Review: Comes courtesy of producer and edit maestro Alkalino. The Germany based selector dug deep into his vaults of hard and electro to deliver some of the best sleeper and classic gems.The highlight of side one is easily Breakin' Wind, with other notable bangers such as Bang on it, Stardance and Fly with the wind. One thing about Adeen Records and the Make-Up series is they deliver every time.
Review: Auto Sound City have been building a fine head of steam over the last few years. A series of quality EPs on the likes of Chicago Bee, Weapons of Desire and 3am, have all established a rugged electro and techno sound that is big on drums. This double pack is their strongest statement yet. Cuts like 'This Is Me (feat Shoko Yoshida)' pair gallivanting drums with aloof vocals and bright synth stabs. 'Complete Madness' is more stripped back but just as muscular with its icy hi hats and lashings of synth while 'Fully Clothed & Standing' explores loopy and filtered disco house.
Review: Images And Anthems - Book I is an album by Lars Bartkuhn from back in 2008. The artist who is also known for his work in Passion Dance Orchestra and as Laurentius is a master of super cool jazz and laid-back lounge electronics that have hints of 80s nostalgia without being too slavish. Originally this one came only on CD and digitally and now it makes its first foray onto vinyl thanks to First on Vinyl out of Japan. Tracks like the lush 'Pulse' are gloriously airy and spring-like montages while there is a little woozy romance to 'Before It Enters My Mind'.
Review: Munich's Public Possession label returns with an lovely EP by new London-based outfit Birthday. The pop duo was founded in 2016 by RIP Swirl & Fake Laugh. Having had some great feedback on their first releases, they took a break to focus on their solo projects and other endeavours in and around the music industry, but make their comeback on Powerhouse. With the sweet as candy ditties like "Slug", to hazy and vaporised drifters like 'Locally Lost' or moments of sublime weirdo humour as heard on 'Chocolate For Breakfast' this could well be the most awesome comedown album of 2020.
Review: Cosmo with Chuy's 'I Need It' is a weird and wonderful left of centre disco cut. It's rather obscure and hard to find and now makes its way to vinyl for the first time ever backed with a pair of fine remixes. The original marries jazz horns with analogue drum grooves, hissing hi hats and house music breakdowns as well as a curious vocal that is buried deep in the mix. Tom Noble cleans it up a little, but leaves the dusty hi hats and funky bassline in place to do plenty of damage. Beat maker Fredfades then steps up with a remix that is drenched in soul, high speed funk drumming and good time vibes.
James Curd & Jonasclean - "Mullen It Over" (Fred P Reinterpretation) (8:43)
James Curd & Jonasclean - "Mullen It Over" (Marcel Vogal remix) (7:08)
James Curd - "Mullen It Over" (3:38)
James Curd - "Tried For Love" (feat Robert Owens) (3:39)
Review: The Pronto (house) label races onward and upwards with a sixth release that is here to get the floor bumping. It's a collaborative affair from James Curd & Jonasclean who race out of the blocks with the fat and heavy stomper 'Mullen It Over' which has snaking leads and rushy-feels. Would it surprise you to learn that the Fred P Reinterpretation is deep, heady and spiritual? Marcel Vogal remixes too, though with a more upbeat feel and lush summery chords. Curd also provides a solo prison of the same track that piles up the chords and a 'Tried For Love' (feat Robert Owens) is classic vocal Chicago house.
Review: Marking the sixth release for Balearia Records comes this four-track 12" single 'Playa d'en Bossa', a cosmic house shuffle set amongst the stars as drums rumble and drift about amongst the airy ambience. To complement the DJ Fede offering is three extra servings from their Italian peers, the Baldelli & Dionigi rework that directly follows being extraterrestrial contact that Fede's original voyage has resulted in. Rattling bass with synths crossing paths intermittently, set in an undeniably retro-futurist soundscape. Track three takes a lightspeed trip straight back to earth, calling upon the warehouse rave with its controlled techno channelling sprinkled amongst laid-back downtempo grooving. Track four sends us off with a Claudio Tosi Brandi vocal edit with deep house leanings that's sure to be a favourite with listeners.
Review: After a standout debut on the label in 2020, Andrea Ferrari returns to Rollover Milano with a new EP charged with Balearic mystique and a truckload of silken synth wares. 'Deep Blue, Green Eyes' is a boxy beatdown in the rhythm section, but the cooing pads, FM chimes and bubbling FX create a delectable dreamscape to drift off into. By way of comparison, 'Subacqueo' jacks up the pressure with a trance-leaning cut splashed with some particularly wigged-out acid lines. Bell Towers takes up the mood of the track and injects a little uptempo joy on a typically sweet remix draped in blissed out melodics, and then the record gets rounded off with some deeper peak time immersion on the seriously immersive piano house stylings of 'Morning Routine'.
Review: It's very much a case of expecting the unexpected when it comes to Omar S' FXHE label and this latest effort is no exception. In the US the gap between hip-hop and dance music culture is even wider than it is here in the UK, only not in Detroit and its unique export, namely ghetto tech. FULL BODY DU RAG whips up an idiosyncratic but thoroughly addictive combination of ghetto, house and garage, hip-hop and jazz across eight tracks here, the borders between the genres being fluid at all times. Omar himself makes an appearance on 'Juice', a speedy but classy dancefloor workout, half tech and half house, that along with the hilarious but irresistible 'Trillionaire' boasts a skippy garage swing to the beats to boot. At the other end of the BPM spectrum we get 'Pussy On The Map" (feat NLGHTND) with its r&b strains, only nicely warped and sonically corrupted. Probably best of all is 'FBD X CERT', almost a moody grime exercise until a four to the floor rides roughshod through such conventional plans. Raw, racy - and utterly essential.
Review: Workshop is one of those labels that has always operated at the fringes of genre. Deep house and techno are the loose starting points in many cases, but artists never fail to veer off into the shadowy nether worlds that surround those basic forms. Kolorit does that here with two intriguing cuts all with the same name. The first has lumpy scattered drums, scraping sounds, ticking hi-hats and freaky noise samples all peppering them. The second has haunting chords sequences over a ticking sound that is coated in hiss and crackle. It's late night and mysterious. The third has clattering percussion and shimmering synths that rise and fall and build in tension and intensity.
Review: MOY has been whipping a very tasty strain of braindance over the past year across a number of labels such as AC Records, Batrachian and Exalt. These are surely bountiful times for warm, playful acid and tricksy electro, and this latest drop from the London-based artist on new label Emotec surely adds fuel to the fire. MOY's sound is rounded and self-assured, striding forth with the moody, breaks n' bleeps vibe of 'Dreamcoast' and bolstered by the emotional jack of 'Wheel Of Time'. 'Echolab' has a fatter, more polished finish to it, but once again the gnarly 101 and 303 lines are front and centre. 'Cyclotron' offers up something a little deeper to close the EP out, completing a beautifully rendered set of braindance dynamics.
Review: Techno mainstay Marc Romboy has always made sounds that betray his love of space. He recently made that more explicit that ever with the start of a new compilation series titled Music From Space and after a fine first volume comes a second, called Dimension B. It features the music he has used to open his latest podcast and radio shows series, eight tracks in all from artists such as Thodoris Triantafillou, Til Fussman, Nicolas Masseyeff and Romboy himself. There is plenty to love her from sleek and serene outings from Captain Mustache to Kiberu's lush 'Your Eyes.'
Review: Lisbon-born, London-based producer Silvestre came to light on Disktopia before starting up the Padre Himalaya label to house his unconventional chuggers. This release for Secretsundaze finds him exploring his sound in greater detail, folding in a certain amount UK rave energy amongst other more esoteric motifs. The results are spellbinding, from the twilight marvels of "Lights" to the slow breakbeat chops and delirious harp trills of "Fuego". At times the ideas have a scuffed mixtape quality to them, which only adds to the charm. D.K. is on hand to deliver a remix for the broader needs of the dancefloor, although he wisely keeps the beguiling qualities of "Fuego" intact as he nudges it closer to the party.
Review: Ohio duo Stash Magnetic (AKA Nick Riggio and Rebecca Magnetic) have previously caught the ear of Adrian Sherwood. Here they make their debut on Al Mackenzie and Chris Kentish's Field of Dreams Recordings imprint via a typically hazy, slow-motion fusion of pitched-down, mind-altering machine beats, bubbly synthesizer lines, moody chords, gnarled electric guitar solos and Magnetic's dystopian lead vocals. The duo's atmospheric and apocalyptic original mix comes backed by a trio of tasty reworks. To our ears, the standout revision comes from Richard Sen, who adds a little drug chug, a chunky synth-bassline and a number of suitably spooky musical touches. We'd also recommend Dan Wainwright's Dub, which sounds like a post-punk-era Adrian Sherwood revision of a glassy-eyed synth-pop jam.
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