The second volume of Casa Voyager's compilation gathers the label's regulars OCB and Kosh, as well as two new artists: Polyswitch, coming straight from the shady streets of Casablanca and also known as the moroccan funkmaster, and Jamal, who comes from the moroccan diaspora in Europe and purveyor of post-futuristic electro beats, keeping the dutch-moroccan connection alive.
Akuratyde is a musician driven by a passion to create and has spent his life expressing his talents in a variety of media. Based on the West Coast US, Akuratyde has drawn his inspiration both from Southern California’s breathtaking panoramic landscapes and his own, personal struggles. Akuratyde’s goal is to make music that strikes an emotional chord in his listeners. Incorporating his affinity for reverb soaked synthesizers and dreamy guitar riffs Akuratyde’s music is the perfect mix of melodic hooks and immersive beats. He has created something that is simultaneously raw and passion-filled, with subtle beautiful undertones that are guaranteed to move the listener. 'Past Lives' is a deeply personal collection of work, drawn from moments and experiences in the artist's own life. The album is an emotive work that celebrates wonderment, intimately articulates loss, and reflects on meaning and purpose. Stylistically, 'Past Lives' echoes some of the Autonomic movement's richer moments, with hand-crafted synths and Akuratyde's own guitar-playing skills draped lovingly over each track. A supporting cast of glitched-out percussion, fragmented vocals and warping bass completes the ensemble.
Rotterdam fuses with Berlin, as Das Ding lands on Mechatronica for the third record in the label's White series, dedicated to limited vinyl-only pressings of EBM, wave, synth, electro, italo, industrial and experimental sounds.
'Alien Insane' opens the record with a relentlessly progressing piece of dark machine music, followed by the dazzling cosmic journey of 'Idiomatic Transnominator', both tracks vividly blending Das Ding's signature sound with classic Dutch electro, synth and italo styles.
On the flip, 'I Am Not A Robot' presents a more blissful soundscape, elevating higher through dreamy synths, tight percussion and an inescapable bassline, before Ksitigarbha rounds off the record with a slow, enchanting sonic journey into strange and ghostly territory.
ABOUT THE “LIBRARY TOOL KIT” SERIES: The new sub-label from WNCL Recordings features 12 short “tools” per release, for use on discotheque sound systems and home stereos alike. Released on 10” vinyl with digital to follow at a later date.
ABOUT THIS RECORD: EKOPLEKZ contributes to the Library Tool Kit series with 12 unique transmissions, live and direct from his radiochronic workshop.
Flagrantly disregarding tempo restrictions Overlook effortlessly traverses from beat free passage into cyberpunk tinged Techno fare. The ‘Public Image EP’ directs his already affirmed palette of sound in an archetypal dystopian framework. Just when you think there is little more that can be said in praise of Overlook’s work, he reinvigorates perception with a fresh take on his own aesthetic. A modern master at work.
a1. Overlook - Déjà Vu
a2. Overlook - There Was Truth And There Was Untruth
Exhibiting an almost timeless quality, the latest EP from UVB-76 Music is a four track, various artists endeavour into the most solid of fundamentals. A four-man hit squad of label newcomers assembles in the form of Entire, Nekyia, Forest Drive West and DB1. Going against the grain of contemporary production fad, each track is a reduction to core sonic ideals. Unapologetically raw and refined in a directly contradictory manner.
Parallax Unknown returns a year on from their last record with another 4 tracker EP from ES-Q, featuring Lobster Theremin regular and Four triangles boss ASOK. Casting patterns, Lunatic Fringe & Intuition sees more of ES-Qʼs synth-ed out drum machine sounds with the lead track getting a deep, yet uplifting broken beat rework from ASOK.
Known for a broad swath of genre-obliterating club tracks on crucial labels including Critical, Exit, and 50Weapons, Sam Binga approached us earlier this year with a radically different kind of project, a collaboration with Welfare, true junglist and label boss at D&B bastion Rua Sound. The result of their team-up is Conamara Fieldworks. Its unique inspiration and patient process are best described by the duo themselves:
"In early November 2016, we set off through the bleakness of an Irish November into the wilderness that is Conamara, County Galway, Ireland, with about half an idea of what we wanted to do. Our friend Laney had been kind enough to allow us the use of a 300 year old cottage overlooking the sea, itself belonging to her family through generations which she was bit by bit restoring to its former glory. The isolation was perfect - very little in the way of creature comforts, no network coverage, but plenty of turf for the stove and Guinness for the belly.
Our routine for the next few days consisted of trudging the length of the rugged coastline in search of interesting sounds we could potentially process into usable elements for some kind of dub/dub techno-inspired composition...This took us inside tidal caves and abandoned ruins, across sheep fields, up and down mountains and winding country lanes, in and out of the odd pub, under upturned boats and (carefully) across huge washes of seaweed-covered shoreline. Using our handheld recorder (shouts Danny Scrilla for the lend) we assembled a palette of varied noises, constantly battling with the peaking and distortion created by the incessant Atlantic gusts.
Each evening, following some intense huddling around the stove and vital Irish home cuisine and stout, we'd examine and dissect what we had collected that day, sometimes discovering the most interesting material firmly planted in the background of the soundscapes. A certain amount of (but not too much) processing later we had the bones of a few short loops of each sound which made some kind of musical sense when played alongside each other.
Binga suggested staying true to the craft and keeping the rawness to the foreground by attempting to develop the loops into full compositions via live desk mixing, arrangement and effects. We said our goodbyes to Conamara and a month or two later said our hellos to the Dubkasm shedio. Following a crash course from the dynamic duo, we set to work for the day, learning as we went along and enjoying to the full the unpredictability, intuition and sheer vibes a dubbing session can bring, particularly in a studio kitted out with some fine analogue gear which undoubtedly helped us to keep that damp, saturated feeling that Conamara had sown."
The resulting collection of music speaks for itself, and does so in its own language. It is meditative, deeply textural, and richly saturated, with awesome sound design, generous bass weight, and dubwise finesse. Referencing ambient, concrete, and dub techno while never letting any genre dictate its path, Conamara Fieldworks is a deeply rewarding and intensely involving listen. A restrained yet transporting remix from the one Ossia completes the set.
OOH-sounds inaugurates a series of splits on the topics of increasing complexity, dependencies and miscommunication in a media-saturated digital era. Georgia / Bellows open the series shaping the two vinyl surfaces between futuristic eclecticism and avant-garde pan- aesthetics.
"In software engineering d e c o u p l i n g is generally all about discerning whether or not two components need to closely work together or can be further made independent. Independence is great because it makes those things easy to change or use somewhere else. Usually, you can't remove coupling between components completely. D e c o u p l i n g in that context normally means loosening the existing coupling, making sure each component knows as little as possible about the other components around it”.
The first in a series of split vinyls concerning dependencies, miscommunication and increasing complexity in our media- saturated digital era. Georgia and Bellows inaugurate the decouple ][ series with works between futuristic eclecticism and avant-garde pan-aesthetics, where musical themes flow tangentially. Similar, but without effectively engaging one another. A metaphor for a world of surfaces.
Recorded in Georgia’s Chinatown NYC studio, ‘Tiwala sa buani’ abruptly throw us into freaky percussion clusters constructed from heavily processed sounds which seem to keep in balance just by the magic of repetitions. Justin Tripp and Brian Close’s stylistic fusion acts like an antidote against GPS localization, with sounds and voices more reminiscent of data flowing through a proxy server than an acoustic performance - a myriad of tiny elements resonates with the multi-cultural a-geographic perception of a contemporary metropolis. ‘A Habitual Sway’ (an anagram of the first title) flows more slowly, mixing hypnotic rhythmic percussions loops, melodic sketches and controlled distortions into sophisticated layers. Naïve digital strings pads incursions widen the picture further. Georgia run an NTS monthly residency of oddball electronics.
Digging into their sound archive, Bellows build an immersive Konrad-esque 19 mins of humid and winding electronics with‘Untitled’. Drawing on years of improvising experience, Nicola Ratti and Giuseppe Ielasi take a puristic avant-garde approach, using tape loops, static, modular synths and field recordings. A subtle nostalgia pervades the whole work - the music sneaks through lush, decadent dystopian visions like in a travelogue. Mallets, statics, cut-up white noise, synthetic kiks and uncannily pitched voices branch out like roots, while digital birds whistle all around in an aquatic atmosphere, perhaps suggesting an ironic take on ‘orientalism’ - down to the river’s delta.
a1. Georgia - Tiwala Sa Buhay [vocals Gabi Asfour]
Follow up Helium Robots EP for Running Back after 2012’s “Crepitation” which came with legendary Theo Parrish reworks. Bleep EP is featuring 4 original works from the bots.
A: OMG did you see her latest Story?! B: Which one? A: The one she just uploaded. You gotta check it out!!! V: You mean the one where she hangs out with Snoop Dogg and Eminem and this guy Wolfram is djing. I just saw that, too. A: Yeah totally, the party looks crazy. I love Wolfram, he’s sooo cute =) (B lit`lol’s) B: She just uploaded another one where Gerd Janson joins the decks. Why am I not there?! :( FML
Etch's 'Ups & Downs' album is a collection of dubs which date as far back as 2014 and up to the present day. The album's tracks are united by being examples of the artists' efforts to escape the shackles of reality by using music as a vehicle.
The theme of space recurs across the material - both the 'outer-space' of the universe and galaxies that surround our planet and the 'inner-space' of exploring the infinite recesses and depths of our mind's imagination.
However these creations were made during a period experiencing a (not-uncommon) lifestyle of mad peaks, joy and optimism, and yet also, times of struggle, adversity and depression. That is of course a familiar human tale - but expressed here through Etch's own singular musical vision. Etch's music is informed by psychedelic experiences, sci-fi, occult and horror themed films and the evolution of gaming - (these being tools often used to escape the prescribed tedium of society's rules and roles).
This is then combined with a deep love of sampling vinyl and rearranging breakbeats in an unforced homage to his family roots in UK hardcore breakbeat, jungle and d'n'b. Furthermore, these hybrids are often filtered through a keen understanding of current musical developments which are then explored and deployed where it feels appropriate. Add to this a smattering of teenage Goth influences that rear their heads within the dark sound of certain tunes and you've got a serious distillation of culture being explored within these beats.
Yes - this is a very special record: NYC‘s Phenomenal Handclap Band meets London’s Ray Mang - the psychedelic soul disciples meet the disco champ by way of remix. Ray Mang is a hero to fans of underground disco: remixer, collector, producer, DJ - he is part of that magic circle of London DJ connoisseurs around DJ Harvey. He has the magic disco touch, and has applied it to great effect to PHB’s “Judge Not". He did a fresh, new take on house-heavy gospel disco that is sure to fill any dancefloor. Try it! For those who don’t know New York’s almost legendary band: The Phenomenal Handclap Band is led by producer Daniel Collás, and consists of some of New York’s finest new soul & disco musicians. Some of them used to play in the Amy Winehouse band and others can be heard on some of Mark Ronson’s productions. Their biggest moment was when they released their single “15 to 20″ some years ago (on Gomma Records) and Paul McCartney wrote them a letter about how much he loved that song when he heard it on BBC Radio 1. On “Judge Not” they come up with dazzling piano lines, a deep rare funk rhythm section, and a street corner gospel choir that brings you to your feet. Ray Mang heard the original version of this song and was hyped to become involved in the remix, and the pairing is complementary to say the least. Many of you know PHB from their collaborations with such luminaries as Peaches or Marcos Valle or Bryan Ferry, a prime appearance at the Glastonbury Festival, and direct support on Bryan Ferry’s US tour. The group is currently finishing a new album.
A wide range of artists remixing tracks from Mr. Fingers latest album 'Cerebral Hemispheres' on this three part remix ep series. For the last in the series Aleksi Perala remixes both inner- and outer-acid according to the colundi scales. Part 3 of 3!
A wide range of artists remixing tracks from Mr. Fingers latest album 'Cerebral Hemispheres' on this three part remix ep series. Remix duties on the second installment go to Mr. Fingers himself, Joey Anderson, Kode 9 and Upsammy. Part 2 of 3!
The storied music producer readies his sophomore solo album for release, ten years after his first album, The Gemini Principle.
The ten-year gap between solo albums has seen dBridge releasing landmark collaborations and projects as part of the Autonomic movement, Module Eight, Heart Drive and exploring other Bpms as Velvit.
dBridge's journey within electronic music has seen him at the front and center of electronic music culture and then by design, as the seasons change, he has retreated to his own world to work on his next statement.
A Love I Can't Explain is the sound of dBridge making music for himself. As a man he finds himself in a new phase of his life- in love, married and a father that is no longer concerned with previous constraints and this has led to a new freedom in creation. An artist looking at the same sculpture but now from a new perspective.
a1. dBridge - Gen 19
a2. dBridge - Broadcast Pain
b1. dBridge - Depersonalised
b2. dBridge - Syncofated
c1. dBridge - Monitored Meanings
c2. dBridge - They Loved ft. They Live & Poison Arrow
d1. dBridge - Violent Circuit Autonomy ft. Lewis James
d2. dBridge - Your Bit Crushed Heart
e1. dBridge - Nachtlus
e2. dBridge - Lost In A Memory
e3. dBridge - Filtered Scenes
f1. dBridge - Wij Zijn ft. Lewis James & Kid Drama