summary 
Monday, 17 June
*Deluxe Triple Vinyl gatefold pack, includes a download code redeemable from the label* Underground provocateur and beat maverick triggers 33 sawn-off rave-refractions, 'With Love'. After maintaining an unusually low profile for the 2 years since 'Dedication', Zomby is set to convince more heads with this ambitious double album of gloomy electronics and UK soul. And that's not soul of the Beverley Knight type: it's a poignant, more relevant sorta soul; a metaphysical essence that percolates its dilated pulsewidth and comes laden with a very particular emotional and cultural bagga… Read more
CD // £10.99Review to follow shortly…
CD // £10.99Modeselektor's pal unleashes his latest box of tricks on Monkeytown. 'Enthusiast' orbits 13 quirks of electronic funk, robbin' and stealin' the shiniest traces of disco, house, hip hop, boogie and whatever else Siriusmo was feeling at the time, clipping the fat and leaving only the tightest, most charming grooves for yer dancefloor and headphone satisfaction.
*Warehouse find* Brute analog techno/noise from the Zhark catalogue circa 2003. Four tracks range from sludgy pound ('Prox-yde') to decimated breakcore ('Kats Na*e'), thru distorto thwack ('Blok-yme') and grizzled industrial blast beats ('Apo-G'). If the current crop of noise techno isn't quite tough enough, get your kicks here.
**Dynamic, radiant, full frequency-range electro-acoustic renders of location recordings. RIYL Emptyset. Edition of 200 copies** "Sleeper Line is a five-track EP constructed from the original components of a live set performed in December 2012. These components — manipulated found sounds — were recorded at various times and in various environments: Dungeness Power Station (2012), street recordings post-Notting Hill Carnival (2007), a prior live performance at the White Building in London (2012), and a cassette recording made in the cloakroom of the Metalheadz Sunday Sessions club night (… Read more
**Opaque, marbled grey wax** Person of Potential Unlimited, Wes Gray gets jiggy on a trio of late night machine jams. His follow-up to an acclaimed debut LP and smart 12" for London's Going Good dips from the tape-cossetted kicks and loose synth flair of 'Oof' on the front - cut loud so you can really taste the dust - to a butter-smudged and boogie-nudgin' downstroke 'Sussegad' and the Larry Heard on valium magic of 'Popular' for the grown folk.
VEDOMIR
Musical Suprematism / Dreams (Marcel Dettmann Mixes)
Dekmantel
12" // £8.99
Cat. Number: DKMNTL012
Marcel Dettmann reinforces two Vedomir (Vakula) tracks from the Ukranian producer's eponymous LP. In the hands of Berghain's finest 'Musical' comes off as a Basic Channel-esque throbber emitting layers of spectral synth oscillation and diced vocals while 'Dreams' is re-charged with swing bass ballast and stealthy, ominous pads skulk at the periphery. Aces.
Speedy J and Lucy's Zeitgeber alliance come on strong with a killer debut album of forward facing, abstract and noisy techno - just how it should be. Its a finely balanced feat of hi-end engineering, mixing tonal and textural experimentation with well considered, functional rhythms, marking out some of Speedy J's best work since his classic 'A Shocking Hobby' LP and the strongest in Lucy's relatively young, yet distinctive catalogue. Our big highlights are the gritty, brownian flux of 'These Rhythms' and 'From Here' or the Porter Ricks-like 'Now Imagine', and the mixture of crushed, Andy Stott like flow and lullaby melodies in 'Before They Wake'.
*Incredible Warehouse find of these sealed original boxed copies of this private 1980 disco funk LP, discovered by PPU and shipping direct from the original studio of Ojeda Penn* PPU dig out a warehouse find of Ojeda Penn's butter-smooth 1980 disco and jazz-funk album 'Happiness'. Seven tracks lead by the Atlantan producer and player through lean disco burners, sparkling slow-jams, effervescent jazz and one gorgeous spiritual jazz piece played on Arp Odyssey and Prophet V. Hurry if you want one!!!
Pretty pop ambient and tech-house from Jens-Uwe Beyer, a regular contractor for Kompakt's annual ambient series and sometime member of Cologne Tape and the Magazine label. Those of sensitive disposition should likely find 'Change' as a lovely pop song to cuddle up with, whilst the dancefloor beckons for a summery Balearic re-bob from David Hasert, and a simmering, rolling remix from Matt Karmil.
Well mannered Detroit techno tributes in retro-vintage fashion. Ranges from the e-motive progressions of Blackjack's 'Futureclassic' and Mark Ambrose's grittier sci-fi slam 'Insane' on the A-side to Derek Carr's sweetened techno soul groove 'Centrepoint' and Mark Archer's bleeping 'Chuch'.
**Sides A+B - Vocals in English. Sides C+D - Vocals in Arabic. Limited Gatefold pressing* "Taking almost two years to create amidst an unusual and challenging backdrop, this is the brand new project of Alvarius B. (Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls). Eleven highly crafted new songs projected through his typically dark lens of songwriting and a band of brilliant musicians from Cairo, the premier, self-titled CD version of this album is the English language vocals edition (see below) delivered in AB's patented sinister style; drenched in lovely psychedelic folk arrangements and voc… Read more
WREKMEISTER HARMONIES
You've Always Meant So Much To Me
Thrill Jockey
LP // £15.99
Cat. Number: THRILL339LP
Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
Apollo collect rare highlights and new productions from the desk of Moscow's premier deep house producer. Disc 1 is drenched with the luscious 'Water', his rugged 'Road Trip Song' and the spectral original, 'Fade To What' from his Ethereal Sound releases; Disc 2 features 'Miles and More' from the C.O.M.E compilation on Fred P's Soul People Music label, plus the exclusive beatdown number 'Funky Man' on side A, backed with one of our favourite A. Zap cuts, 'Captain Storm' from his eponymous debut on Underground Quality circa 2008, and finally the beautiful ambient house patter of 'Miniature'.
RAUELSSON
SONIC PIECES
MP3 Download // £6.99
FLAC Download // £7.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: SP017
Typically lush ambient, neo-classical, chamber pop and quasi-film-score music from Berlin's Sonic Pieces label, this time from Spain's Rauelsson. The album was recorded by the sea, and it really comes across in the music, which is self-consciously grand in scale and oscillates between the calm and the tempestuous. Piano is Rauelsson's main weapon of expression, and like so many artists in this sphere, Harold Budd and Philip Glass are his gods, his playing ranging from the digressive and heavy-reverbed to the driving and cyclical. It's hard not to feel like you've heard it all before - 'Fluvial' ba… Read more
**Upfront digital exclusive** Another special EP from the enigmatic electronic operator, June. Doing it right with scant background info and a genuinely gorgeous feel for analogue production, 'Golden Era' is June's tribute to a classic period of European electronic music, 1977-84, taking in five pieces enriched with emotional and futuristic melodic sequencer arrangements and powered by proper Rolls Royce basslines. This is the debonaire sound, the kind which captured the imaginations of early Detroit and Chicago stars and ruled the classiest 'floors of Europe from Antwerp to Aberdeen. Each cuts … Read more
Olaf Bender (Byetone) and Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto) operate at the cutting edge of digital funk with their fifth and final Diamond Version EP. Those familiar with the series will know what to expect and won't be disappointed. Four architecturally sound constructions prod techno in the ass with sharp mechanical fingers from the jolting industrial electro-funk of 'The Future Of Memory' to the hardstepping, hyper-angular syncopation of 'Operate At Your Optimum' and a swaggering payload of tetchy bass and precise, swerving edits in 'Sense and Simplicity' or the decidedly Mika Vainio-like slow/fast lurch of 'Make.Believe'.
Underground provocateur and beat maverick triggers 33 sawn-off rave-refractions, 'With Love'. After maintaining an unusually low profile for the 2 years since 'Dedication', Zomby is set to convince more heads with this ambitious double album of gloomy electronics and UK soul. And that's not soul of the Beverley Knight type: it's a poignant, more relevant sorta soul; a metaphysical essence that percolates its dilated pulsewidth and comes laden with a very particular emotional and cultural baggage. On 'With Love' the glowing perspiration of '92 has long gone cold, its aura only just phosphorescing … Read more
Reduced Bass rollige from Jay Weed backed with a burned-out deep house remix by Huerco S. The itchy hi-hat flux and sticky electroid bass arpeggios of Weed's original make for a cool DJ tool whilst the Huerco S gives a bit more to chew on, screwing and chopping the rhythm with a sort of blunt, knotted funk and adding lysergic synth flashes to woozy, keening effect.
Mexico City / New York's Ñaka Ñaka makes an excellent addition to Opal Tapes with the darkly romantic, post punk/industrial-infected electronics of 'Juan Pestañas'. Over six tracks he offers some of the label's most convincing/seductive techno grooves with a blend of the gritty 5/4 shuffle best done by Silent Servant and the sort of dusted, full-bodied pump heard on Gesloten Cirkel records while melodies recall vintage AFX at his most mannered, or the gutted ambience of Vatican Shadow. We'd recommend clocking the warehouse postpunk/techno hybrid '004000' and the ethereal shuffle of '000020… Read more
S. Olbricht debuts with a degraded suite of tape-murked techno effusions for the prolific Opal Tapes. On 'Deutsch Amerikanische Tragödie' they dissolve emotional electronics in a salty industrial bath of sloshing rhythms and freakish radiophonics, at times coming across as the fraught cousin of Thought Broadcast or the possibly more poetic counterpart to Ekoplekz's knotty vexations, at others like a malnourished, beyond-knackered relation of Andy Stott's crushed and crushing constructions. Nine tracks wallow in grubby pools of rusty, ferric-infected melody and insectoid … Read more
Opal Tapes' sixth batch kicks off close to home with fellow Teessider, Rejections' industrial dread missive, 'Resin In The Filter'. The follow-up to Michael Hann's debut pair for his own Reject & Fade label and Jehu & Chinaman builds on the dystopian, Ballardian themes with a 50 minute trespass into a world of buckled and burned out digital noise and toiling techno rhythm. Invoking William Burroughs' idea that "language is a virus" via use of manipulated raw data recycled from "e-mails, images, and memories and sonics built up over a seven month period… to meditate on the cacophony… Read more
One of Jackmaster's favourite new producers lands on Numbers with two razor-sharp shots of electro futurism. 'BIPP' comes off like the prodigious child of Miami Freestyle reared on AFX's 'Windowlicker' and a diet of sugar-glazed silicon; a stunning mutation of cybernetic pop syncopation. 'Elle' is its conjoined cyborg sibling, mute apart from the ability to whistle like Goodiepal's mechanical bird and so painfully beautiful that to experience it's saccharine, sliding string glissandi and elegant contours is akin to staring at the strobing eyes of a dancefloor medusa and exploding to a cloud of M… Read more
Ital returns to the dancefloor in a big way with three tracks for Berlin's Workshop. Since spinning our world with the still amazing 'Culture Clubs' back in 2011, the former Mi Ami player has refracted his sound into strange new dimensions on two albums for Planet Mu in quick succession, but this single sees him return to that hypnotic, side-spun brand of house music which first captured our attention. A-side is given to his 'Ice Drift (Stalker Mix)', a woozy, stumbling blend of dippin' bass and clipped chords unfurling like one of Theo Parrish or Africans With Mainframes' more demented groovers… Read more
Hot on the heels of that smart F.C. Judd remix LP, Public Information draw this superb EP from IVVVO. If you've been keeping track of the Portuguese producer's output your interest will be piqued already, but if not you really must check his previous form on Opal Tapes and moun10. As the first in a series of dancefloor oriented 12"s from the label, the 'Future EP' is a perfect opener, blending off-world house rhythms and etheric atmospheres with effortless, psychedelic grace. From the mystic, shadowy synth blooms and aerated swing of 'Darkness In My Soul' thru the almost pagan rave pastoralism of… Read more
THE CLEANERS FROM VENUS
The Cleaners From Venus (Vol. 2)
Captured Tracks
MP3 Download // £10.99FLAC Download // £11.99
Cat. Number: CT179CD
*Second Epic 45 track set featuring four Cleaners From Venus albums, 1983-1985, plus an entire album of previously unreleased songs - all remastered* "The legendary lo-fi band Cleaners from Venus formed in the small town of Wivenhoe, southeast England at the turn of 1980s by Martin Newell. The man, the myth, but to rock singer and part-time kitchen porter with a love of sunny 1960s pop music, punk rock and musical comedy. He never cared much for any kind of musical rule book and broke new ground with music that garnered a cult following and a highly-influenti… Read more
MP3 Download // £3.70
FLAC Download // £4.50
Modeselektor's pal unleashes his latest box of tricks on Monkeytown. 'Enthusiast' orbits 13 quirks of electronic funk, robbin' and stealin' the shiniest traces of disco, house, hip hop, boogie and whatever else Siriusmo was feeling at the time, clipping the fat and leaving only the tightest, most charming grooves for yer dancefloor and headphone satisfaction.
The debut release from the WALLS curated Ecstatic imprint comes from Alessio Natalizia, best known as Banjo or Freakout and a member of the aforementioned Walls. This discreetly engaging and evocative suite of spaced-out analogue electronic experiments in his Not Waving guise was inspired by Remote Viewing - the parapsychological technique of seeing objects hidden from physical view - and a wealth of music, from "weird '80s Italian electronica" to classic post-punk and synth epics, Alessio's 'Umwelt' carves a shadowy body of nine tracks evenly balanced for stranger dancefloors and dim-lit bedro… Read more
