CD Album Recommendations June 2012

Review: Last year's excellent Drexciya retrospective, Journey Of The Deep Sea Dweller, was rightly heralded as a must-buy for anyone with even the smallest interest in the history of underground dance music. This second volume offers more of the same, conclusively proving - though few would argue otherwise - that Drexciya remain one of the most forthright, intriguing and forward-thinking acts ever to emerge from Detroit. The material here largely centres around their own peculiar take on proper electro, from the liquid synths and bouncing grooves of "Anti Vapour Waves" and "Journey Home", to the excitable, steel-hard rhythms and naked funk of "Positron Island".

Review: Regular cohorts and Disco Deviance mainstays Pete Herbert and Dicky Trisco have provided disco DJs with some killer re-edits, reworks and remixes over the year. Their style is groove-heavy and dubwise, teasing listeners with just a whisper of vocal or singalong chorus here and there. The 10 revisions on this collaborative edit collection certainly fit into that category, offering a mix of heavyweight electrofunk (see "Exodus"), horn-heavy disco (the delightful, low-down stomp of "Jump On Your Feet") and clandestine boogie dub ("Everyone Can Do It", "Happy State"). For those seeking floor-friendly disco interpretations, it should be an essential purchase.

Review: Originally produced exclusively for the Japanese market, this one-off, limited CD contains the elusive Burial's two most recent EPs for Hyperdub - Street Halo and Kindred. By now these should need no introduction, but those unable to appreciate the vinyl versions of the aforementioned EPs should waste no time in snapping up a physical copy of the producer's strongest work to date.

Review: Having already treated us to a trio of samplers, the German deep house duo Session Victim finally deliver their debut full-length for Delusions of Grandeur. Given their impressive credentials, it's no surprise to find that The Haunted House Of House is a bit good. Almost overflowing with ideas, it serves up 11 slabs of deep house that do their best to sidestep the genre's many pitfalls. Sure, there's plenty of comfy, melodic goodness (see "Push Comes To Shove" and "Zoinks"), but also forays into disco-flecked jazz-funk-house ("Alpine Glow"), slick disco-house ("The Haunted House"), groovy slo-mo electronica ("Bilson"), dewy-eyed Balearica ("The Light Scent of Decay") and even Clyde-ish broken hip-hop ("Fine"). Impeccable.

Review: As one half of acclaimed German duo Arto Mwambe, and half of the Chicago-inspired Tuff City Kids alongside Gerd Janson, Philip Lauer arrives with his debut solo album for Janson's Running Back. Displaying a wide range of influences, it nevertheless offers a typically melodic German take on early Chicago house, electro and disco. Opening with the 80s TV theme styles of "70000 AC" the album moves through the deep electro flex of "Sheldor", the guitar led pop soundscape of "Frontex Slowfox", the slo-mo grooves of "Sandalscene", before finishing with the deep Chi town grooves of "Trainman". Essential stuff.

Review: The hitherto unknown but clearly talented Amirali were first introduced to the world when Damian Lazarus handpicked one of his productions to open proceedings on last year's Get Lost 4 mix CD. It was clear Lazarus had larger plans for the Iranian Canadian producer, and following a breakthrough Crosstown 12" earlier this year the label now presents the full artistic vision of Amirali in the shape of a debut album. In Time demonstrates Amirali Shahrestani has an uncanny talent for veering between the many strands of contemporary electronic music, each of the thirteen tracks weaved together intoxicatingly with his undeniable craft as a musician. Amidst the usual Crosstown fare such as "Just an Illusion" and the delightfully wonked "Beautiful World" there are more introspective moments which lend In Time a sense of longevity lacking from so many "dance music albums."

Review: Following last month's first instalment of the bootleg Muzic Box Classics series, we're presented with another selection of tried-and-tested killers dropped by the legendary Ron Hardy at Chicago's Music Box club. As with the first CD, there's a good mix of classic early Chicago house material (see "Stay Out" and "Forever & 1 Day"), Kraftwerk-ish proto-techno ("Techno"), bustling acid ("Ride Em Boy", "A Land", the latter an edit of an old Armando classic), vintage deep house ("It Is") and dubby New York fare ("Tension"). There's also a tribute to Hardy's love of playing certain records backwards in the shape of a reversed mix of "Is It All Over My Face". Beefy.

Review: It's been two years since the release of Dynamic's gorgeous debut album for Fokuz, Discoveries of the Deep. As luscious as its title suggested, it was an album that impressed those who demand more musicality with their jungle rhythms. Model Lounge offers more of the same. Scuttling between hip-hop tempo groovery (see "Re-Indulge"), hissing jazz breaks (check "Night Train To Montmatre" or the dubby melodies and fluid beats of "Cosmic Soiree") and, most satisfyingly, impeccable liquid D&B, Model Lounge is never less than brilliantly musical. If LTJ Bukem, High Contrast and Rainer Truby made an album together, it would probably sound something like this.

Review: You have to give Krafty Kuts credit. While few others would be audacious enough to call their label Instant Vibe, there's no argument that he's an undisputed master at party starting. On Let's Ride, his second at full length, he deploys that party-starting knowledge to the full. Taking breakbeat as his template, Krafty dashes between genres on a whirlwind tour of what makes dancefloors rock. Basslines wobble, samples crackle and synths dazzle. At one moment he's doffing his cap towards hip-hop, reggae or ska, the next baring his buttocks in the direction of dubstep, boogie or disco puritans. Loads of fun!

Review: One of the more prolific artists in these times, Matt Cutler is back with his fifth album, which is an impressive feat in just five years of releasing music. It's a disregard for pretention that makes Cutler's music work so appealing, whether it be the exuberant 90s house approach on last album Emerald Fantasy Tracks or his earlier hip hop-tempo bump. Galaxy Garden starts off on a more esoteric tip with the tropical electronica of "New Colour", which captures the cheeriness of Plaid, or more recently Oriol on Planet Mu, in its sunshine chimes. By the time we get to "Lying In The Reeds" we're up to a house tempo that harks back to the softer side of early Detroit, playing with melody in a way that made Kenny Larkin stand out early on. It's when "Crystal Caverns 1991" starts up that we reach the most blatant distillation of old-skool; kicking off a breakstep beat with sweet but punchy 90s synths, the track cuts into a deadly rave motif without so much as a pause in the beat and it's like being back in, er, 1991. It would be easy to write off an album like this as derivative, but no-one can listen to the music itself and call it an imposter. Every track reeks of originality, whether it is the surprising track structures, the superbly detailed production, even the evocative imagery that the music conjures up. If you ever needed an album that felt like wide-eyed, innocent joy, this would be an excellent place to start.

Review: It's been a fair old while since the last full-length from French techno pioneer Olivier "Oxia" Raymond; in fact, his only previous album was released eight years ago, way back in 2004. Tides Of Mind bears little resemblance to that set, which bristled with aggressive electronic intent. Instead, Raymond delivers at set that borrows as much from deep house and Germanic minimalism as traditional techno. Of course, there's the odd trip into skewed downtempo pop territory (see the dreamy Mesparrow collaboration "Travelling Fast") and some deviation from the 4/4 template - see "Sway" - but for the most part Raymond keeps the vibe deep, melodic and surprisingly soulful.

Review: If you'd just been surprised by some unfortunate news, Memory Fields may not be the best album to pull you out of your melancholic mood. That's not to say that there aren't moments of blissful positivity - see the flowing ambience of "Black Prism (Bvdub A Labrynthine Love Mix)" for starters - but for the most part Memory Fields is a slightly paranoid and downbeat concoction. Based around glitchy, half-awake rhythms, Burial-ish atmospherics and sparse, dubwise sounds, it wearily snakes between grandiose ambience and quiet contemplation, creepy intensity and beautiful simplicity. For the most part, it's actually rather good.

Review: Having made his debut on Claude Von Stroke's Dirtybird way back in 2005, multi-talented San Fran electro-bass producer Justin Martin makes his full-length debut with this excellent LP. Luckily for fans of last year's excellent, juke-influenced collaboration with Ardalan, "Lezgo", there's a VIP mix included here that makes for a bigger, more building rerub, while Martin also does a great job covering Goldie's seminal "Kemistry" - adding some real venom and bite in the process. Look out for the deep and twisting "Ruff Stuff" and the syrupy "Night Calling" too.

Review: "Don't listen to my record, listen to my message, vibrate to my music, let's merge our dreams, together spreading our combined energy in an immense blue wave that will flood the world - and the truth with emerge."

Announcing his long awaited return with this distinct message, Sebastien Tellier bounds back to the forefront of our collective musical conscience with his highly anticipated fourth studio album, My God Is Blue.
It's a record whose message is powered by something almighty, by some higher plane, by something much more spiritually significant than anything else the Parisian artist has composed to date. It's an album harbouring a prophetic philosophy and a vision of ideality, an album whose music seeks to not only entertain, inspire and charm, but also to create a community of like minded individuals searching to follow their dreams, and find their true path in life.
"I'd finished my tour for Sexuality and needed to recharge and re-motivate myself to go and make a new record," says Tellier. "But I was a little bit... lost. I was looking for a subject that I was passionate about." It was this search, this quest for spiritual and musical inspiration that led Tellier to take heed of the advice that "to be able to make pure music, you have to focus on removing yourself, distancing yourself from your dreams."

As such, Tellier began to notice a pattern in his dreams, and one which would go on to become the foundation of his latest oeuvre: "It had a really strong effect on me, I realised that I had blue dreams, I was having blue visions. When I went back to Paris to start making music, I wrote while thinking about what this meant, thinking about blue dreams, about spirituality, about truth."

With inspiration firmly back in place - the quest to understand and to realise one's dreams - the creation of My God is Blue was able to commence. Starting things off in his usual manner, Tellier went about composing his newest creation in his studio in his apartment, before completing the record alongside reputed producer and Ed Banger stalwart, Mr Flash. "Each song holds a message within to be uncovered" says Tellier of the lyrical thread of the album. Leading single and opening track, the choral, grandiose 'Pepito Bleu' for example, carries the missive of "self reinvention" and "having the imagination to dream."

Citing artists such as "Michael Jackson [and] George Michael" as musical inspirations for this album, it's clear the Tellier hasn't lost his knack or desire for a pop pinch and serious dance floor appeal. A track such as 'Cochon Ville', for example, plays host to enrapturing rhythms and outlandishly catchy melodic hooks designed to entrance, mystify and seduce the listener as only Sebastien Tellier knows how, and to "put the imaginary, put dreams back at the centre of our consciousness."

Throughout his career, Tellier has been inspired, almost infatuated with different mentally, spiritually and physically provocative subjects, with each such infatuation going on to conceive a vision and a theme for an album. From 2004's Politics, through to the hugely successful Sexuality in 2008, Tellier has spent the past decade practising and mastering the art of igniting a flash of inspiration into a blazing inferno of realised creativity. "I'm always inspired by a current subject, like sexuality, politics, and truth were the subjects of my first album. But in fact, you need to talk about the mystery of these subjects."

It's this mystery that provides the real spark to these 12 tracks, with deep rooted philosophy woven through the album's core and transmitted through mystical, sumptuous, spirited lyrics. There's a vision encompassed in each melodic transition and shift, but more than that, there's an invitation to enlightenment that pulsates through the essence of the songs, a vision and a promise which is strengthened by the union, the kinship of the online community being built around and through the music, L'Alliance Bleue (The Blue Alliance). "The aim of L'Alliance Bleue is to create a place of freedom that's what L'Alliance Bleue is to me, in a literal sense." A collective with an "ambition to revolutionise our relationship with the world and all it contains", Tellier aspires to create an "an amusement park for adults", an online community where 'followers' are invited to share visions and to build ideas together under the musical guidance of My God Is Blue, a veritable discotheque of light, of colour, of spiritual vibrancy and of shimmering vision.

From the first rattles of debut single 'Fantino' back in 2001, through to the enduring popularity of 2005's sumptuous 'La Ritournelle' and the smash hit success of Eurovision touted 'Divine', Tellier has proved himself to be the undisputed king of a pop classic with a psychical, sensual and physical pull. His latest work presents a transcendental record of far reaching prowess and a road to a thoroughly modern, community led enlightenme