Subtil Germany 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Inaugurated last year by Vlad Radu & Andrei Ciubuc's VRAC project, the Subtil label has swiftly found favour with those minimal selectors who prefer their vinyl to brandish a range of spacious grooves from linear patterns to breakbeat flows. Crisp sound design, and a talent for abstraction and experimentation seem integral to who Subtil choose to work with also, as demonstrated on the Naiti Nait EP. Produced by Cosmjn, aka Romanian artist Cosmin Nastasa, this two track 12" represents his apparent debut release but there's a refinement to both the groove heavy long form productions that would suggest otherwise. Early support by Rhadoo and Barac!

Review: Nothing but good vibrations: Romanian vibe maestro Cosmjn returns to vinyl-only imprint Subtil with three more warm, focused, timeless tech grooves. Title track "Vibr8" takes us back 20 years where the lines between genres were barely visible as an elastic analogue bassline pings around linear drums with unhurried momentum. "Bottle" flips for a deeper housier groove with a gradually developing shuffle that wouldn't have gone amiss on MFF 10 years ago. Finally "Gottasay" takes us deeper again with a lush 12 minute chamber piece that's soft in build but mighty in pay-off thanks to a focused groove and deft use of white noise as a melodic texture. Gr8 m8, let's vibr8.

Review: Pepe Bradock's - Path Of Most Resistance is a seminal EP, and not only is the title of this new one from Direkt very similar, but his sound design is just as off grid and curious. That makes his tech house tunes all the more appealing. 'Past Present' is squelchy beats, tinny hist and warped pads that all coalesce around a dry beat. 'Path Of Most Resistance' then gets lost in the cosmos with circling pads and dreamy soundscapes layered up over another subtle metallic drum groove. 'Vitamin' cuts loose at the afters, with alien forms and speedy, overlapping kicks hurrying you ever deep into the night.

Review: Berlin's Subtil imprint returns with a new split EP titled Zerno, featuring French minimal expert Doubtingthomas and Siberia's Wyro (Engineer Records). The pair collaborate once again after last year's Unten EP for Metroline Limited. The title track is a long, low-slung and trippy affair that's aimed squarely at the afterhours dancefloor. On the flip we have two more offerings: the rolling, sunny tech house of 'Bloom' which will mix well with you Mulen records, followed by the slo-mo psychedelia of 'Prilivi' which will come in handy during that ambient set you've been eager to play one day.

Review: Berlin imprint Subtil's mission statement is 'QUALITY UNDERGROUND MUSIC/VINYL ONLY' and that's good enough for us.. They're not wrong either. This time it's the turn of Iulian Ganovici aka Julian from, yes, Bucharest! This follows up his debut on London's FarFromNormal last year. On the A side we've got "Shades" which rolls along delightfully in reduced fashion until that muted bleep melody folds into the fray, joined by some infectiously dusty shuffle. On the flip is "Amburg" which is much darker and atmospheric. There's a lot of restraint in the kick and bass to make way for the creepy monologue and hypnotic pads to do most of the great work. Perfect for the mid-set breather but equally guaranteed to cause a headrush.

Review: Subtil is run by Nils Weimann and Martin Glowacz. The latter teams up with label stalwart Martin Glowacz for the Berlin label's twelfth release, following up some great ones by Romanian tech house heroes Piktor and Vlad Arapasu. The A side features the slinky and hypnotic groove of "Frankonia", followed by the rolling and esoteric sorcery of "Lower". The flip belongs to an epic 13 minute long remix of "Frankonia" by Paul Agripa - of the trio Sahau with Dan Andrei and Serban Goanta. The Bucharest based producer's trippy daydream of a rendition is pure magic and exactly the kind of thing we could have imagined the crowd at Sunwaves 23 trancing out to last week.