back in stock
Thursday, 11 March
BACK IN STOCK!!! *ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BODIES OF WORK IN ELECTRONIC MUSIC IS FINALLY AVAILABLE IN ONE INCREDIBLE PACKAGE - PRETTY MUCH THE ENTIRE GAS DISCOGRAPHY IS COMPILED ACROSS 4 CD'S CLOCKING IN AT ALMOST 5 HOURS OF THE MOST IMMERSIVE MUSIC YOU'LL EVER HAVE THE PLEASURE OF HEARING. THINK OF IT AS THE DARKEST DRONES FROM TWIN PEAKS CROSSED WITH BASIC CHANNEL AND ARVO PART FOR A VERY VAGUE IDEA OF THE GENIUS AT WORK HERE* This four-disc retrospective anthologises one of the seminal bodies of work in the recent history of electronic music. Wolfgang Voigt's recordings under the name Gas have gone down in folklore as one of… Read more
Back in stock - Super Limited copies!! *Quadruple 7" set featuring the following tracks : It's A Shame, It's A Shame Version, Youths Of Today, Youths Of Today Version, Try A Thing, Try A Thing Version, Tallawah, Tallawah Version* White Mice [born Allan Crichton] came up through the ranks on Sugar Minott's Youthman Promotions sound system, Jammy's Hi Power and the smaller Ticka Muzik sound from his birthplace - Montego Bay, rising to local celebrity whilst performing with Tenor Saw at Sunsplash 85. Surprising then that recollections of White Mice are scant - friends recall seeing him in Manchester on plymouth grove in reverential… Read more
Back in stock! For us, it just doesn't get any better. A label co-curated by Basic Channel and London's impeccable Honest Jon's crew, already responsible for unearthing some of the most devastating digital dub we've ever had the pleasure of laying our hands on, utterly destroying us with last year's unbelievable "White Mice" album, providing the 12" reissue of the year with last week's "Replay Version" from Prince Jazzbo, and now - at long last - compiling their unbelievable 12" series onto one unfathomably good cd. Newcomers to Basic Replay will have their expectations calibrated from the off - the opening "Call Me Rambo" being… Read more
Back in stock. Where to begin with this incredible twelve? The A-side features the much-hyped Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (with a lineup featuring the sons of Sun Ra trumpeter Phil Cohran) taking on Tony Allen's "Losun" and creating one of the most astonishing pieces of music we've heard this year, managing to sound like a school brass band touched by pure genius. Hard to over-emphasise how good this is, for sure one of the singles of the year - and that's before we've even flipped over. The B-side features Salah Ragab and the Afro-Egyptian Ensemble whom you might remember from the amazing "Presents Egyptian Jazz" reissue on Art Yar… Read more
Back in stock. Following on from remixes from Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Osawald, Carl Craig steps up for this absolutely killer remix twelve for the Honest Jons imprint. Craig features on two remixes - the epic "Kilode Remix" which utilises all the dancefloor savvy and careful vocal manipulations marked out on his finest and most sought after remixes of the last few years, while the "Straight Mix" keeps the original's template and delivers a fierce drum edit as good as his classic remix for The Congos a few years back. Awesome twelve, Buy!
Back in stock! Deary me, the best has very definitely been saved til last with this quite remarkable final installment for Basic Channel's 'See Mi Yah' series of remixes. Volume four goes way back to Basic channel's roots for a double-headed session that features one of Carl Craig's most astonishing remixes on the A-side and a simply terrifying, almost unfathomably deep spacious techno reworking from Basic Channel themselves on the flip. Short of Mark and Moritz resurrecting Techno's most infamous label and delivering the fabled 10th installment in its peerless catalogue, it really is hard to imagine anything else delivering qu… Read more
Back in stock. Moritz Von Oswald is a name that needs little introduction to anyone who has followed Techno, Dub or any kind of electronic music over the last 15 years. Since the early 90's he's tirelessly applied his discipline to a range of styles and genres with seminal work as part of Maurizio, Basic Channel, Rhythm & Sound and his own name besides a mind blowing number of side projects, mastering jobs and engineering work. His most recent project has attempted to consolidate the studio processes which have defined the majority of his output with a live or improvisational element as part of his "trio" including the capable … Read more
Originally released in 1956, More Moondog was the second album by Louis Thomas Hardin. The tone of this fragmented, wildly eclectic body of work tends to rest its focus on percussion, exploring the Eastern-influenced, gamelan-styled sounds developed by homemade instruments like Moondog's famed "trimba" and "oo". The majority of the compositions here are brief, often very intricate miniatures, which within the space of a mere minute or two instantly place you in Moondog's singular sound world, structured with difficult time signatures and populated by sounds that are quite unlike anything you'd hear anywhere else. It's hard to i… Read more
Back in stock! Rolling down from the heavens with a total shockout intro, Basic Replay dig deep into the vaults for another selection guaranteed entry into the front of your dancehall pile. Legendary keyboard whizz Jackie Mittoo is on fine tinkling form, riding the Ayatollah riddim with some hazy synthetic electronical embellishments atop a heavy heavy digital subbass rhythm. Mittoo version's the alltime classic 'Mash down Babylon' on the flip, installing a lush lick of African guitars and working the rhythm up with some driving organ chords in his inimitable style. KILLER.
BACK IN STOCK! The second instalment from Basic Channel's offshoot, Basic Replay, in something of a bumper week for the legion of admirers they've gathered in the last ten years. A reissue label convened to showcase prime influences and lesser known inspirations, the men from Berlin have selected and remastered a truly shocking follow up to Keith Hudson's 'Playing It Cool..' album reissued last year. 'Call me rambo' was originally recorded in 1986 and released on the Heavyweight label, an imprint formed by the Heavyweight soundsystem, based in the Wood Green and Tottenham areas of north London. Featuring Chester Roots at the con… Read more
BACK IN STOCK. OK, i'm not going to front, this 12" definitely wouldn't have penetrated my environs on the cold North East coast back in 1996, but f*ck, i wish it had. This is 100% solid gold early garage gear made by KMA productions and given a massively welcome repress by the good folks at Groove Chronicles. The A-side shocker 'Cape Fear' uses a naughty sample from the Scorcese film of the same name to set a dank and avant-garage atmosphere before licking up a devastating garage rhythm, but coming from 1996, this is far more influenced by the soulful US house style than much of the later 2-step stuff and rolls along on a kink… Read more
Not content with p*ssing all over the competition with a slew of scene defining records, Untold presents the primal-futurist swing of 'Flexible' on a 1-sided pressing for Brainmath. There's no second guessing his productions at the moment, apart from the fact that they are guaranteed to mess up your dancefloor in brilliant style. 'Flexible' meshes the hype tension of the Wiley's menacingly minimal Devil mixes with the sort of melodious thunk that Shackleton has locked down to programme a slyly experimental riddim made for DJs to screw into equally minimal gear or even find the right a capella to suit its itchy nature. Fans of Anstam, Joe, Ramadanman, and Roska gotta be quick with this one! Killer 12".
The latest addition to Hot Flush's swelling roster follows up his techy mix of Toasty with a plate of brand new gear. I guess this is what we could call the later artcore movement of Dubstep, centred around the rebranded Hot Flush, Hemlock, and Hessle Audio imprints, with shades of old style Peshay and Danny Breaks bringing more complex arrangements and jazzy touches to an upswinging and 2-step informed style of dubstep which has shed any real connection with the rawer and more vibrant Grime and Dubstep that preceded it. Martyn would also be a major touchstone for this release, from the jazz licked infiltrations and interlockin… Read more
Anthem time! After teasing us all with inclusions on various mixes, Untold's Hemlock imprint finally drops the massive remixes of 'I Can't Stop This Feeling' from Pangaea and "Stop what you're doing" from James Blake. While both mixes are outstanding in their own right, it's Blake's version that's getting the biggest response, both in the blogosphere and in the dance. He's turned the track into an electro-acoustic animal, sounding something like Joker jamming with Florian Hecker, coaxing out every last bit of visceral synthline bite to fill the groove with technologically enhanced excitement. Meanwhile, by no means letting his … Read more
Hemlock continue to represent the far left side of the dubstep scene in fine style with two abstracted steppers revisions of Untold tracks from Fantastic Mr Fox and Hyperdub's L.V. The Fantastic Mr Fox remix of 'Yukon' is splendidly odd, occupying a unique niche between Flylo style refunked slack beats and a slightly folktronica-ish grasp of melody for an intriguingly satisfying combination. Make sure you check this! LV provides a typically brilliant remix of 'Walk Through Walls' on the flipside, meshing quicksilver 2-step percussion with a ghostly 2 note organ refrain and perception alteringly spacious sound design making for … Read more
Exciting times for the Hemlock imprint with this debut twelve from James Blake (member of the much tipped Mount Kimbie) getting bountiful props for the last few weeks. There's a musical element to "Air & Lack Thereof" borrowed from easy listening/exotica with a cleverly utilised sampled hook imbuing proceedings with a much mellower vibe than usually associated with this sort of thing. It kind of sounds like Madlib if he made dubstep, except less complex and with a little extra space. "Sparing The Horse" over on the flip flexes Blake's vocal muscle with a bit of autotune thrown in to good effect, with a more robust squashed two… Read more
*IMAGINE ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, ARTHUR RUSSELL, DUCKTAILS, NITE JEWEL, FLOATING POINTS AND SCRITTI POLITTI ROLLED INTO ONE AND YOU MIGHT JUST GET AN IDEA OF THE SHEER BRILLIANCE OF THIS ALBUM - EARLY CONTENDER FOR ALBUM OF THE YEAR!* The Car Park imprint maintains its impeccable run of form with the fractal sonic geometry of Toro Y Moi's debut album 'Causers Of This'. It's no overstatement to say that some of the most interesting music bubbling up from the underground right now features a healthy element of 80's generic composting, with artists like Panda Bear and Animal Collective, Nite Jewel and the IDIB lot, or the multifarious… Read more
Wednesday, 10 March
Seminal debut album from industrial techno overlord, Regis. Originally released in 1996, these two slabs of vinyl were pivotal moments in the development of Birmingham, and subsequently, World techno movements. It dropped in the same year as Surgeon's 'Communications' LP, marking the British midlands as a powerhouse of techno industry. 'Gymnastics' alloyed the harder edge and streamlined production of Detroit's Mills and Hood with a stoically dark and mechanical style, managing to steer clear of the pitfalls of crusty techno excesses but still kicking like a sleek black coalhorse. Legendary stuff.
A true classic from the Downwards archives courtesy of the shady O/V. 'Killing European Sons' was originally released back in 2003 and hits home with hard hitting percussion and gloomy atmospheres that you're not going to find anywhere else. Superb stuff.
In 2000AD Karl O'Connor (Regis), Peter Sutton (Female) and Ian J Richardson (O/V) combined their abilities for the 'Disintegration' sessions on the Downwards Test series. The result is a masterfully harnessed collection of purest, muscular, forceful and proper techno. For those who like it hard and deadly, the critically bruising industrial funk of 'Staff Car 1' is simply mindblowing and the innately funked 'Baptism' is a stone cold essential for fans of Female's craftier syncopations. Of course there's also full-on, heads-down stompers like 'Death Head Said' and the groovier NYC/Berlin style of 'Assume Nothing' to keep everyone happy, or moody, whatever floats your boat. Sick.
Finally dropping on vinyl, Mosca's 'Square One' anthem hits the ground running, backed with the hyper-prismic 10-minute epic 'Nike' and a gargantuan Roska rerub. Launched from the prescient Night Slugs imprint, Mosca's Tropical style defines the labels club-scorching aesthetic with a potent mix of Basic Channel stabs, glittering R'n'B synths and a restless rhythmic heritage sucking up Chicago House Tom patterns, bashy Soca percussion and garage-licked Funky programming. On the flip, 'Nike' is an even more impressive affair, swerving from crunked-out half-step via flashes of hardcore breakage to Autotuned robo-funky anchored by … Read more
RE-PRESS!!!!. Look back at our archive of reviews for releases on the Burial Mix label and you'll probably realise that we've always had a reverential approach to what these people do. The credentials are all there : the godlike production talents of mark ernestus and moritz von oswald have already set the world ablaze once, twice, three, four times with the seminal work as Basic Channel and the splintering into microscopic, heavyweight offshoots by way of the M series (Maurizio on proud display), Main Street (Chicago rhythms floating into dub), Chain Reaction (reduced, spacious techno blueprints), Rhythm and Sound (largely inst… Read more
We've been waiting for this one to drop for a while, collecting some of the most obscure, eye-popping electronic pop/funk/psyche recordings made in Iran in the 1960's and 70's before the revolution and the overthrow of the Shah. Finders Keepers once again manage to educate and amaze with a prime selection of mindblowing obscurities - the production on so many of the tracks here just beggar belief. The music reflects Iran at a time when it was undergoing massive change, partly due to the influx of Petrodollars and the pervasive influence of modernity which created a tension between mystical Eastern traditions and the freedom … Read more
We've been waiting for this one to drop for a while, collecting some of the most obscure, eye-popping electronic pop/funk/psyche recordings made in Iran in the 1960's and 70's before the revolution and the overthrow of the Shah. Finders Keepers once again manage to educate and amaze with a prime selection of mindblowing obscurities - the production on so many of the tracks here just beggar belief. The music reflects Iran at a time when it was undergoing massive change, partly due to the influx of Petrodollars and the pervasive influence of modernity which created a tension between mystical Eastern traditions and the freedom … Read more
ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE ELECTRONIC SOUNDWORKS AND POP PASTICHE, SORT OF LIKE ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER CROSSED WITH ARIEL PINK AND ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, ALL FED THROUGH A 1980'S TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK FILTER AND RECORDED TO TAPE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. INCREDIBLE ALBUM - STRICTLY LIMITED PRESSING!!! The exceptional Olde English Spelling Bee label presents a remastered issue of Sam Meringue's out-of-print tape released in summer '09 by Not Not Fun, complete with full colour sleeve and a digital download coupon from the label itself. In a similar vein to the remarkable Ducktails material or James Ferraro's Skaters project, Matrix Metals make… Read more
*ONE OF 2009'S MOST ACCLAIMED ALBUMS, FINALLY IN STOCK* Ducktails is the lo-fi bedroom pop pseudonym of New Jersey's Matthew Mondanile, who also goes by the handle of Predator Vision on Not Not Fun. Over the last three years he's dreamt up a steady stream of largely cassette only gems which squarely fall into the Hypnagogic Pop style identified by the Wire magazine in mid-2009. 'Landscapes' is a remarkable collection of raw-finished pop reminisces with a vivid sheen of washed-out summery euphoria strongly reminding of Ariel Pink, but with a psychoactive chemistry all of its own. We've been a bit slow on the uptake with this stu… Read more
Back in stock! Probably my favourite of all the Pan Sonic albums, this showed a slight departure from their previous efforts. Instead of focussing mainly on distorted technoid beats and extreme sounds, Altopiiri interspersed the hypnotic analogue techno mainstays with gorgeous atmospheric compositions reflecting influences from early electronic composers such as Pierre Schaeffer and Todd Dockstader. These tracks were all made without overdubs - live recordings pitched by Vaino and Väisänen in the studio and improvised as they went on. Listening through the tracks it is hard to hear how they managed such an accomplished finish by… Read more
There have been so many '70s krautrock-inspired synthesizer albums out in recent times that it's probably time to start wondering when the well will run dry. Fortunately for Californian analogue experimenter Jonas Reinhardt there's nothing about his contribution to the genre that suggests he's running low on ideas. More straight-faced than Zombi, and more authentically 'kosmische' than ARP, Reinhardt earns his place amongst his already-established contemporaries. This album doesn't merely reference the krautrock inner sanctum however: there's as much of an influence from John Carpenter or Jean-Michel Jarre at work on 'How To… Read more
Fans of Burial, take note. Lo Dubs come correct this week with a hugely enticing and anticipated album from Clubroot. Clubroot has apparently been producing for the best part of the decade, initially constructing tech step D'n'B indebted to the likes of Nico, Ed Rush and Optical but shifting his palette to the dominant dubstep style in recent years. To sum up Clubroots sound as succinctly as possible, it's like the perfect hybrid of Burial and Kryptic Minds, taking the mood driven atmospheres and quicksilver slink of Burial and alloying it to dynamic basslines and intricately produced rhythm structures. This combination is expl… Read more

































