer's second album and follows a string of acclaimed EPs on Ahrpe, Semantica, Tikita and Silent Season. Complex patterns are woven through sustained tone clusters to foster an unlimited sense of energy and focus. Radiant synths glisten over live percussive loops whilst infinite pads wander the boundaries of light and dark. Amandra uses minimalist techniques to build tranquil sonic spaces that evolve on their own accord, making way for carefully mapped out rhythmic cycles. The result is an immersive listening experience replete with subtle details, but never cluttered. "Moody and lightful, this album combines many aspects I cherish in electronic music. Dame De Bahia LP is a direct nod to my beloved Mediterranean roots."

One of techno's most prominent prism pushers follows work on Fever Ray's Plunge album to open 2018 with the masterful machine control of The 3D Printed Songbook, dispatched thru his Stockholm-based personal imprint.
In his highly personalised style of Scandinavian techno dub pressure, Mannerfelt pursues a signature blend of raved-up smarts with cutting-edge sound design into ever more curious, densely packed but spacious gestures on The 3D Printed Songbook by getting ever closer to grips with his elemental electronic material.
Where so much techno can feel like the work of a bored neek pushing blocks on a screen or effectively doing a colouring-in book, Mannerfelt is a fine art sculptor who has picked techno and pure, abstract electronics as his medium, manifesting a sound which works just as well for those who appreciate the tactile sensuality of manipulated noise, as those who love dancing to irregular,
warped rhythms and sensational tones.
Here, Mannerfelt blurs those distinctions and contradictions beautifully well, getting into gear with a pendulous but stuttering, sleek and jagged deep house/dancehall curl to open, before circling thru recoiling slow techno, heavy-lidded yet visceral ambient tones, to stripes of viking acid jack and the kind of depth charge dub techno that keeps Mika Vainio's memory in earshot while unafraid to steer into new terrain.
Just killer.

Brandnew album by Marla Singer.

Nick Klein's new record, 'Lowered Flaming Coffin,' was recorded in Brooklyn, NY, on an economic set-up. With a spartan modular synth and Korg MS-20, Klein describes the process of recording as "focused around the relentless role of filtering out and managing the anxiety of existing in a metropolitan area in the current political climate."Though 'Lowered Flaming Coffin' starts on an almost uplifting note with the glistening melodic cycles of 'Burning Mattresses,' the asphyxia soon takes over, and the vertigo of the metropolis comes into lurching clarity for the remainder of the record. The height of the following track, 'Peña Adobe,' has the panicked terror of an archaic ringtone hitting the volume of an air raid siren, 'Smelling The Sheets' skulks rather than bangs, its momentum stifled and edgy, as if not enough was on Klein's side when making his way to the studio that day. The anguish doesn't taper, but rather culminates in the despairingly titled 'The God In Vodka.' At nearly 14 minutes, its disfigured rave stabs and blunted military tattoo-snare furiously pace into a clammy, toxic rush.Despite the wry funerary image of its title, 'Lowered Flaming Coffin' is far from a lament for better times, nor a report on descending into contemporary hell. Like a frenzied metronome, the record syncs itself with the dynamics of unrest in order to grasp the brazen tactics that perpetuate the seemingly boundless inequalities in the world today. Klein forges this link with his own minutiae in stride, tethering the conceptual motivations to a fidgeting, personalized atmosphere of rhythmic dysphoria.Pitching agitation in this way, the record unapologetically presents itself as a soundtrack for participatory intervention, forcefully side-stepping the queues and suspended beliefs of much party-centric electronic music. Overwhelmingly focused, and overbearingly raw, 'Lowered Flaming Coffin' is a bleeding mess of grazed attempts and small triumphs in clawing back hope.

*The No Man Is An Island EP is a single cut from the debut album of the same name by Aalko, a new project by Kebko Music founder Akiko Kiyama. Renowned for her minimal techno track featured in Richie Hawtin's seminal DE9 Transitions album, the Japanese producer reveals her another side under this new alias. The project has already created a stir as Aalko has garnered support from Gilles Peterson on his BBC 6 Music radio show and premiered a live performance at MUTEK's Tokyo launch, where she drew the audience into an inspiring frenzy.

Aalko is a culmination of Kiyama's recent practices in a wider musical spectrum that go beyond the confines of her minimalistic techno characteristics. It conjures her distinctive soundscape where a variety of styles coexists: she demonstrates her knack for breaks, ambient and irregular time signatures, her acute ears for unadulterated tone and texture of sounds standing out in sharp relief.

Taking a floor-oriented side out of the No Man Is An Island cassette album, this single cut features three tracks that work wonders in a DJ context. "Body & Soul" is an erratic rhythm experiment jumping between several beat styles. "Mixture" offers Kiyama's unique interpretation on syncopated dynamics of breaks. Wrapping up the EP is 'B.I.C', a long-awaited exclusive track that ranked among Gilles Peterson's top 20 tracks of 2017. Its dubby functionality makes it a powerful tool that can work at various stages of the night.

These tracks give the nod to Kiyama's peculiar self full of sonic idiosyncrasies, showing no fear of breaking accepted conventions.

* Fully embracing its penchant for explorative music, DAC Records invites Alex Augier.
* His work offers a cross-cutting musical perspective, allowing hybrid aesthetics that includes sound and visual components. These components interact within the stage area, taking the form of singular audiovisual performances.
* This time, Germination, his first solo EP, is purely musical work composed of organic, visceral, living sounds, both fragile and mighty. The electronic music is free of constraints imposed by the dedicated instruments. Embodied by large dynamic ranges and a constantly moving temporality, Germination tells an evolving process, in full bloom, with its share of mutations and strange directions.
* Germination is composed of four tracks, including one remix by Roly Porter. In the same vein as Alex Augier, the co-founder of Subtext Recordings explores the experimental music boundaries, both electronically and instrumentally

This is a vinyl release of the debut album from 2007 (Ubiquity Records) celebrating a 10 year anniversary
I'm kinda like a blond (less good looking) Vincent Gallo, but with self-irony.