bestsellers
**Gradated Pink Vinyl - Includes 24bit download card redeemable from the label, with a bonus live set from KDVS radio** Everyone's favourite avant-pop goddess heralds her 'Translations' LP of global kitsch covers. A-side 'Maria' is a phonetic translation of the stirring original by Lyudmila Gurchenko set to sweeping synth-strings, plucked guitar and swaying rhythm; B-side is a cover of Roxy Music's '2HB' performed by Julia via telephone, and broadcast live on KDVS Radio on the 'Phoning It In' programme hosted by Nadav Carmel...
WILLIAM BASINSKI
Temporary Residence Ltd.
CD // £11.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: 2062.1201
'Nocturnes' is William Basinski's first new solo recording release in four years. It comprises two typically sanguine, extended compositions; 'Nocturnes' written between 1979-80 during his post-grad period in San Francisco, and 'The Trail Of Tears' recorded in 2009 for the Robert Wilson opera, 'The Life and Death of Marina Abramovich'. If there's any one way to measure the efficacy of his music, it's by how drowsy one feels after consumption. We could either do with a snooze or a strong coffee after initial listens, and we mean that with the utmost respect. The first piece revolves recording… Read more
+ Free MP3
**Limited to 500 copies only, pressed on white vinyl. Comes with a free download dropped into your account free of charge on Monday, 20th May** Public Information collect diverse reinterpretations of F.C. Judd's pioneering electronic music from Leyland Kirby, Pye Corner Audio, Chris Carter, Peter Rehberg, Bandshell, Ekoplekz, The Boats, Mordant Music, Holly Herndon and many more. The groundbreaking, experimental originals are chopped, sliced and refried into wonderfully abstract shapes in keeping with F.C. Judd's vision, ranging from instrument builder Ian Helliwell's fra… Read more
**Upfront Exclusive** Deft dancefloor excursions from Laurel Halo, instrumental all the way and taking inspiration from UK club gear, continental techno and digital dancehall. ‘Throw’ sounds like a Bok Bok production routed through Jammy’s studio circa ‘85, irie piano chords peeling off a grimy snare attack, all extraneous crenellations sanded off for maximum club impact. ‘Uhffo’ is on a kind of introspective, quasi-tropical house tip, daubed with glassbowl percussion and deep blue comedown synths; this wouldn’t have sounded out of a place on an Irdial B-side back in the day… Read more
Gunnar Wendel aka Kassem Mosse ushers in his fifth release for the Ominira label. 'The Seige Of Troy' features three versions of "jacknoise" tracks from his sold-out cassette album of the same name, plus one non-album track exclusive to this 7". They all feel as though they were written half-awake, guided by machine spirits. A-side 'Black Floral Lace Blindfold' ripples dusty drum patterns and the sort of metaphysical analog noise you'd expect from a Miles record, and 'A Hundred Cities' knots up a sluggish sampler fug. B-side, the exclusive 'A Cluster Of Three Drops' i… Read more
Koreless returns with his first proper offering of 2013, an EP on Young Turks. Less club-focussed than last year's 12" on Jacques Greene's Vase, the Glaswegian seems determined here to prove there's more to him than nicing up the dance. There are certainly some good moments: opener 'Ivana' affects a nice Vangelis synth-glide but is compromised a little by its glottal, percussive vocal edits, which persist on into 'Sun', another trancey, string-led number which, despite a dressing of sub-footwork drum patter, is effectively beatless. On the EP goes, laying the stargazing synths on thick, never quit… Read more
VARIOUS / 14 TRACKS
14 tracks: techno techno techno
Boomkat / 14 Tracks
MP3 Download // £6.86
Cat. Number: bundle_249
We're well up for a techno session this week. Girder-strength pounders to serpentine rollers; 14 pieces that run the gamut of dancefloor techno currents from Marcel Dettmann, Moerbeck, Paula Temple, J. Tijn, Sleeparchive, Mike Parker, Orphx and more. There are new school entries from Untold's new Pennyroyal pickup J. Tijn with the searing 'Jack 2' and a bellicose missile from Parisian producer Marcelus, plus a noisy beast from Scots duo, Clouds, while Berliners, Moerbeck and Xhin impress with more sinuous, lip-bitingly dark and sexy sound design. Experience counts… Read more
**Includes digital download code redeemable from the label** Amazing return from Alex Zhang Hungtai's Dirty Beaches; a sprawling double header opus of labyrinthine darkwave pop, knackered electronics and chamber experiments. We're usually impressed by his work but this one is really something else, feeding forward the traces of dilapidated rockabilly, blues and garage that informed his brilliant 'Badlands' into a deeply captivating new sound more akin to Suicide, Andy Stott or Loren Connors. Crafted over the course of winter 2012 while living between Montreal and Berlin, it'… Read more
Visionary DJ/selector and sonic theorist Steve Goodman aka Kode 9 mans what is inarguably Rinse's most crucial mix CD to date. With mercurial sleight of hand he blends 37 tracks spanning the rhizome of techy, contemporary, bass-rooted funk and leaves most other selectors for dust. Bridging tempos, styles and patterns from myriad sub-strains of house, garage, hip hop, grime and footwork, he sums his intentions thusly; "This style has emerged out of me trying to fit all the stuff I want to play in a set… Generally these sets start relatively simple rhythmically and then get more f*cked-up as the mi… Read more
**White vinyl in clear poly sleeve** James Blake 'fesses up a steppin' dub and exclusive new tune on 1-800-Dinosaur - the new imprint coined by him and his manager, Dan Foat. His 'Voyeur (Dub)' cuts a sharp line for the 'floor with driving 4/4 rhythm and plush, dramatic harmonic rendering giving way to wobbly electro bass while streamling synthlines light up the sky crimson. The exclusive B-side, 'And Holy Ghost' affords room for Blake's more avant and experimental tendencies - those that we first fell for and which have since been pushed back in favour of pop ambition - dallyin… Read more
MALA
Changes (James Blake Harmonimix)
Deep Medi Musik
MP3 Download // £0.99
FLAC Download // £1.10
Cat. Number: MEDI069
James Blake’s uncommissioned Harmonimix of ‘Changes’ finally gets an official release courtesy of Mala’s own Deep Medi, three years after it first started getting heard and turning heads at dances. It remains one of Blake’s most effective and affecting productions, sticking close to the trudging halfstep lean of the source material but placing most emphasis on the bombastic brass, strings and vocal samples that figure only as scene-setters in the original. What starts out as minimal, discombobulated dancehall, nudged along by eski drum clicks, swells to a rousing, quasi-sympho… Read more
*Includes a download code redeemable from the label* Ghost Box co-convenor Julian House is back to haunt your waking dreams with a new album of imagined library cues, test-tones, telly themes and yellowed sound-postcards from a 70s childhood you may or may not have endured. This is his first solo album as The Focus Group since 2007's We Are All Pan's People, though of course in 2009 there was the magickal, expansive Broadcast collaboration Investigate Witch Cults of The Radio Age. In the best possible sense, it's a return to business as usual: a deviant collector's collage of er… Read more
James Blake’s uncommissioned Harmonimix of ‘Changes’ finally gets an official release courtesy of Mala’s own Deep Medi, three years after it first started getting heard and turning heads at dances. It remains one of Blake’s most effective and affecting productions, sticking close to the trudging halfstep lean of the source material but placing most emphasis on the bombastic brass, strings and vocal samples that figure only as scene-setters in the original. What starts out as minimal, discombobulated dancehall, nudged along by eski drum clicks, swells to a rousing, quasi-symphonic,… Read more
+ Free MP3
*30 minute EP follow-up to Miles' recent 'Faint Hearted' album for Modern Love, mastered and cut by Matt Colton, initial copies on transparent wax* An addendum of sorts to his recent 'Faint Hearted' album, Miles' returns with a half-hour EP more squarely aimed at the floor with four darkened, robust variants. 'Blatant Statement' is up first, slowly emerging from a rough alignment of metallic percussion and abrasive stabs not a million miles removed from the kind of racket you'd most likely associate with Vatican Shadow, before the almost-clipped rub of those super-warm bass stabs shifts the perspect… Read more
Deft dancefloor excursions from Laurel Halo, instrumental all the way and taking inspiration from UK club gear, continental techno and digital dancehall. ‘Throw’ sounds like a Bok Bok production routed through Jammy’s studio circa ‘85, irie piano chords peeling off a grimy snare attack, all extraneous crenellations sanded off for maximum club impact. ‘Uhffo’ is on a kind of introspective, quasi-tropical house tip, daubed with glassbowl percussion and deep blue comedown synths; this wouldn’t have sounded out of a place on an Irdial B-side back in the day, and we mean that as a com… Read more
Visionary DJ/selector and sonic theorist Steve Goodman aka Kode 9 mans what is inarguably Rinse's most crucial mix CD to date. With mercurial sleight of hand he blends 37 tracks spanning the rhizome of techy, contemporary, bass-rooted funk and leaves most other selectors for dust. Bridging tempos, styles and patterns from myriad sub-strains of house, garage, hip hop, grime and footwork, he sums his intentions thusly; "This style has emerged out of me trying to fit all the stuff I want to play in a set… Generally these sets start relatively simple rhythmically and then get more f*cked-up as the mix goes… Read more
Pearson Sound shares four lean, moody and experimental riddims on his eponymous imprint. Up front he unleashes the strafing, darkside synthlines and fractured steppers flux of 'REM' and a daedly body swerve entitled 'Gridlock' laced with proper subbass pressure and almost Anthony Shakir-style percussive edits. Down town, 'Figment' figures Mr. Kennedy at his most reflective, jettisoning the beats in place of Popol Vuh-style chorales and piquant synth sparkle, and almost acting as an intro for the rugged, filtered 'ardcore tessellations of 'Crimson (Beat Ritual). Really strong twelve...
Outstanding debut album from Kevain Wayne Space, aka Footwork's founding father, RP Boo. Originally known as Record Player Boo, RP cut his dancefloor teeth as member of Chicago's House-O-Matics dance crew in the '90s, where, under the tutelage of Ghetto House pioneers DJ Slugo and DJ Deeon, he hatched an accelerated form of Dance Mania's already frenetic styles in order to fuel the city's increasingly demanding competitive dance scene. Armed with a display copy of a Roland-70 drum machine loaded up with beats by the store's previous customers - unnamed producers from Chicago - he coined a hyperacti… Read more
*30 minute EP follow-up to Miles' recent 'Faint Hearted' album for Modern Love, mastered by Matt Colton* An addendum of sorts to his recent 'Faint Hearted' album, Miles' returns with a half-hour EP more squarely aimed at the floor with four darkened, robust variants. 'Blatant Statement' is up first, slowly emerging from a rough alignment of metallic percussion and abrasive stabs not a million miles removed from the kind of racket you'd most likely associate with Vatican Shadow, before the almost-clipped rub of those super-warm bass stabs shifts the perspective to a different kind of environment … Read more
Shed keeps it 'Burning' on an old skool Power House tip with his 3rd Head High single. The title choon comes in rollin' 'Keep Calm Mix' with classy keys for the debonaire raver, and a more rugged 'Keep It… Mix' for the whistle posse, both built to deliver the vibes proper. 'Keep On Talking (Dirt Mix)' is craftier, cutting into that early '90s no mans land between US and UK rave styles nodding to Mark Archer and Kevin Saunderson classics.
Hard-nosed yet playful experiments with dancefloor rhythm from Japan's Aoki Takamasa, recommended if you like Mark Fell, NHK, etc. Despite its forbidding exterior and opaque, joyless track titles ('Rhythm Variarion 01', 'Rhythm Variation 02', etc), Takamasa's computer constructions are very lush indeed, with luminous, melodically advanced synth patterns and skippy, club-ready rhythms that variously invoke Skam's North-West b-boy roll, Sensate Focus's juddering Chi-house-derivations and, on the awesome 'Rhythm Variation 04', a space somewhere between hip-hop, techno and 2step garage. 'Rhythm Variation… Read more
CARTER TUTTI
Conspiracy International
MP3 Download // £1.70FLAC Download // £2.10
Cat. Number: CTIDD045
Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti have spent the last couple of years absorbed in collaboration (chiefly with Nik Void in Carter Tutti Void) and laying the body/ghost of Throbbing Gristle to rest, so it’s really good to have them back functioning as a self-contained duo, the well-practiced configuration that’s yielded so much distinctive and prophetic material in the past. ‘Coolicon-A’ is brilliant, a dense, Fourth World technoscape that reminds us of late Clock DVA and early 90s, heatsick cyberfunk offerings from Richard H Kirk, Dean Dennis, et al, but rendered in a more sophisticated, in… Read more
Mike Paradinas, boss of the sprawling Planet Mu imprint, does what he does best with his first new µ-Ziq material in over half a decade. 'XTEP' is flush with the sort of nostalgic melody, rave romance and charm that endeared him to so many in the first place. It's an unashamed return to his roots, from the bubbling pastoral melody and proggy chimes of 'XT' to the happy-as-larry piano house of 'Ritm' and 'Pulsar''s nEuro-electro futurism, while the footwork-style drum flux and swooning, emotional melody of 'Monj2' and the bluer swing of 'New Bimple' concede to current trends but not at the expense of his integrity.
Mr Beatnick's back in business with a third EP on Semtek's Don't Be Afraid label, his first since last year's ace Sun Goddess and arguably his best yet. The first half of the 12" comes over like Metro Area made over for London 2013: dubwise, richly melodic disco-boogie retro-futurism, and balm for tired ears. 'Savannah' in particular sounds breezy as anything, but - as with everything on this record - look under the hood and you'll find a surprisingly complex mechanism driving it. 'Symbiosis' is real class, wrought out of heartsore live string sounds, acutely funked-up synth lines and a c… Read more
Various Production twyst-up with future junglist torque on this one-off bomb. Flighty quick-step rhythms are subject to a tonne of high pressure atmospheric disturbance, churning up far-away chants, disembodied duppies and splintered breakbeats in its cyclonic force. We never know where Various are going next, but we always wanna go there. Tipped!
COLLEEN
Second Language Music
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £7.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: 5052442004240
Each of the French artist’s precious LP offerings have represented a further deepening and refining of her craft, getting closer to some kind of spiritual essence. On a so-so day, she makes music that you feel privileged to hear, and on a good day she makes music that cleaves your heart in two. It’s been a long wait for new material - her last album, Les Ondes Silencieuses, is now six years old - but 'The Weighing Of The Heart' doesn’t disappoint, despite a considerable burden of expectation. The oneiric shimmer of her music has its contemporary analogs in the likes of Grouper a… Read more
Koreless returns with his first proper offering of 2013, an EP on Young Turks. Less club-focussed than last year's 12" on Jacques Greene's Vase, the Glaswegian seems determined here to prove there's more to him than nicing up the dance. There are certainly some good moments: opener 'Ivana' affects a nice Vangelis synth-glide but is compromised a little by its glottal, percussive vocal edits, which persist on into 'Sun', another trancey, string-led number which, despite a dressing of sub-footwork drum patter, is effectively beatless. On the EP goes, laying the stargazing synths on thick, never quite go… Read more
MALA
Changes (James Blake Harmonimix)
Deep Medi Musik
FLAC Download // £1.10FLAC Download // £1.10
Cat. Number: MEDI069
Review to follow shortly…
GEIOM FEATURING TERRIBLE SHOCK
Well Rounded Records
MP3 Download // £1.70FLAC Download // £2.10
Cat. Number: WRND017
*Upfront Exclusive* Notts stalwart Kamal Joory aka Geiom tweaks out the electroid funky flex of '2-4-6' for Brighton's Well Rounded Records, backed with a ruggedly sprung Desto remix. Voiced by Terrible Shock, the original plays out a sort of lean, uptempo UK bashment bubble seared with strobing synthlines for the MDMA crew. The Desto remix cooly resets the riddim to a sparse 808 step 'n roll with bumping subbass and spacious sound design...
Review to follow shortly…
Pearson Sound shares four lean, moody and experimental riddims on his eponymous imprint. Up front he unleashes the strafing, darkside synthlines and fractured steppers flux of 'REM' and a daedly body swerve entitled 'Gridlock' laced with proper subbass pressure and almost Anthony Shakir-style percussive edits. Down town, 'Figment' figures Mr. Kennedy at his most reflective, jettisoning the beats in place of Popol Vuh-style chorales and piquant synth sparkle, and almost acting as an intro for the rugged, filtered 'ardcore tessellations of 'Crimson (Beat Ritual). Really strong twelve...
**CD edition of 500 copies in digicase** Joachim Nordwall's Ideal label sate the freaks with a CD reissue of a particularly unrelenting Kevin Drumm slab originally issued on tape in 2007. One single 58 minute blast of dense, necrotising and powerful noise dynamics handled with the usual, inimitable stoicism we'd expect from Drumm at his best. We're placed in the eye of a near-biblical noise storm which rages ferociously, but not uncontrollably; it's possible to detect a sense of channelled rage and despair, but without the theatrics that often comes with noise music. You don't imagine Drumm flinging … Read more
**Hand-stamped label and jacket** The Dark Sky trio make an unexpected yet successful detour into deep house avenues for the label wing of New York's Mister Saturday Night parties. With a lightness of touch and experimental bent not normally found in the often staid and hermetic genre, they nimbly realign the sound with classy vision, resulting breezier European styles reminding of Lawrence with 'In Brackets', while '5AM swings wide' with almost 2-stepped garage flair. Flipside, the sparkling-but-dusty jazz percussion and quicksilver edits of 'Voices' recalls classic Pepe Bradock and Shake, but … Read more
PEV & HODGE
Bells (System mix / Dream Sequence)
Punch Drunk Records
MP3 Download // £1.70FLAC Download // £2.10
Cat. Number: DRUNK031
Pev linx with yung Bristolian, Hodge, for the first outing on his Punch Drunk label in over three years. Their 'Bells' manifest in two versions: the 'System Mix' is rolled up heavy for the rig with dense, plummeting subs, slicing percussions and minimalist synth trickles carving out cool and heavy headspace for those who dance near the bassbins; the 'Dream Sequence' eases off with a more spacious flex pushed by thick house kicks and lean subbass pressure to carry richer, plangent harmonics for those who like to dance in their heads.
Ghost Box co-convenor Julian House is back to haunt your waking dreams with a new album of imagined library cues, test-tones, telly themes and yellowed sound-postcards from a 70s childhood you may or may not have endured. This is his first solo album as The Focus Group since 2007's We Are All Pan's People, though of course in 2009 there was the magickal, expansive Broadcast collaboration Investigate Witch Cults of The Radio Age. In the best possible sense, it's a return to business as usual: a deviant collector's collage of ersatz soft-psych, pastoral jazz, public information anno… Read more
Basement ready house gear from George Fitzgerald for his spiritual home, Hotflush. Both sides are built to move; 'Thinking Of You' following a trancey/dubstep-y course of builds and drops with a chunky tech-house palette; 'Nighttide Lover' working with whirring, bubbling, swinging drums for the shape cutters.
Hard-nosed yet playful experiments with dancefloor rhythm from Japan's Aoki Takamasa, recommended if you like Mark Fell, NHK, etc. Despite its forbidding exterior and opaque, joyless track titles ('Rhythm Variarion 01', 'Rhythm Variation 02', etc), Takamasa's computer constructions are very lush indeed, with luminous, melodically advanced synth patterns and skippy, club-ready rhythms that variously invoke Skam's North-West b-boy roll, Sensate Focus's juddering Chi-house-derivations and, on the awesome 'Rhythm Variation 04', a space somewhere between hip-hop, techno and 2step garage. 'Rhythm Var… Read more
Amazing return from Alex Zhang Hungtai's Dirty Beaches; a sprawling double header opus of labyrinthine darkwave pop, knackered electronics and chamber experiments. We're usually impressed by his work but this one is really something else, feeding forward the traces of dilapidated rockabilly, blues and garage that informed his brilliant 'Badlands' into a deeply captivating new sound more akin to Suicide, Andy Stott or Loren Connors. Crafted over the course of winter 2012 while living between Montreal and Berlin, it's leaden with heartbreaking gravity and existential self-reflect… Read more
Following last year's one-off hook-up with Blackest Ever Black, which showcased storming versions from Regis and Monoton, Desire Records go it alone on their second volume of Ike Yard remixes. Tropic of Cancer get top billing with their take on the NY post-punk minimalists' 'Half A God': they offer up a cold-to-the-touch, marbled slab of sepulchral, introspective dub, Camella Lobo's phantasmal vocal presence and reverbed guitar beckoning you into a colour-bled zwischenwelt; deadly sparse and unforgiving, at times it sounds like it could be a lost instrumental sketch from Han… Read more
Ships in 23 days
Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
PYE CORNER AUDIO
Superstitious Century (Second Pressing)
Boomkat Editions
12" // £9.99
Cat. Number: BKEDIT005
**Second pressing on bright Yellow vinyl - edition of 250 individually numbered copies** The Head Technician cruises up with his first 12" maxi single, presented on our occasional Boomkat Editions series. Since Type's reissue of his 'Black Mill Tapes' last year, PCA has had praise coming from all angles: whether it's for his slick-but-sleazy, Carl Craigian lustre, the BoC-like melodic hooks, or his beautifully full bodied analogue production; he's really hit a collective soft spot dead on. We were keen to hear him attempt something slightly more club-wise, and, … Read more
Kode 9 returns with his first single in two years, would you believe. We’re a long way from the UKF-inflected house manoeuvres the Hyperdub skipper was making on 2011’s Black Sun; instead lead cut ‘Xingfu Lu’, which fans will know has existed for at least a year, firmly channels footwork through Memories Of The Future's haunted dancehall. Spend even a minute with ‘Xinfu Lu’, though, and you’ll see it’s no ordinary juke pastiche: it’s properly dubwise, its sickened, weasly synthesizer lines and chopped-to-f**k drums seem designed less to mobilise your feet than to stir up the voices in your h… Read more
**Upfront Exclusive**
Amazing return from Alex Zhang Hungtai's Dirty Beaches; a sprawling double header opus of labyrinthine darkwave pop, knackered electronics and chamber experiments. We're usually impressed by his work but this one is really something else, feeding forward the traces of dilapidated rockabilly, blues and garage that informed his brilliant 'Badlands' into a deeply captivating new sound more akin to Suicide, Andy Stott or Loren Connors. Crafted over the course of winter 2012 while living between Montreal and Berlin, it's leaden with heartbreaking gravity and existential self-r… Read more
**Limited edition second pressing on blue vinyl** One of the UK's finest new shoegaze/darkwave units lay down a fine collection for the prolific Clan Destine Records. Stripped down to fuzzed-up guitar, morose vocals, synth noise and pounding drum machines, theirs is a lean and propulsive sound referencing classic Joy Divison basslines in 'Waiting For The Fall', or Spacemen 3 in the charming chug of 'Here It Comes' on the A-side, whilst the B-side brings with it some rugged darkwave plays such as the glam drum machine swagger of 'Until I'm Cold' or the gothic march of 'Always Th… Read more
THEO PARRISH
Space Station / Going Through Changes
Sound Signature
MP3 Download // £1.70FLAC Download // £2.10
Cat. Number: SS035
*An Omar S co-production* Proper head jamming gear from Theo Parrish unleashing one of the most exciting Soul Signature tracks in years on the amazing 'Space Station' backed with a typical Theo soul cut on 'Going Through Changes'. So a little close attention reveals that the mind melting A-side is actually produced in conjunction with Omar-S, who is credited with "Sound Selection Arrangement & Engineering", with the "Written & Produced by" credits going to Theo. It's basically a proper club stunner, riding in with a scene setting intro before deploying a restlessl… Read more
