Pluie/Noir Recordings Vinilo y CD

Review: Former Blank Slate and B-Tracks man Rene Audiard delves into the exotic with a little help from Ali cakir on the Hargate EP for Cleymoore's Berlin based multi-disciplinary label Pluie/Noir. Audiard throws down the kind of abstract and esoteric grooves with an organic feeling that the Romanian minimal house crowd similarly do. The title track is a deep, dubby and rolling after-hours groove supported by a gorgeously haunting hammer dulcimer melody, which is mind melting. On the flip "Yes Tas" is definitely the most energetic offering with its restrained and paranoid aesthetic balanced out by its oddball funkiness. Finally "Sehayat" is another one more suited to the Sunday afternoon for the remaining revellers who won't go home, but will go easy on them with its mellow and abstract groove.

Review: Fumiya Tanaka has been a guiding light of the little-known Japanese techno scene since the early '90s, and celebrated 20 years in production in 2014. Here he enters his 21st year as a producer by delivering his first 12" for Bruno "Cleymore" Santos's Pluie/Noir label. Opener "Abacus Avenue" is typically undulating, with skippy, minimal-influenced rhythms, wonky bass, clandestine vocal samples and trippy effects combining to excellent effect. There's more hypnotic, bass-heavy swing to be found on flipside "Himegami Marathon", a formidable late night shuffler whose power seems to derive from the subtlety of Tanaka's alien electronics and skewed, barely audible melodies.

Review: Volkan Akin's work has been entrenched in a deep and minimalistic techno sound, and the two EP's he's put out in the past have focused on a largely 'club' sound. His latest EP for Portugal's Pluie/Noir Recordings, however, goes a little bit further out into the depths of space, a two-track journey using techno only as a rough guideline to work from. The title track "Sinister" carries a half-time groove and a load of eerie, wavy sonics with a playful edge, while "Atest" hints at a more structured groove but rapidly breaks down into a rough n' ready experimentation of stripped back percussion and distant vocal sample. Deep and ethereal.