Review: If you've ever been luck enough to attend the Freerotation music festival than plenty about this remix package will make sense. Not least the interpretation by event co-founder and modular synth hero Steevio, here delivering a remix on vinyl for the first time. Bringing in elements of jazz, ambient, field recordings, dub, house music and - albeit barely audible - subtle shades of tech, it's a sophisticated package that fully buys into the theory of electronic sounds being a form of high art. Running the gamut from the stepping, poised but decidedly free spirited 'Lucid' and Deadbeat's tense, drone-y take on'Sam Gimignano', to the lush keys and white noise of Andrea Cicheki's redo of 'Siegfried 2.0' and Dr Nojoke's beautifully blissed out smoky house, it's as dense as it is accomplished.
Review: After four years of work fusing acoustic and electronic sound worlds, Rand finally unveiled the fruits of their labours with Peripherie. The duo of concert pianist Jan Gerdes and minimal techno producer Dr. Nojoke have cooked up urban and sensitive music for piano and electronics that was all recorded live with no overdubs back in 2019 at Berlin's Chez-Cherie Studios. It was made across three pianos with improvisation at the heart of the process. It's a great collision of worlds, from dark and intense pieces of pulsing techno to more light and hopeful and empty soundscapes that perfectly blur the edges between the different tools used. Fans of Nils Frahm, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto will enjoy digging into this one.
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: Mind Express boss Refracted, AKA Berlin's Alex Moya, emerges from the depths of some murky, oily, opaque lake. A place unsettling and unnerving - the site of some unknown tension - but also wonderfully inimitable and hard to countenance. Powerful stuff, just not really in a way that immediately presents itself as such. Nevertheless, before you know it these tones have enveloped and ensnared. Call it ambient techno, call it ambient, call it pure futurism - parts here almost feel like the ambient noises of familiar things that haven't been invented yet. If that makes sense? A moody precog of a record, it whirs and drones, echoes and dissipates. There are moments when structure become more defined, like the mystery of 'Initiation', but for the most part these are aural infinity loops.
Review: Lukid & Tapes combine their scuzzy sounds once more as Rezzett for this new and sonically fucked up outing on The Trilogy tapes. It's lo-fi music full of perfect imperfections and dusty sound sources, cruddy rhythms and distant cosmic noise that sounds both as if dug up from under many layers of ancient soil but also somehow sent back from the future. It is now a decade since this pair made their first outing but their sound remains fascinatingly original. For loose genre references, imagine breakbeat hardcore, 90s jungle, granular Detroit techno and raw Chicago house all chucked into a blender.
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