Review: Artificial Owl Recordings welcomes aboard New Yorkers Satoshi Tomiie and Naotake Gunji for the label's fifth release; a recording of their collaborative A_A project and live show, which first came to light at the Fridman Gallery in Manhattan. A_A, an ongoing audio project, explores the visceral tension between floor-centric ambient electronica and improvised sound/audio performance. Here, found and object-activated sounds fire a collective dub trigger, producing a distinctly somatic regrounding across five original works.
Review: A aka Mika Vainio's 'Fermionit' is a significant release from the late Finnish producer, who passed away in 2017. Originally featured in a Belgium Detuned 6x12 boxset just before his death, the track received critical acclaim from collectors and fans. Now, it returns to Mika's own Sahko label for a well-deserved 12" release. 'Fermionit' embodies the essence of Finnish techno with its minimalistic, cold and stark sound. The track's passive-aggressive edge showcases Vainio's signature style, blending raw, unfiltered textures with a profound sense of depth. This release not only honors Vainio's legacy but also offers a chance for new listeners to experience the pure DNA of Finnish techno. An essential listen for fans of minimalist and avant-garde electronic music.
Review: If you're familiar with imprints like Nous'laer Audio, AD93, Tikita, or Semantica, but haven't yet explored the galaxy of sound coming from Ahrpe Records, now's your chance. Amandra is one of two heads behind said stable, and here the French producer shows everyone what time it is with a space walk through acid warbles and tribalistic rhythms. Neither of which give a particularly accurate description of what's here, but both are defining features of the tracks and EP as a whole. Whether it's the jazz-imbued shuffle of 'Prorokini', the phat wobbling steps of 'Brera Som Som' itself, or the wall of distorted percussion on 'Fanfaron', all four originals are standouts and hard to compare, while the cherry-picked remixes show just how much can be done with what's here, if the right ears are involved.
B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition
Didgeridoo (7:11)
Flap Head (7:03)
Phloam (5:34)
Isoprophlex (6:20)
Didgeridoo (Cr7e version) (7:23)
Didgeridoo (live - Cr7e version) (6:26)
Isoprophlex (Slow Cr7e version) (8:18)
Phloam (Cr7e version) (5:46)
Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***
Fresh vintage Aphex meat in the shape of this expanded reissue of the classic rave era anthem 'Digeridoo' from 1992. Treated to a modern remastering job by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, this double pack features the four tunes on the original 12" - 'Digeridoo', 'Flaphead', 'Phloam' and 'Isoprophlex', as well as bonus versions by Richard D James himself said to be encoded through his Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, utilising vari-speed to create versions at different speeds which "felt right at the time". The legend is that he wrote the tune to annoy hippies who liked to attend raves and jam with their digeridoos - or digeri-dont's as they quickly became known - but it's being delighting fans of that golden era between hardcore rave and jungle ever since.
Review: As well as being one of electronica's most distinctive, recognisable and long serving warriors, Richard James is a man of many surprises. From his massive Soundcloud dump in 2015-6, to this unexpected 2023 EP - which was his first fully released material for around five years and appeared without warning - he likes to stay several giant leaps ahead of his public. Across its four tracks, it showcases his unmistakable, queasily melodic touch while revisiting the roots of his drill 'n' bass sound with a modern twist. Opening with 'Blackbox Life Recorder 21f', the EP sets a reflective tone, its light breakbeat and melancholy melody underscored by 80s-inspired drum textures, evoking a wistful yet futuristic atmosphere. This track encapsulates the beauty of his signature style, fusing emotion with intricate production. 'Zin2 Test5' shifts the mood slightly darker, with crisp production and an optimistic undercurrent woven through its melodies. It feels like a contemplative counterpart to the opener, balancing light and shadow with finesse. The second side dives deeper into experimental territory. In 'A Room7 F760' is a fast-paced, broken-beat journey through eerie soundscapes and sinister rave melodies, teetering on the edge of chaos while retaining a hypnotic allure. Closing with 'Blackbox Life Recorder 22 (Parallax mix)', the EP ventures into dubstep territory with a deeper, growling bass and ominous undertones. a dubbier reinterpretation that offers a more textured, shadowy perspective. Black (box) ops indeed - as ever.
Review: Fresh vintage Aphex meat in the shape of this expanded reissue of the classic rave era anthem 'Digeridoo' from 1992. Treated to a modern remastering job by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, this double pack features the four tunes on the original 12" - 'Digeridoo', 'Flaphead', 'Phloam' and 'Isoprophlex', as well as bonus versions by Richard D James himself said to be encoded through his Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, utilising vari-speed to create versions at different speeds which "felt right at the time". The legend is that he wrote the tune to annoy hippies who liked to attend raves and jam with their digeridoos - or digeri-dont's as they quickly became known - but it's being delighting fans of that golden era between hardcore rave and jungle ever since.
Review: Leeds-based label Turnend Tapes showcase the wide and very assured skills of Malmo man Martin Abrahamsson aka Bauri across a choice selection of five tracks from the more thoughtful and atmospheric end of the techno scale. That's not to say there aren't grooves aplenty going on. Opening track 'Zoom0036' has some irresistibly shiny, downbeat electro moves, offset by a touch of Autechre-like ghostliness. 'Jody' comes on like Drexciya at their perkiest, with a soupcon of Air Liquide's cheeky phasing, while 'Sunrise (take 2)' has the majesty and simplicity of Aphex's first 'Ambient Works'. Flip it over for 'Easter Sunday', where streamlined polymetric machine funk and solar flare arpeggios do a merry dance, before 'Feeling Reprise' finishes things off with spiralling half-speed beats and yet more melodic grandeur rising out of the mix. Abrahamsson has a long, impressive pedigree with more alter egos than you've had hot dinners, but this is up there with his most original and confident efforts. It's a Flow-brainer.
Review: Bluets' debut on Kimochi Sound seamlessly integrates into the label's well established and distinctive style. This one, with a hand-sprayed sleeve as always, opens with "if you can imagine," a confident bit of microhouse that mixes rich melodies and a lively bassline. 'Action Potential' echoes RDMA's aesthetic with its precise beats and on the B-side you will find a vaporous melody that weaves through sparse downbeat house grooves to make for a dreamlike atmosphere. Closing the EP, 'Buong Bilog' features distorted IDM rhythms and a poignant refrain that balances twitchy textures with melancholic tones. This carefully crafted release bridges home-listening electronics with dancefloor clout.
Review: Bristol label-turned-blog Innate launches a new sub-label, Innate Editions, which it says is dedicated to timeless UK techno, IDM, electro and ambient music, and it'll all come on heavyweight vinyl to boot. The first release revives Connective Zone's Palm Palm, a millennium-era cult classic and Ben UFO favourite that first came out on Mark Broom and Dave Hill's Unexplored Beats in 2001. Now, this long-out-of-print, expensive and hard to find gem has been remastered by Jamie Anderson and so sounds superb with many lavish electronic layers, richly emotive melodies and dynamic drums that lean on UK techno, IDM, and deep electro. Sounds as good now as it ever did.
Review: A three-track journey through meticulously crafted linear techno. Kicking off with the title song, the sci-fi groove, pulsates with a hypnotic energy perfect for main floors in the techno club. The production feels futuristic yet grounded, drawing listeners into a deep, atmospheric rhythm. On the flip side, 'Engine' intensifies the vibe with its crisp, addictive production. The track evokes an alien world, its steady beat anchored by sharp, precision-driven elements that build a sense of both tension and release. Closing with 'Cali', the EP takes a detour into ambient territory, offering a spacey, atmospheric experience. This one has you feeling like drifting through the cosmosiits sounds evoke a sense of weightless movement, accompanied by abstract noises that conjure imagery of space junk and distant space flights. Each track offers a different layer of sonic exploration.
A three-track journey through meticulously crafted linear techno. Kicking off with the title song, the sci-fi groove, pulsates with a hypnotic energy perfect for main floors in the techno club. The production feels futuristic yet grounded, drawing listeners into a deep, atmospheric rhythm. On the flip side, 'Engine' intensifies the vibe with its crisp, addictive production. The track evokes an alien world, its steady beat anchored by sharp, precision-driven elements that build a sense of both tension and release. Closing with 'Cali', the EP takes a detour into ambient territory, offering a spacey, atmospheric experience. This one has you feeling like drifting through the cosmosiits sounds evoke a sense of weightless movement, accompanied by abstract noises that conjure imagery of space junk and distant space flights. Each track offers a different layer of sonic exploration.
Review: DJRum's career has blossomed in recent times, in no small part thanks to his mind-mangling and frequently thrill-a-minute DJ sets. Unusually given his prolific work-rate earlier in his career, the much-admired producer has not released much new music of late; in fact, this mini-album for Fabric offshoot Houndstooth marks his first 100% fresh release for five years. It's predictably impressive, with highlights including the twisted TB-303 trickery, bombastic sub-bass and polyrhythmic post-dubstep UK bass beats of 'Codex', the high-octane modular techno insanity of 'Crawl', the spaced-out and dubbed-out, Autechre-ish IDM weirdness of 'Frekm (Part 1)', and the deconstructed breakbeats, psychoactive electronics and metallic effects of 'Frekm (Part 2)'.
Det Blaser En Vind Genom Varlden, Och Det Har Det Alltid Gjort (6:54)
Review: An experimental techno hexagram in LP form from Stockholm artist Evigt Morker. Without so much as a hint of context, the techno dark-shooter here drops his third LP for resident label Northern Electronics as a surprise, and the result is rather stunning. A bleary set of impressions, some tunes on this record clip the top edge of the mix, chinking our emotive armour. The effect is gastric, dehiscent, exuding bile: 'Hemilga Eldar' leaves us dumbstruck by its ambient eventidal winds and strangely sprawled drum shapes, while 'Sokaren Hittade' combines nyctophile cantos with electric twangs. The closer 'Det Blaser En Vind...' is a headland of humility, letting in much longer gusts of tuned air.
Review: Kihon Ido is a brand new Japan-based label whose name translates as 'Fundamental Movements' and we're told it is here to focus on timeless dance music by exploring foundational sounds across styles and eras. Its debut release from Extra delves into deep, hypnotic and textured techno from the off. 'Visigoth' is a sophisticated blend of atmospheric layers and smudged dub chords - it's music that transcends the dance floor trends while remaining immersive and evocative. The other cuts explore more smooth and loopy DJ Nobu style cuts with 'Full Circle' offering a more playful and light melodic sound.
The Dichtomoty Of Telling Everyone Everything (Loggsplitter remix) (5:53)
Review: Following the success of last year's Walks, Group Listening returns with a new 12" for PRAH Recordings. The title and artwork both explore themes of decay, expiration and musical renewal and the music was in part inspired by a small DIY festival in Bristol. Paul Jones explains the title represents a radical, open call for change while 'Tell Everyone Everything' is a layered, intense synth soundscape with destined pads and nimble chords that lock you in the here and now. The release also features remixes by Ancient Plastix and Loggsplitter who bring sub-aquatic dub and mind-melting rhythmic intricacies.
Review: It's hard to argue with how much work Koreless, AKA Lewis Roberts, has put into things. Born in Bangor, Wales, but based in Glasgow - currently the most exciting UK city for electronic music production - it took a decade from his debut EP, 4D, to his first album, during which time he participated in the sorely-missed Red Bull Music Academy programme, collaborated with Sampha, performed on Boiler Room TV, embedded himself within the Young Turks camp, wrote with FKA Twigs, and was credited by David Byrne. That's a lot to unpack, so while the bubble wrap is unloaded let's skip to right here, right now. Deceltica is a particularly Koreless collection of tracks, from the opening warning sirens and haunting melodic chimes of 'Seven', to the robot breaks of the title number, and 'Drumhell''s near-reprise of the opening track, a kind of outro to that intro, it's all very good. Then you get fellow Welshman and resident at Manchester's beloved Bakk Heia party, Jorg Kunning, proving why he's up there with the most technically brilliant beat makers.
Review: Mucha, AKA Amanda Butterworth presents a stunning double header for Frequency Domain's tenth birthday release. But when up against one of the most thoughtful, precise, yet loose and rave inducing producers in the history of synthesisers, there was only ever going to be one opening point being made here. Surgeon's remix is typically essential for any techno fan. So while the original 'Skin' is this patient, rhythmic but beat-less slice of post- (or pre-)club stuff, full of ecstasy moods and comedown overtures, Surgeon's take refocuses us on the repetitive vocal patterns and slaps a wonderful compelling broken kick underneath to create a proper dancefloor builder. B-side 'You Make Me Go Under' goes for a neo-Bjork style IDM leaning piece, which then gets a moody, apocalyptic Datassette cut to top off an exceptionally strong package. Buy it. Buy it now.
Imaginary Time (Gesloten Cirkel Keep Playing remix) (6:30)
Imaginary Time '99 (Revolutionary Industrial Trance mix) (14:48)
Review: Acoustic instruments played by Charlotte Bill, "disarranged" by Nigel Ayers, Nocturnal Emissions' Imaginary Time is as much of a landmark as it is a total obscurity. The album title itself references a theory prevalent in some approaches to special relativity and quantum mechanics, a representation of time also used in certain cosmological theories. It's not made up, or unreal, but expressed via imaginary numbers. We can understand where Nocturnal Emissions were coming from with this record back in 1997, then. A strange, beguiling percussive experiment that's at once linear and yet pretty obscure. Here presented with two incredible remixes - Gesloten Cirkel's pounding but fun techno take on things, and the misleadingly-titled 'Revolutionary Industrial Trance mix', a slow building amalgamation of drums and vibe - this is strange yet totally accessible business.
Review: Pye Corner Audio shows off his love of acid on the first of two EPs for Emotional Response that drop simultaneously. This first one is his debut on the label and comes with a gorgeous cover that perfectly encapsulates the sounds within. 'Dust Acid' is a sparse cut with dusty drums and meandering basslines that slowly sink you in, then 'Magnetic Acid Two,' which like all of these was recorded live, is another expertly reduced brew of murkiness with plenty of frayed edges and vintage analog sounds. 'Wanna Show U Acid' is a late-night acid dream and 'Magnetic Acid Four' shuts down slightly more bite. Four timeless backroom cuts, make no mistake.
B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition
Blissful Lie
Weightless
Psychiflux
Cloud Walker
Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***
Exuberant 1990s electronic music revivalist Ludwig Af Rohrscheid has released some of his most magical music of late, with December 2019's "Between Worlds" being one of his best to date. There's much to set the pulse racing on this four-tracker too, from the rushing, trance-influenced melodic positivity of breakbeat wiggler "Blissful Lie" (which, incidentally, lifts the same Aisha sample as the Orb's "Blue Room"), to the IDM/braindance fusion of "Psychiflux" and ultra-deep, spaced-out brilliance of "Cloud Walker", via the madcap insanity of "Weightless", which flips from a jazz-flecked ambient soundscape to a maniacal braindance stomper midway through.
Review: Following 2023's When A Worm Wears A Wig, Robin Stewart returns with Crinkle and delivers a set of warped dub techno tracks that apply advanced dub logic to precise, pointillistic rhythms. Channelling influences like Peder Mannerfelt and Rrose, Stewart revives classic genre tropes with a fresh perspective that dives deeper into the physicality of sound and focuses on bass throbs over aggressive kicks. Standout tracks like 'Stomach' surprise with lolloping off-grid beats soaked in lysergic textures while 'Compact' delivers a more traditional peak-time vibe with innovative processing. The title track brings everything together with mind-bending spectral rhythms.
Review: Schlammpeitziger gets some loving remix treatment here by a superb array of artists, many of whom will all be familiar to lovers of the famous Kompakt sound. Ada is first with a remix of 'Loch Ohne Licht' that is high in exotic melody and tropical bliss. Elsewhere a Wolfgang Voigt Megamix is dreamy and zoned out for the moments when you want to get lost in your own thoughts, and Andreas Dorau and Zwanie Jonson team up for a remix of 'Parzipan' that brings indie sleaze and underlapping groves to some skyward synth invention.
Review: SNPLO's latest delivers a hypnotic exploration of minimal techno with a distinct flair. The title track, 'Lastday Cookie', is groovy, with bouncy basslines and perfectly placed elements, effortlessly blending techno with hints of house for an addictive rhythm that'll have you hooked. 'Smokerecording' shifts gears into a deep, dub-infused atmosphere, drawing you into its vast, immersive depths. The follow-up, 'Smok2', strips down the original track even further, amplifying the reverb and echo for a more minimalistic and spacious sound that's both entrancing and unsettling. 'Reduced Peaking' experiments with dub techno, layering groovy rhythms with an experimental edge. Finally, 'F1' ventures into ambient territory, drifting through space with fluctuating levels that create an eerie and captivating journey. This release is a masterclass in minimalism, blending deep dub atmospheres with experimental techno elements, perfect for those who appreciate intricate soundscapes.
B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition
Lastday Cookie (1:59)
Lastday Cookie (No Hats) (1:59)
Smokerecording (1:59)
Smok2 (1:59)
Reduced Peaking (9:58)
Dig1 (3:27)
Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***
SNPLO's latest delivers a hypnotic exploration of minimal techno with a distinct flair. The title track, 'Lastday Cookie', is groovy, with bouncy basslines and perfectly placed elements, effortlessly blending techno with hints of house for an addictive rhythm that'll have you hooked. 'Smokerecording' shifts gears into a deep, dub-infused atmosphere, drawing you into its vast, immersive depths. The follow-up, 'Smok2', strips down the original track even further, amplifying the reverb and echo for a more minimalistic and spacious sound that's both entrancing and unsettling. 'Reduced Peaking' experiments with dub techno, layering groovy rhythms with an experimental edge. Finally, 'F1' ventures into ambient territory, drifting through space with fluctuating levels that create an eerie and captivating journey. This release is a masterclass in minimalism, blending deep dub atmospheres with experimental techno elements, perfect for those who appreciate intricate soundscapes.
Review: Inspired by the immeasurable depths of the abyss, Milanese DJ and producer Joseph Tagliabue fosters a dense and intense soundscape on his latest EP 'Abisso', evoking a submerged world of cosmic frequencies nay high-freq, post-techno experiments. Unafraid of the wet and subnautical, 'Abisso' dives headfirst into the lower yonders of the abyss, with the title track inspiring visions of a pulsating humanoid submersible confidently plunging into the fishy midsts of an underwater nowhere; while 'Venula' hears our main character chancing on an underwater acid rave, and 'Insidie' finding a rare pocket-vacuum of air. Finally, 'Santra' rounds off on an incredible halfstep stomp, gated vocals and resonant lows aplenty.
Review: Vodkast Records continues to put a focus on Georgian musicians here with a new EP composed and performed by Tedi, while Zesknel also offers up three remixes. These are experimental sounds from the word go: 'Peru' is all fizzing textures and live jazz drums with moody spoken words, 'Upper Manuality' is a raw techno stomper with a sense of dystopian menace and 'Saturn' is a lithe, dubby and deep space techno interlude. 'Detunator' brings curious, clean synth modulations and shuffling rhythms. The remixes all bring dark energy and otherworldly motifs.
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