Cerca:the struts

Red Vinyl

With this three-cut EP, Andy Vaz pays tribute to Choutsugai, a Deep House DJ-and-promoter crew who booked him for many years of Tokyo gigs. Inspired by the unit’s love for “No Fairytale Luv feat. Detroit’s Eva Soul on Vocals.” Vaz decided to put it out as red transparent vinyl for VAZ-UP-001The two originals Tracks were created at Deutztroit Studios in Cologne, with vocals by Detroit’s Eva Soul on all three and “No Fairytale Luv” receiving a charged remix treatment from fellow Detroiter Niko Marks. The EP’s sound is classic Vaz, his own productions especially. The original “No Fairytale Luv"struts mightily, its pumping groove bolting from the gate with an acidy bass pulse, congas, and sparkling synths. With Soul draping her, yes, soulful musings over the energized groove, the gurgling floor-filler indelibly brands itself as Vaz’s craftsmanship. “U Got It Unlocked” is less urgent by comparison, this one more focused on a relaxed, funk-inflected swing given a subtle Latin feel with the addition of percussive accents. Soul again muses dreamily, though this time in a production that’s as much electronic reverie as club track. Of the three cuts, the EP’s primary house banger is undoubtedly Marks’s “No Fairytale Luv” makeover, which stomps even more forcefully. This one is a floorfiller

Long-time collaborators, longer-time best friends, lifelong analog appreciators; the German duo Iron Curtis & Johannes Albert join cosmic forces once again for another LP mission 'Moon II', a heartfelt voyage through the sounds, movements, styles and machines that created this music in the first place.
Think late 80s New York, early 90s Sheffield and the perennial sounds of Italo and Detroit, 'Moon II' is a lunar safari that celebrates the deepest foundations of house, techno and electronic soul while resolutely refusing to get nostalgic. Written and recorded during an intense two-and-a-half month session in Berlin last autumn, there's a consistency and tangible narrative running throughout as the pair play inspiration ping-pong over the course of 10 tracks.
A little Drexcyian glacial nod here, a hazy Boards Of Canada wink there. The Other People Place, Kerrier District, Environ Records, the Hacienda, Sub Club, Heaven 17, classic electro… All these ingredients are constantly bubbling in the mix for both Curtis and Albert (as individuals and even more so as a duo) and the end result is an album that works as a proper album should. Peaks, troughs, dreamy departures and all beautiful things in between.
Taking off where their debut collaborative album 'Industrie & Zärtlichkeit' (soon to be retitled 'Moon I') left us three years ago, the opening modem sounds on the intro track 'Canggu Laundry Club' dial us into a special sense of time and space.
It's a space where anything feels possible; Visual-inspired acid lines on 'Tiger Trek', lino-spinning body pops and windmills to the street sounds electro style of 'The Ultimate Seduction', the club-focused, Traxx-style Cutie Schamuthie collaboration 'Hurting', the melancholy plucks and struts of 'Feingold', the provocative, slinky, smoky finale piece 'Nektar'… The list of intergenerational and cross-genre landmarks on this adventurous body of work go and on, each track complementing the last as they fuse to create a bigger collective picture. A picture that's charmed together through the consistent use of key classic studio machines.
They call it Introverted Electronic Body Music, we call it warm, free-spirited and ultimately timeless. Perfect for your sets, your afterhours or your headphones alike; it's time to let Iron Curtis and Johannes Albert take you to the Moon and back… Once again.

Dreamin' Wild's second album Heaven in Thirty Eleven owes a lot to Footscray. The inner-western suburb of Melbourne features not only in the album title (its postcode is 3011) but goes deeper to form a central part of the record's narrative and reflection.

For all six members - Chris Jennings (Swazi Gold, Sagamore, Sledgehammer), Sam Cooper (Crepes, Swazi Gold, Sagamore, Sledgehammer), Tim Karmouche (Crepes, Swazi Gold, The Murlocs), Sarah Quirk, Monty Hartnett (Sleep Decade, Miris, Sagamore) and James Guida (Laguna, Environments) - Footscray buoyed periods of music exploration and discovery. After more than six year of writing, rehearsing and recording in the suburb, there's no doubt that Footscray is home for the band.

Jennings adds that the album is, "a bit of a recap of the last three years for Dreamin' Wild," drawing attention to the change and growth many of the eight songs have undergone since creation.

"I Don't Disagree" is an album highlight; an almost seven-minute track that struts along calmly, taking life as it is. Quirk's soulful refrain soars atop Jennings' laconic vocals, carrying the song to its end. "Dynon Life" is another album gem, reminiscent of summer in the city, and happy seeking excess.

Heaven in Thirty Eleven is an ode to a Melbourne suburb brimming with culture and stories, made by artists who are proud to call it home.

Life is all about rhythms. We don't know what we're dancing to until we're in so deep we can no longer control ourselves. The rhythm controls us.

Right now both Guti and the Martinez Brothers are dancing to the conga rhythm. Guti's third album, they've been dancing to it since the summer, teasing us with a whole slew of percussive new... And they'll continue throughout 2019. Chance are you will, too. Eventually the rhythm will control all of us. It's too infectious not to.

Here's the 411: 'The Year Of The Conga' is Guti's third and most rooted album to date. It came about through a personal request from brothers Chris & Steve Martinez. Both unapologetic Guti fans they wanted the very first album on their Cuttin' Headz label to be his. The result is a total reconnection back to his Argentinian foundations, his club roots and everything that first lured him to the dancefloor...

'I'm back to my roots and found my Latino groove again,' says Guti who wrote the album throughout 2018, starting it whilst bulleting through Japan by train, the majority crafted in the jungle of Dominican Republic, having collected and sampled native percussion instruments, and then finally mixing down on his return to Europe. 'Every song is full of rhythm and created to make you dance...'

He's not messing around; from the writhing snakelike percussion and rousing calls and cries of opener 'Aee' right through to the final mesmerising waves and farewell struts of finale 'Voladora' this an album is born both for and from the dancefloor. No overthinking, no purism, no exclusion; just unabashed physical hypnosis, fuelled for the floor, guided with gut instinct and years of groovecraft. It's the sound of an artist who's disconnected, explored and reconnected. He's older, he's wider and more in tune with his own pace and palette. One of the most diverse and explorative artists to come from Loco Dice's Desolat stable, this is Guti simplifying his passions down to an essence of everything that's magic about his roots and our shared dancefloor culture.

The highlights are in abundance; those hazy-but-persistent New Jersey organs on 'Telling The Truth', that wobbly sub on 'Red Eye', that shimmering sinewy acid line on 'Se Baila', the spicy pianos and wet horns of 'La Orchestra Fantasma', the list goes on. Each cut designed for deep mix pleasure, each cut rolling with a strong organic flavour and alluring percussive dynamics, each cut showing Guti at his most inspired, warmest, playful and ready to wrap you up so deep in a conga you'll soon lose yourself.

Cuttin Headz, cuttin straight to the chase but never cutting it fine... Let us be the first to wish you happy new year with the first ever album on the currently unstoppable label. We'll wish you a happy new conga, too. 2019's going to be a vintage and Guti and the Martinez Brothers are leading the charge.

'Best electronic live set i've seen in two years!' CHRIS CUSACK (BOOKER, BLOC GLASGOW)

Fresh and heady slice of cerebral techno and out-there electro flavours.

EXTERIOR is the artist moniker of Edinburgh producer Doug MacDonald. Exterior represents his transition to electronic music and an embrace of the dancefloor. Doug played hardcore and noise-rock for a long time before eventually abandoning collaboration, nostalgia and formulaic rebellion in favour of synthesis. What he gained on the way was an understanding of the power of live drumming and years of finely honed performance-skills, something of an aberration in dance music.

Exterior thus represents a convergence of disparate personal and musical pleasures. Accordingly Exterior draws on rhythmic mavericks as divergent as Fugazi//Battles//Swans as well as DJ Spoko//Clark//Hieroglyphic Being. In addition, there is a deep undercurrent of melody and texture, drawing on the likes of Burial//Miles Davis//Bjork. Eschewing the modern home computer in favour of an exclusively hardware based approach, Exterior espouses a physical relationship to what is at heart an abstract practice, composing electronic dance music.

Perhaps it's unsurprising, then, that one of the things which really sets Exterior apart is his intoxicating live show. He gets the crowd going every single time he performs, so infectious is his energy, as he throws shapes and struts his stuff behind the gear, clearly 100% in the moment and his element.

His debut EP 'Public Transport' was released on London/Barcelona-based Land Recordings earlier in 2018. Having made his international headlining debut in Berlin in September, more continental sorties are currently being arranged (see below).

This record represents a significant move forward in sophistication and club-readiness.

On remix duties, anonymous analogue techno lover DALI returns on the back of four slices of extended club gear released via two Hobbes Music 12"s (2017-18), boasting colour-themed, screen-printed sleeves and an uber-simple design for that evergreen minimal aesthetic with a hint of mystique. These gained excited support/plays from the likes of Ben UFO, Nina Kraviz, Daniel Avery, DJ Deep, Laurent Garnier, Avalon Emerson, Twitch, XDB, Bill Brewster, Bawrut, Tom Findlay (Groove Armada) and many more... Clocking in (again) at just over 9 minutes, her 'Collapsing Star' remix is another marathon-length effort and does exactly what it says on the tin. Setting the beats to classic electro, everything's pushed hard until it all seems ready to fall rapidly apart (and it very nearly does), before dissolving in a fiery sizzle: a more visceral, dance floor accompaniment to Exterior's heady affair.

After spending much of the '70s humping his congos around New York as a session musician, Nigerian Aleke Kanonu pulled in some favours to record an album of his own. The result was Aleke, a criminally obscure Afrobeat/Funk/Jazz masterpiece featuring Buddy Williams on drums, George Davis on guitar and a cameo from Wynton Marsalis on flugelhorn. There are only four tracks on the album but they are all killers. N'Gwode sounds like Fela Kuti and Manu Dibangu hanging out with Bobby Womack, probably somewhere across 110th Street. 'Keep New York Clean' struts like Shaft after a successful bust. And 'Mothers Day' keeps things sweet and soulful, before Wynton Marsalis brings back the groove with his flugelhorn on 'Home Sweet Home'. Until recently you would have had to take out a second mortgage to get hold of Akele. And sold a kidney for the Happiness/Nwanne, Nwanne, Nwanne 12'' Kanonu released a year later. Thankfully PMG has re-issued the LP and the EP, with the CD version containing both. - Peter Moore,