Juno Recommends Electro January 2019

Review: Since its initial release on Warp Records in 1995, the Elecktroids sole album has become one of the most sought-after electro sets around, with original vinyl copies changing hands for vast sums online. This is with good reason, of course: not only is "Elektroworld" a brilliant album, but also the (un-credited) work of the late, great Drexciya member James Stimson. The set itself is a tribute to Kraftwerk, with Stimson and his mysterious associates delivering ear-catching blends of punchy, "Computerworld" style electro beats, funky basslines, spacey sounds, ear-catching melodies and, on some of the eleven tracks, vocals. It's much more "pop" than your average Drexciya-related project - in terms of its' richness, warmth and accessibility, at least - but still weighty enough to sound suitably heavy on club soundsystems.

Review: Barrelling out of the Hamburg underground, it's little wonder that Helena Hauff deemed emergent producer L.F.T. of a spin on her Return To Disorder label. As rough and ready as the electro on It's Alive! is, it's also delightfully playful and upfront as well. The title track sports plenty of Motor City soul motifs to match the hard edges of the beat, while "Visitors" plays around with a primal early 90s palette that should have all bleep fanatics body popping their approval. "Bankrupt Brain" is a taut new wave strutter precision engineered for deviant dancefloors, and "Jorogumo" blows the end of the record open with a soaring, swinging emotional belter.

Review: Orson's intrepid adventures in the nooks and crannies of leftield techno, electro and bass continue apace with this sure shot from the mighty Carl Finlow. One of the UK's leading (and longest serving) exponents of electro comes correct with four razor sharp slabs of upfront rave-ready tackle. "Circuitous" is a snarling acidic beatdown, while "Epsilon" pivots around crooked polyrhythmic trysts that will have your brain body popping into next week. "Holographic Emotion" channels some gorgeous Drexciyan synth funk, and "Threshold" amps up the layers of sci-fi dread for a trip into a dystopian tomorrow where it rains 303s all day and night.

Review: Fresh from an inspired outing on 20:20 Vision, Chris Roman once again dons the 214 mask for a four-track missive of Steffi's resurgent Klakson imprint. Fittingly, opener "Soapdish" - a proper peak-time Rotterdam electro workout - utilizes synths sounds and ragged riffs that invoke memories of Dexter's Klakson classic "Intruder", while "Synthesizers Made of Paper" brilliantly wraps spacey, life-affirming electronics motifs around a suitably crunchy machine beat. Over on side B, "Snow Banks" is a mildly foreboding, surprisingly melancholic chunk of deep electro brilliance and closer "Pattern Rotate" buries chiming lead lines below a deluge of twisted acid lines and distorted, funk-fuelled electro drums. Simply essential.

Review: UK veteran producer Jaime Read was the one to kick off For Those That Knoe back in 2013 with his LHAS alias, and now he's back on the archival house and techno label with some more stunning machine soul from the vaults. These tracks are lifted from his 1997 album "The End Of The Beginning", and they're steeped in the glorious exploratory nature of '90s techno programming, when the focus was on pushing the potential for expression through the machines. From the rattling perc and fuzzy synth swells of "Collective Consciousness" to the edgy, snaking drum science of "On The Surface Of The 9th Moon," this is an essential window into a forgotten treasure of the UK techno canon.

Review: Stilleben's latest EP is a no-holds-barred, all-action affair that gathers together previously unheard cuts from a quintet of label associates. Boss man Luke Eargoggle is naturally involved, with his hook-up with Swedish veteran Ola Bergman - the angular analogue bass, Italo-disco influenced grooves and shimmering chords of "Macho Macho" - being amongst the EP's many highlights. You'll find more razor-sharp, mind-altering robo-bass propelling Das Muster's brilliant opener "Sinnestauschung" towards the electro stratosphere, while IXRQ's "Robotic Nature" brilliantly combines ghostly, crystalline synthesizer melodies with a suitably dirty, club-ready electro groove. The most intense and sweaty cut of the lot, though, is Suicider's suitably dystopian and psychedelic closing cut "Trainwreck".

Review: Earlier in the year, Ali Renault rebooted his Cestrian alias after a five-year hiatus via a suitably throbbing EP on E-Beamz. Here he goes one step further, pitching up on Mechatronica with a six-track mini-album of atmospheric, otherworldly treats. Highlights come thick and fast throughout, from the sludgy, hypnotic electro drums, foreboding chords and glacial electronic melodies of opener "Gradients", to the Drexciya style peak-time punch of "The Weir", via the wild acid bass, distorted beat-box drums and mind-altering computer electronics of "Cat Strain". Also worth checking is the druggy, industrial-tinged, pitched-down weirdness of "Everything" and the cheeky, Kraftwerk-sampling bustle of "Speak and Spell".

Review: Larry McCormick's Exzakt alias strides into its 20th year of operations with ever more urgency, as the recently reanimated Monotone label continues to mark out the important place he holds in the global electro scene. In terms of original productions, "Madrid Nights" opens the record up with a tight, whip-cracking peak time joint executed in the deadly Exzakt style. "Me & My 808" takes things in a darker, almost gothic direction, and "Love Hate" keeps the pressure up with a style that borders on breaks. Meanwhile 214 drops some serious heat on his remix of "Escape", a crafty, many-sided die that wins whichever side you land on.

Review: Tom Livingston doesn't release all that much as Arctor, but what he does put out tends to be rather hot. That's certainly the case with this EP for Tremors, which is his first solo 12" for two years. He begins with the pulsating title track, a body-popping blend of thrusting, arpeggio style bass, fizzing electronics, punchy machine drums and robotic vocoder vocals, before showcasing the spacey, deeper side of his dancefloor-friendly tracks on the superb "Kuleshov Effect". Arguably best of all, though, is epic B-side "Odyssey", a non-stop, 12-minute voyage through electro-techno fusion full of glassy-eyed female vocals samples, acidic riffs and starry synthesizers.

Review: This tasty four-tracker is worth celebrating on a number of levels, not least the return to action of rising star Voiron. The Parisian producer has been frustratingly quiet since releasing a new edition of his popular 2016 EP "Voironzinor" on Craigie Knowes last March. Happily, "Air Voiron" is every bit as good as we'd hoped it would be. Check first the bustling bursts of breakbeats, droning analogue bass and lilting electronic melodies of "K Mvoiron", before turning your attention to the psychedelic acid lines, pitched-up vocal samples, restless drum builds and fizzing riffs of "League of Voiron". Elsewhere, "Air Voiron" sees our hero wrap IDM style melodies and bubbly electronics around a mid-tempo, house style beat, while "Voirongate" is a cheery, piano-laden jog through blissful, saucer-eyed early '90s electronica pastures.

Review: Mysterious hardware fetishist XY0815 recently pricked our consciousness via a fine contribution to Pulse Drift's Transmission Europa compilation. On this fine debut single, the man or woman of mystery makes good on that early promise. Perhaps what's most impressive is the variety on show. One minute, you're daydreaming of an unlikely collaboration between Kraftwerk and Pete Namlook ("Cygonic System"), the next casting glances towards the Motor City via the deep Drexciyan dive of "End of Your Orbit". The EP also includes a trip into psychedelic intelligent techno/electro fusion ("Octagon X"), a blissfully spacey ambient workout ("Lost Wires") and a punchy electro box jam ("Tool Matter"). A star is born.

Review: Under the Mikron alias, the Corcoran brothers have been responsible for some of the best thought-out and executed electronic music of recent years. While that may seem like a bold claim, it's backed up by the quality of music on sophomore set "Severance". Their specialism is rich, spacey and emotive fare that sits somewhere between IDM, electro, new wave and Italo-disco. There's plenty of this kind of intelligent fare on offer here, alongside more downtempo offerings such as the hip-hop beat-driven shuffle of "Aldergrove", the dub techno influenced deepness of "Imora", the subterranean wonkiness of "Cast On A Clock Face" and the liquid ambient bliss of "Oceania".

Review: If you can't get no "Sweatisfaction", Edward Upton is here to help. The electro stalwart's latest four-track missive is naturally jam packed with heavy dancefloor workouts, with the title track delivering a near perfect fusion of heavy, two-step influenced electro beats, robotic vocal samples and body-popping synth-bass. Once you've toweled yourself down and are ready to go again, turn your attention to the shoulder-swinging alien electrofunk of "Neutral Net Funk", the Soulsonic Force-meets-Drexciya flex of "Urgent Enquiry" and the ambidextrous, outer space madness of "Hardware Storm", where fuzzy analogue riffs, slap bass and jaunty lead lines cluster around another rubbery electro groove. After that, a cold shower might be in order.

Review: Already a Classic.
808 Beats Vol.1

Review: Amsterdam based Tom Ruijg has been producing since 2010 but has really come into his own under the alias Tracey. He serves up some seriously emotive and reflective modern electro for Aus Music on the Metamorphosis EP, which follows up some great releases of late for locals Tom Trago's Voyage Direct and on Midland's Intergraded label. From the sublime and hypnotic title track, to the moody sci-fi bounce of "Blue Invasion" and the old school analogue soul of "Helix" reminiscent of Detroit legends like Dopplereffekt or Drexciya - Ruijg proves his uncanny ability to summon those ghosts in the machine on this impressive release.

Review: Lunar Orbiter Program's latest batch of messages from the stars comes courtesy of Mr Blatman, a mysterious debutant of unknown origin. Our little-known hero begins by battering us senseless via the heavily, distorted electro beats, spacey pads and bubbly acid lines of "Illusion", before opting for a more electrofunk-fueled flex on ghetto-tech influenced workout "Space Cowboy" (think DMX Krew meets DJ Nasty and you're close). Finally, after much dancing in the moonlight, he decides to simmer things down with "The Wizard of Oz", a woozy, deep and dreamy chunk of electro moodiness. A rock solid debut all told.