back in stock
Wednesday, 10 April
*Vinyl Reissue* Don't pretend you haven't heard it - Jose Gonzalez's Sony endorsed classic 'Heartbeats' is everywhere. From the Sony Bravia advert to any 'heartfelt' Channel 4 advertisement, you know it - and it's not even Gonzalez's song, yep that's what I'm getting to, it's the Knife, who have now (in a very timely fashion) seen it fit to release their latest album. Quite surprisingly for those unfamiliar with the Knife's back catalogue, this is very much an electropop affair, all vintage synth arpeggios, drum machines and effected vocals markedly distant from Gonzelez's Simon … Read more
THE 65D MAVERICKS / SURGEON
Estrangement Of The Past (Live Edit / Surgeon Mix)
Surface Records
12" // £7.49
Cat. Number: SFLTD003
**Clear vinyl in poly sleeve** Rugged live edit of the 65D Mavericks' mauling acid techno roller 'Estrangement Of The Past'. Surgeon's remix is the one, recalibrating the rhythm with head-knocking kicks and a slicker arrangement primed for club devastation.
Red-eyed electro-dub wickedness from the one and only Actress. His 'Rainy Dub', "the implacable, alien Son Of Sleng Teng" is one of the most blunted tools in his box. Imagine Tapes and Zomby smoking themselves fluorescent green and forgetting to press the buttons, leaving a wormy, irregular bass loop to burrow inside itself and secrete a silvery contrail of fuzzy, evanescent delay, returning nearly nine minutes later to find a computer dub masterpiece. On the other hand you've got 'Faceless', taking a plunge into pressurised aquatic electro, like the spawn of Drexciya left to evolve in the sewers of Detroit. Aces, both of them.
Tuesday, 09 April
*Includes a copy of the CD album (with two extra tracks) free inside* **Downwards' DO series makes its boldest statement yet, an album of new material by arch-Industrial Folkies Eyeless In Gaza. The Techno crowd might feel Downwards are taking liberties, but even the most ardent disciples of bosh are encouraged to give it a chance, at least. 5-track LP includes full 7-track CD release** Fact Mag sez it best: "Regis and Eyeless's Martyn Bates go back a long way. Almost twenty years later, Eyeless In Gaza are ready to release their first record on Downwards, one which will doubtless … Read more
**Full album on CD included inside**
FRISK FRUGT
Dansktoppen Moder Burkina Faso I Det Himmelbla Rum Hvor Solen Bor, Suite
Exotic Pylon Records
LP // £13.49
Cat. Number: EP20
Utterly bewildering and joyous album of Scandinavian pop eccentricity from Frisk Frugt (Fresh Fruit, aka Denmark's Anders Lauge Meldgaard) on Jonny Mugwump's kaleidoscopic Exotic Pylon imprint. In a strange coincidence, the album appears in the same week as a reissue of Goodiepal's debut album, which you could cite as a reference point for its frothy mass of exquisite folk and jazz melody, dippy vocals and twanging oddness. Also, there's maybe hints of Circle at their most spannered, the electronic exotica of Tomutonttu or Jimi Tenor… Read more
"Band of Holy Joy's first new songs since their How to Kill a Butterfly album was released to universal acclaim at the close of 2011 (including album of the year at Beat Surrender)! And whilst that album moved through some dark places, Wyrd Beautiful Thyme finds love and life in chaos embracing the pockets of joy that can still be found even as the world spirals into hell. This beautifully illustrated 7" (their first since 1992) finds Johny and the band in ebullient mind and body - the title track is energised and gleeful with loose percussion, fuzzy synth, woody wah wah and enc… Read more
Mark Fell meets his SND partner Mat Steel for a mighty Sensate Focus 2. Exercising the highest levels of propulsive efficiency, they forge two cuts hauling the spirits of early '90s garage, house and hardcore to the nexx level. X-side is a total blinder, synching delicate hi-hats, claps and kicks in a gyroscopic whorl of silvered synth noise and lushest chords intent on commanding your motion in pendulous, ecstatic, full body swing. By contrast, the Y-side is more tucked-in, low lit, spraying shivered hi-hats over mercurial kick/clap code and dynamic, strafing chords with inimitable swagger. Essentially it's SND at their very best...
Steel City grime maverick cuts loose on two instrumental weapons. With no MCs on this ride it's all the better to concentrate on Walter Ego's super crisp and powerful production. A-side he delivers the belly-tightening bass riddim and spiralling synths of his 'Wavey' rudeness - as rinsed by Plastician, among others - whilst the B-side goes aggy-tropical with the cut-up, angular carnival rhythms and nutty basslines of 'Military Mind'. Ace twelve.
Monday, 08 April
*Includes the album on CD free inside* 'Instrumental Tourist' is one of the year's most anticipated electronic music albums. The meeting of established artist Tim Hecker and studio magician Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never at his Software Studio yields an otherworldly and near symphonic suite apparently conducted "...to mimic the tropes and techniques of jazz-based improvisation, with little preparation prior", effecting a wide-eyed and fascinating sound as dramatic and enchanting as any we've heard this year. As you'd expect from a Tim Hecker record, the sense … Read more
*Vinyl Reissue* You've all heard 'Heartbeats' by now, okay so chances are you won't have heard Swedish bro and sis duo The Knife's original, but you know the track. It appeared as if from nowhere last year on Sony's successful Bravia advertisement as covered by fellow Swedish sort Jose Gonzalez, a move which shot Gonzalez to fame and no doubt collected Olof and Karin Dreijer a wad of cash from MCPS, but it has taken a little longer for this duo to achieve any sort of mainstream success. Although championed by Pitchfork and other internet magazines and blogs, their leftfield and cred… Read more
Smudged but sparky house action on Fourth Wave, kicking off with 'The Cleansing', all aching, high plains drifter strings and drum sounds sourced from a suitably dusty cabinet. Nice. 'Coconut GIrls' takes bolshy rave vamps and slows them right down, drunken style; drop this one in the dance and watch 'em wobble as they struggle to adjust. Rainforest woodwind aside, 'Skyway' cuts a more straightforward swathe through the club, while 'You' deploys silken, sultry vocal parts but dices them up proper, making for a piece of deep R&B/garage/house abstraction that sounds like an unlikely hybrid of STL a… Read more
Demdike Stare, The Focus Group, Anworth Kirk, Susan Christie and Samandtheplants, among others, rework songs from Jane Weaver's 'Fallen By The Watch Bird' LP, pressed up on this beautiful vinyl edition for the Finders Keepers affiliated Bird imprint. Taking influences from Eastern European children's cinema, Germanic kunstmärchen, 70s television music and early murmurs of 80s synth-pop, the album is described by the label as a "new conceptual pop project featuring cosmic aquatic folklore" - and the source material is here handed over to a suitably co… Read more
**Remastered edition with expanded artwork and exclusive images.**
Full Tracklisting:
1. The Robots
2. Spacelab
3. Metropolis
4. The Model
5. Neon Lights
6. The Man-Machine
Friday, 05 April
Rocketnumbernine reprise their trio with Four Tet on a fine pair of sprawling electronic-jazz fusions recorded and mixed by Sam Shepard aka Floating Points. In 'Roseland' brothers Ben (keys) and Tom Page (drums) meld brushed percussion and trickling keys against a sparse backdrop of dubbed out electronics with a languid, lilting Afro-beat appeal. By contrast, the urging bass refrain and cyclic, motorik drums set a more insistent backing to the dense electronics and repetitive keys of 'Metropolis', which, thanks to Sam Shepard's subtle filtering, ebbs and flows with an almost dancefloor-ready appeal.
Thursday, 04 April
Neat three-tracker from Pariah, showing himself to be one of the more smart and evolved producers to have emerged in the wake of dubstep. 'Rift' is really nice, dynamic steppers techno that's designed to lock your dancing clogs down while still exploring the weirder reaches of your headspace - some really spooky, unsettling drones and synth pulses wafting between the pistoning drum hits. Wicked. 'Signal Loss' is beautifully produced, building in velocity and intensity with real style and assurance, but for our money suffers from its undeniably Burial-like deployment of amorphous sampled vocals; 'Among T… Read more
**Finally available again** Three of the worlds foremost extreme sound artists/producers collide 'In The Studio' on a highly limited and opulent spot-gloss gatefold album. Recorded days after the live performance captured on 'Shall I Download A Black Hole and Offer It To You', this is Keiji Haino and Pan Sonic witnessed in the controlled environs of a Berlin studio, serving eleven utterly compelling examples of freeform noise, vocal gymnastics and power electronics. The track titles, from the hand of Haino, indicate the abstract esoteric nature of the recordings, with 'If I could … Read more
Wednesday, 03 April
Past made present: 'Fa', from Christian Fennesz's 1997 debut album, Hotel Paral.lel, re-licked by Mark Fell and the man himself. It's easy to forget how techno the original record was - as eMego put it, it was intended as "an exercise in exploring alternate means of hearing club-based music" - and interestingly, not to mention pleasingly, Fennesz has done nothing to soften or slow the locomotive 4/4 throb of 'Fa' for his 2012 version, even as he makes the atmospheres that encircle and enfold the beat more complex, more crisp, more lambent this time around. Mark Fell, whose r… Read more
Tuesday, 02 April
**180g vinyl reissue** 'He Miss Road' was produced for Fela Kuti in 1975 by Ginger Baker. It takes in the organ-heated and woozily dubbed Afrobeat shuffle of the title track and the sparse, spacious groove 'Monday Morning In Lagos' on the A-side, and the mighty side-long play 'It's No Possible' on the flip.
*2013 Re-Press* One year since 'Street Halo', Burial chops out three tracks of arguably his most addictive material since 'Untrue'. Now, it's always interesting to see the discourse fall-out after each new Burial release, with the naysayers levelling the same old accusations of evolutionary torpor, and the lovers; well, they're just gushing love. We can clearly see both sides of the argument, but ultimately, we still can't deny the feeling when it hits, and that overrides everything. And within bars of 'Kindred' we're crippled by it: those angelic pads, the drizzly atmosphere, that inmitable, acute… Read more
*2013 Re-Press* Certain to be one of the most memorable albums of the year and without a doubt its most groundbreaking - Burial's debut album has already been subject to extensive discussion and focus dotted around the entire musical spectrum, from the cavernous Dubstep community at one end to the expansive critical behemoth of Pitchfork and Simon Reynolds at the other. Cliché and hyperbole aside, it's true to say that only once in while we're presented with an album of such chilling sensation, tempered skill and emotional mastery that the listener is overwhelmingly submerged into the producer's wholly … Read more
FENNESZ / DAFELDECKER / BRANDLMAYR
Till The Old World's Blown Up And A New One Is Created
m=minimal
LP // £14.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: MM-011LP
**Includes download coupon redeemable from the label** 'Till The World's Blown Up And A New One Is Created' is the name of the new group project created by Austrian musicians Christian Fennesz, Martin Brandlmayr and Werner Dafeldecker. These three are certainly no strangers to one another's work, having all collaborated together under various improvisational formats, most notably as Polwechsel. This album began life with each member of the trio composing their own short piece of music, edited from a number of improvised sessions. O… Read more
Tuesday, 26 March
SHANGAAN ELECTRO
New Wave Dance Music From South Africa
Honest Jon's Records
2LP // £13.99
Cat. Number: HJR2LP52
*Finally available again* Ask us about Shangaan Electro a week ago and we'd ask you to speak slower. Ask us this week and we'll rave about one of the most astounding records we've heard this year. The erstwhile and intrepid ears of Honest Jon's Mark Ainley and Hardwax/Basic Channel legend Mark Ernestus have been following this niche style from Soweto, SA, for a hot minute, long enough anyway to pick out twelve extraordinary examples of 180bpm, marimba-laden, afro-dance diamonds hewn from rickety drum machines and keyboards shaped into dazzling fillips of pure d… Read more
Monday, 25 March
'Between Strangers' is Sohrab's first physical follow-up to his widely received debut LP, 'A Hidden Place' (2010), and burrows further into that same lonely, displaced headspace. There is a dramatic melancholy and underlying rage to both pieces which can't be ignored, making for deeply compelling listening. The A-side in particular uses lo-fi recording of "Voice of a burnt generation" attributed enigmatically to "Hani", recorded in the Eissenhutenstadt refugee camp, Germany to great effect, placing her warbling plead against shadowy drones, sehtar-like licks and stentorian voices ricocheting… Read more
**Double LP including CD version of the album** Atoms For Peace finally roll 'Amok' into place, exercising the electronic pop imaginations of Radiohead's Thom Yorke & Nigel Godrich, RHCP's Flea, and dab-hand drummers Mauro Refosco and Joey Waronker. Recorded between LA and London over the last year or so, it builds on the promise of single teaser 'Default' and the Judge Jury, Executioner one with seven new tracks taking their sound to places we hadn't previously foreseen. Opener 'Before Your Very Eyes...' unexpectedly weaves tight Afro-guitar lilts and drum patter to Thom… Read more
Friday, 22 March
**Now re-pressed on Green Vinyl* **Uniquely complex Catalan prog-rock fusions and nascent Ibizan psychedelia from early '70s - tipped for fans of Soft Machine or Egg or the preceding Absolute Belter compilation.** " Who can ignore a band with a name this blatant? An epic soundtrack when Spain was adjusting to a new political era, with it's own Catalan swagger." - Guillermo Scott Herren (Prefuse 73). "Imagine a merging of Soft Machine and Egg... A catalan Canterbury rather than many who reside in Can't-erbury". " From the foundations of the Catalan Rock Laietà movement. An uber-legendary expo… Read more
Thursday, 21 March
Back in stock. Bristol comes correct in innovative fashion this week with an absolute winner from the man Peveralist. Notable for holding down down the excellent Rooted records dubstep specialist shop in Bristol and curating the inreasingly on point Punch Drunk records, Tom Peveralist drops his debut 12" with precision timing. Operating at the crux of the dubstep/techno crossover 'erstwhile rhythm' succinctly bridges the gap between the hypnotic minimal techno patterns of Ricardo Villalobos and the heavyweight polyrhthmic machinations of dubstep magician Mala. Running at a 140bpm… Read more
Wednesday, 20 March
**Hand-stamped and individually numbered white label edition of 100** Fresh from Manchester's mucky underbelly, two undiluted grime X techno riddims from Acre and Leadbelly. A-side, Acres's shotting iced-out eski riffs and tumultuous toms in frenzied, tribalist style. B-side, Luke Leadbelly cocks back the minimal, shark-eyed swagger of 'On One', rinsing trill hi-hats, hyperactive claps and swanging bassline punctuated with mad, cartoonish stabs.
Tuesday, 19 March
Finally back in stock. Basic Channel heads will be creaming themselves about this, two pristine Mark Ernestus mixes of legendary drummer Tony Allen, the first with a subtle BC undertone to the brilliantly joyous African rhythms of "Moyege", the second a rediculously deep "Disco Dub" instrumental that will destroy you, we promise. Totally immense record - snap 'em up!
