summary 
Monday, 21 May
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Coming from the deranged mind of Christopher Ernst and visual artist Reid Bingham, ‘Not All Clouds are White’ sounds something like a minimal techno record without any beats. That doesn’t make a lot of sense I know, but it’s the feel you get from the album; while it might be made up of gassy hisses and low-frequency pulses, there’s so much density in the details you begin hearing rhythms that may or may not be there. It might be a boiling, clattering tap or a throbbing hum but the rhythms are there, somewhere. One for fans of Thomas Koner’s cavernous ambience or the stark loner-acid of Plastikman – this is gonna take you to some weird places, and that’s got to be a good thing.
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Laurel Halo's 'Quarantine' is one of the most compelling debut albums we've heard this year. Ever since she revealed the hyper-fused kinetics of 2010's 'King Felix' EP, there's been a certain weight of expectation on this unique artist, which has evidently been fulfilled with the likes of her technofied 'Hour Logic' and 'Spring' EPs, plus the criminally overlooked ambient holo-spaces of the 'Antenna' cassette for NNA Tapes. Yet, if you still haven't been convinced of her skills, a newly established connection with the esteemed Hyperdub and the utter brilliance of this album - from the sounds to the artwork - should be ringing yo… Read more
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Arriving with support from Oneman, Jackmaster and more, Last Japan aka Marco Giuliani makes his vinyl debut for Lo Note UK. 'Ambush' presents a sparse and cold, yet fleshly tactile sound, setting up the dance with misdirecting minimal subs and skeletal percussion before the titular ambush comes, dropping a dirtload of junglist breaks on yer. 'Tactics' holds down the flipside, craftily blending field recordings into the rhythmic framework before subsiding into rolling Bass styles punctuated by crisp, reserved tribal drums. One for fans of South London Ordnance, Blawan, Dark Sky, Untold, then.
Nartica minimal-techno explorer Arctic Hospital returns for this brand new longplayer and it appears he’s edging towards a more ‘epic’ sound. The hyper-edited clipped iciness of his earlier work has been replaced with an echoing, dense warmth making way for the prime-time excess of ‘Going Sun’ and the Artificial Intelligence throwback ‘Friend Amplifier’. Needless to say it’s more good stuff and one for people who like their dance music with a bit more going on under the hood.
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
False Industries
MP3 Download // £3.95
FLAC Download // £4.95
Cat. Number: 0827170285781
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Tim Martin has been releasing under the Maps and Diagrams moniker for a good ten years now, and he’s showing no sign of losing steam with this latest on the False Industries label. A far cry from the percussive crunchiness of his earlier material, ‘Delius’ is as cool and glassy as a Fox’s Glacier mint, and probably more refreshing too. There’s a fuzzy analogue glow to Martin’s recordings, and ‘Delius’ shows this off better than ever – even in the coldest, most cavernous moments you get the sense that Martin may have bounced everything to tape just to round off those harsh edges a little. There’s plenty of ‘ambient’ music aroun… Read more
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Swung and, yes, soulful house cuts from Myakkah, impressively keeping things nice and silky in a deep New York style without shorting us on pirate-ready rudeness - think Roska meets Rheji Burrell. 'Eyes Up' is the most satisfying hybrid of summery top-down vibes and club-savvy production, but 'Eyes Down' goes for a more swaggering techno feel with almost as impressive results. 'I Want To Feel' is a beautifully dubbed-out, thoroughly modern, steppers' take on classic house sounds, and 'Modern Life' finds the sweet spot between gauzy, Clams-style cloud-rap and synthed-out Chicago house inna Virgo style. Top record from a promising producer, no mistake.
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"Two hands, two channels, one take" accurately sums the Ekoplekz technique, but his pitch black portals of radiophonic dub continue to elude description like the movement of bats in a cave. Returning to Mordant Music - home of his 'Memowrekz' double cassette and 'Fountain Square' 12 - 'Skalectrikz' collects "searing live and studio scree from all corners of Ekoplekz's 2011 assault". The first tape features sounds captured and mildewed in his Dromilly Vale home studio (the name being a syncretic homage to King Tubby's Dromilly Avenue studio and the Maida Vale labs of the Radiophonic vanguard) and plumbs the depths of his cheap, arc… Read more
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Super-taut, crystalline fusion of Hip Hop, Footwork and Electronic club music with a world-wide dancefloor outlook. XLII hails from Tokyo and his dynamic constructions are brimming with the sort of electric energy you'd expect from that city. 'Dilated' is a sharp slowfast burner with steel-tipped 808s, skewed synths and elastic bass stabs while 'No Cure' rocks up a rapid, outsider take on Chicago Footwork and 'Thro Yo!' works with flash, Amon Tobin-styled synthwork and ultra-criss drum programming beside the robotic ragga of 'Rasclap'. Starkey gives 'Thro Yo!' a fractal Grime overhaul and ex-Various Productions guy, EAN goes in killer s… Read more
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*Senking returns to Raster with another double-headed set of slowed-down, rugged and dark transmissions.* Senking's 2nd EP follow-up to 2010's heavyweight 'Pong' LP sees him add chiming harmonies and even vocals to his abyssal bass contours. With gargantuan A-side 'The Dance Hall Walk' he lasers warped and glooming features into a hulking iceberg sculpture, perching a blunted text read by Michael Cramm over unshakeable, plunging bass ballast. This will sound shocking on a big rig! B-side's 'Closing Eyes' swipes away any extraneous sounds to leave a desolate scape of plangent, ringing tones skidding across icy synth surfaces and harmonise… Read more
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Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
Sunday, 20 May
Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
Monday, 14 May
MOTION SICKNESS OF TIME TRAVEL
Motion Sickness Of Time Travel
Spectrum Spools
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
Cat. Number: SP016
Rachel Evans continues her pursuit of the synthesised sublime on a new album for John 'Emeralds' Elliott's Spectrum Spools imprint. Fans of her jaw-dropping Seeping Through The Veil Of Unconscious LP, and its follow-up Luminaries & Synastry, will feel right at home with the time-space-warping mantras of this fine effort, the self-titling of which suggests that Evans considers it to be her definitive artistic statement to date. While the utopian drift of 'The Dream' is all well and good, we've always been more drawn to the darker side of MSOTT's outpu… Read more
Natty new single from Gold Panda on Ghostly, his first proper release since last year's sound DJ-Kicks set. 'Mountain' is full of the woozy, homespun charm that has earned the Londoner his cult following to date, with folksy woodwind and end-of-the-rainbow arpeggios rubbing up against slouchy tribal percussion and 808 kickdrum bounce. On 'Financial District', bleary-eyed synth tones and vocal snippets cluster around a lo-fi steppers rhythm - imagine Broadcast or BoC mixed by Lone and you're in the zone.
Depending on your tolerance for advanced electronic boogie jazz, Squarepusher's last album 'd'Demonstrator' as Shobaleader One was either the epitome of cool or unlistenably indulgent. Returning two years later as plain old Squarepusher, Tom Jenkinson presents what might well be his most popular side since 'Ultravisitor', focussing on a "big room"- friendly fusion of almost Trance-y hooks and dance-able machine funk, what he terms "…pure electronic music… Something very melodic, very aggressive." It's almost as though he's been listening to Rustie's nostalgic hyper-theatrics and thought, "w… Read more
An ‘associative music’ project from New Yorker Nick Koenig, Hot Sugar is a new signing for Ninja Tune, and a smart one at that . Koenig has a good grasp of his craft, blending choppy glitched out percussion with the kind of unusual, dreamy samples you’re usually expect to find on a Madlib record. Sometimes sounding like an homage to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (‘The Kid Who Drowned at Summer Camp’) and at others coming across like a tweaked out high school jam (‘The Girl Who Stole My Tamagotchi’) ‘Moon Money’ is as star-gazingly weird as the title might suggest, and is well worth a peep.
MODESELEKTOR WITH THOM YORKE
Monkeytown Records
MP3 Download // £1.70FLAC Download // £2.50
Cat. Number: MONKEYTOWN021
*Includes a Radio edit of album track "This" plus new track "All Buttons In" on the flip* ‘This’ certainly isn’t the first time German pranksters Modeselektor have teamed up with their biggest (or at least most famous) fan Thom Yorke, but it might be their most successful collaboration so far. Yorke’s familiar vocal is set to a backdrop of hoover bass, pounding kick drums and synth arpeggios and Modeselektor seem to have absolutely no problem with slicing and dicing them almost beyond all recognition. It works though, coming across like a meeting of minds rather than simply a feature.
SUUM CUIQUE (DEMDIKE STARE)
Modern Love
MP3 Download // £4.99FLAC Download // £5.99
Cat. Number: Love078
Suum Cuique is the alias used by Demdike Stare's Miles Whittaker to vent his purest analogue noise experiments. Giving a stoic nod to the hardware emissions of Mika Vainio or Maurizio Bianchi, and conducted with a meditative practice comparable with Eleh, his 2nd album 'Ascetic Ideals' is the sound of Miles' machines coaxed into revealing their bleakest secrets, often recorded straight from the mixing desk with no overdubs or edits. Aesthetically, it's closest to his Demdike Stare material, as opposed to his Pendle Coven or MLZ releases, and was - perhaps unsurprisingly … Read more
The Glaswegian producer behind last year's Joy Orb and Gilles P-tipped singles serves a classy mini-LP of pan-global riddims for Huntleys & Palmers. Informed by Kodwo Eshun's concept of Afro-futurism and an innate feel for plush, plump groove construction, the eight tracks of 'Future Rhythm Machine' hybridise UK Bass and Afro-Latin Highlife sensibilities with a seductive, succinct ability like few others. He's joined by Chilean vocalist Mamacita on a swaying moire of bleeps and hip-greased shuffle for opener 'Haven't Got Any Body' and the crafty balance of moody bass descent and … Read more
As a member of Bus (with Daniel Meteo) and Sun Electric (with MvO Trio / NSI.'s Max Loderbauer), Tom Thiel can claim to be a core member of the "Berlin Scene" for the last 20 years. So, it's about time he delivered his debut solo album! His eponymous effort is a pure example of the Berlin electronic dub aesthetic, eleven tracks of dynamic, atmospheric, and economical productions sculpted by an experienced and refined hand. From the sine-wave test signals of 'Pulse' to widescreen, The Orb-like ambience on 'An Isle', through the enchanting outernational influences of 'Craxa', 'STHG's sliding Te… Read more
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Review to follow shortly…
MONTAG
Trip The Light Fantastic / Again Again
carpark
MP3 Download // £1.70FLAC Download // £2.50
Cat. Number: CAKD12
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Review to follow shortly…
Sunday, 13 May
Monday, 07 May
Taking the source material from Posthuman’s cracking ‘Nebula’ 12”, Richard Bevan and Josh Doherty have roped in some of their mates to tackle the reworks, and rather good mixes they’ve turned out to be. The Host reduces ‘Marros Environ’ into a reverberating soup of footwork rhythms and clipped synth sounds and Degiorgio opts for a bass-heavy take on ‘Tessier Ashpool’, but my pick of the bunch is Datasette’s expert Monolake-esque re-imagining of ‘Tessier Ashpool’ and the ace clipped/peaking House re-work from Nightwave. Cavernous and epic sounding, it’s still dance music, just with massive icy balls.
SHACKLETON
Music For The Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ
WOE TO THE SEPTIC HEART!
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
Cat. Number: SEPTICCD001
Eighteen months since their first issue, Woe To The Septic Heart!'s long delayed 2nd release finally dawns upon us. Comprising entirely new and previously unreleased Shackleton material - including collaborations with vocalist Vengeance Tenfold and musical spars Andreas Gerth (Tied & Tickled Trio) and Kingsuk Biswas (Bedouin Ascent) - it's also his most shocking and invigorating body of work. What strikes us first and foremost is the newfound vitality and visceral impact of his sound here. Any signature murk is replaced with a lysergic lucidity and rendered i… Read more
Released especially for Record Store Day, 'Transverse Temporal Gyrus' is Animal Collective's most substantial recording since the pivotal 'Merriweather Post Pavilion' session. It was originally an installation piece created for a 36-channel surround sound system at the Guggenheim in 2010 but the lads have rearranged the original track with extra recordings made in the space before the public were allowed in. They've reduced the results of hours of playing to just under half an hour of disorienting melodic fractals, layered vox and zooming cosmic electronics in two parts. This is as challenging and far out as we've heard from the Collective and widely recommended.
