Kuri Kondrak considers Edgar Sinio’s When The Voices Come EP as Projekt: PM, which helped put Guidance Recordings on the Chicago house map in 1996.
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Todd Edwards, I Might Be
May 11, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Todd Edwards hasn’t exactly been dormant over the years, but if there was ever a time for one of the leading proponents of what became U.K. garage to reassert their status then it is certainly now.
Herman, Prototype
May 10, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Stuart Li, best known for his Basic Soul Unit project, continues his departure from more linear house music on his first release under the Herman alias for Fine Art Recordings.
Addison Groove, Footcrab/Dumbsh*t
May 6, 2010 – 11:45 PM
Addison Groove’s “Footcrab” follows in the footsteps of Joy Orbison’s “Hyph Mngo” as an addictive and pervasive track whose proliferation is as hard to contain as an oil spill.
Mount Kimbie, Remixes Pt. 2
May 6, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Clearly cognizant of Mount Kimbie’s cross-border appeal to techno/house heads, Hotflush wisely spends the second remix EP on the 4×4 axis with mixes from head honcho, Paul Rose, and Panorama Bar residents Prosumer and Tama Sumo.
DJ Qu, For The Beneath
May 5, 2010 – 10:01 PM
For The Beneath, his latest 12″ on his own Strength Music label, once again pitches that signature DJ Qu sound — dark melodies always in the service of off-kilter yet hard-hitting percussion — for the bleakest, sweatiest, most subaltern dance floors imaginable. Should you, fair record buyer, take the plunge yet again?
Jimmy Edgar, Hush
May 4, 2010 – 10:01 PM
As is perhaps expected from a multi-alias producer who started releasing music in his teens, Jimmy Edgar’s catalog has variously shifted styles, ranging from glitchy instrumental hip-hop to sleazy electro funk/IDM crossovers. Now in his twenties, Edgar seems to be attempting to subdue his manic tendencies.
Redshape, Red Pack
May 4, 2010 – 10:01 AM
To these ears at least, Redshape’s debut album was one of the best techno long players of ’09, so the appearance of Red Pack so soon afterwords is a pleasant surprise. While not intended as a follow-up to The Dance Paradox, this double pack performs an equally important function, neatly encapsulating the disparate dance floor styles that now fall under the masked one’s widening palette.
Space Dimension Controller, Journey to the Core of the Unknown Sphere
May 3, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Jack Hamill can be forgiven for his cosmically comical references, from the outer-planetary names he gives his music to the cover art that looks like it was beamed direct to Earth some time in the early 80’s. He can be forgiven these things because it doesn’t hide any of his incredible talent, which becomes very clear upon first listening to one of his releases.
Stimming, Ben Watt & Julia Biel, Bright Star
April 29, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Coming on like some kind of disparate super group, the Bright Star EP brings together Hamburg-based producer Stimming; the owner of Buzzin’ Fly, producer for ’90s act du jour Everything But The Girl and man behind legendary London party Lazy Dog, Ben Watt; and the vocal talents of jazzy singer Julia Biel. With this much talent you might expect sparks to fly — or fizzle.
Floating Points, People’s Potential
April 28, 2010 – 10:01 PM
By now the name Floating Points probably rings a bell even for those living under rocks. Within a year of arriving on the scene he’s been feted by music fans and critics of all stripes, storming best of lists with four spectacular releases for R2 Records, Planet Mu, and his own Eglo Records. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Sam Shepherd’s first record of 2010 has admirers drooling. People’s Potential first appeared as a single-sided white label earlier this year, but those who waited (myself included) have been rewarded with full artwork and a second track, “Shark Chase.”
David Keno, Snatch001
April 27, 2010 – 10:01 PM
For a couple weeks now my friends and I have entertained ourselves on the cheap by playing stacks of 45s at 33, giving into the well worn truth that almost everything sounds better slowed down. Not surprisingly, producers reach for the technique regularly, whether to fit a sample into the groove or in efforts to impart an androgynous “soul” sound unachievable at full speed. On the off chance it’s done well, it can transform whole tracks into something worth hearing time and time again. David Keno tried his hand at the Slowed Vocal Slot Machine for “Upside Down” on his new EP; and while it’s certain to be popular I’m less sure about its playback value.
Mount Kimbie, Remixes Pt. 1
April 27, 2010 – 10:01 AM
As befits two records firmly entrenched in the avant garde, the contributions to these two follow-up remix EPs are pure class, with some of Mount Kimbie’s closest contemporaries on the first and a few Berlin mainstays on the second.
KiNK, Rachel EP
April 26, 2010 – 10:01 PM
After listening to the track “Existence” from KiNK’s Rachel EP for Ovum Recordings, I found myself slightly appalled. Essentially it’s a rework of “Changes of Life,” a 1992 cut by Jeff Mills, done as a tech-house wind up. Fitted with a new set of filters, delays, and freshly phased drum rolls, “Existence” dices up that signature piano riff to closely resemble its exemplar but remain just different enough to warrant being called its own.
Ninca Leece, Feed Me Rainbows
April 22, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Only two releases old, Thesongsays has already accrued an interesting profile. It was initially a platform for Bruno Pronsato’s own productions, chiefly LWE’s number four tune of 2009 “The Make Up The Break Up,” a druggy 38-minute trip through his soundbank. Yet release number two was penned by the hitherto unknown team of Benoit & Sergio, featuring the lovely, saccharine “Full Grown Man.” The third single from Thesongsays is equally unexpected, arriving under the auspices of Franco-German producer Ninca Leece who released an album titled There Is No One Else When I Lay Down And Dream earlier this year. Feed Me Rainbows certainly piques my interest like its predecessors and has me wanting to know more.
Andrea, You Still Got Me/Got To Forget
April 21, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Popular music has always flirted with the idea of gender ambiguity. David Bowie and indeed much of the glam rock scene supposed flouncy gender-bending alter-egos and it has been a theme employed time and again by many an artist, finding its way into dance music probably first through people like Brian Eno and Throbbing Gristle. Having followed the releases on Modern Love’s offspring imprint Daphne with some fervour, I was surprised however to find out that the Millie & Andrea duo who had been issuing blunt, dreadnought dubs, were in fact not studio-wise ladies with a penchant for bum-worrying bass, but MLZ and Andy Stott. Going it alone for this one, Andrea (Stott) marks the change with two tracks considerably more “feminine” by nature, instilling measured doses of honeyed vocals into both “You Still Got Me” and “Got To Forget.”
Jamie Read, Never The Future EP
April 21, 2010 – 10:01 AM
After digging into the origin of the Joe Louis’s Back To The Beginning release for last year’s BBH review, I realized Jaime Read hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth after a few solid releases in the ’90s and a trickle of collaborative material with Felix Dickinson as L.H.A.S. Inc. (short for Larry Heard Appreciation Society). Contrary to my speculations, he hadn’t given up producing after a few frustrating encounters with the shadier side of the music business so much as fallen into the obligations of domesticity and let music take the backseat. So it came as quite an exciting discovery to learn he was working on new material to be released on UK label Elektrosouls Recordings.
Various Artists, Halal Prepared Vol. 1
April 20, 2010 – 10:01 PM
In Islamic parlance, food that’s been prepared in accordance with Sharia law is designated as halal, similar to the Jewish distinction of kosher foods. So by naming its seventh release Halal Prepared Vol.1 London-based Boe Recordings sends a strong signal regarding the level of respect it affords to house music’s underground fore-bearers and traditions. Yet the three tracks on offer here from KiNK, Iron Curtis and Ladzinski are reverent rather than than obedient — clearly influenced by seminal house releases but more than devotional works of blind faith. It’s likely the critical difference that could earn this EP a place in record buyers’ baskets while its strictly traditional peers huddle on the shelves.
Morphosis, Musafir
April 19, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Rabih Beaini, better known as Morphosis, is the head of the impossibly but irresistibly erratic Morphine label and was responsible for one of my favorite releases of recent years, the moody, reverberations of Dark Myths of Phoenicia Part 2. Given that he also records more freeform music as Ra.H and began his public engagement with electronic music with his own radio show 20 years ago in his native Lebanon, it is no surprise that Beaini’s latest missive doesn’t follow a formula.
Milton Bradley, The Unheard Voice From Outer Space
April 15, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Milton Bradley’s name has been synonymous with Do Not Resist The Beat!, his label and the instructions for ingesting the spacey, paranoid slates he’s been turning out since late 2008. His newest 12″, The Unheard Voice From Outer Space, arrives courtesy of Munich’s Prologue, whose line up of Cio D’or, Samuli Kemppi, and Giorgio Gigli are sonic kin to his neuron-probing techno aesthetic.