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: After touching down on our charts with two great EPs back in 2014, Portugal's Diogo went silent on us...until now. The young producer returns with a stylish two-tracker for the Pluie / Noir label, that itself born in Portugal but now based in the heart of Berlin's techno scene. Diogo's music here, however, is a sparse and compelling affair, made possible on the A-side by the minimal glitches and bumps of "Tanto Amor" - as wavy as it is euphoric! On the flip, "Wasame" reminds us of Villalobos at his most poignant, and Diogo carries exactly the same sort of flair for crafting intricate beat cocktails, tightly packed together and filled to the brim with wild-eyed of sonics and samples.

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.