Juno Recommends Electro: March 2024

Review: After many years turning out 12"s, Klasse Wrecks has decided to serve up a first-ever 10" and they give the honour to Mr. Ho. His '000 Baby' is a delightfully widescreen sound - a post-rave mix of comedown electronics, dusty breakbeats and soothing ambient pads with some smart vocal samples drifting like wispy clouds. On the flipside, we're treated to and OM Unit remix that beefs things up and speeds up the drums. The percussion too is more defined and the energy levels ramped up with deft 808 bass and searching acidic leads. A nice yin to the A-side's yang.

Review: Plant43 is the alias of Emile Facey, one of electro's most tireless innovators. He has a vast discography that never fails to prove he can speak through his machines more ably than just about anyone in the game, and certainly within the genre. Luminous Machines comes on his own label and is an album, his eighth in all, of cinematic and futuristic jams written before a gig at Tresor in April this year. 'Haunting The Depths' has an icy minimalism to it, with crisp drums and snappy hits all underpinned by textured bass. The title cut is a restless affair that pings about the stereo field with squiggling lines and loopy breaks and 'Fixed Point Rotation' has a more dark and menacing feel. These are just some of the highlights of another standout collection.

Review: Versalife is a master of the deep and one of many aliases from the Dutchman born Boris Bunnik. From dub to techno to the electro he explores here, his grainy sound is impossibly atmospheric. 'Copepods' opens up with far-sighted and sustained chords that speak of a future metropolis and 'Ultraviolet' then rides a lush broken rhythm and has melodies that glow like fireflies. 'Counter-illumination' gets more turbulent with its edgy lines and rubbery reverberating bassline and 'Vortex Storm' is like a reflective hall of mirrors with tension and eeriness in the air.

Review: Emotional Rescue's vital Konduko reissue series sadly comes to an end here with a look at the label's final years. In those days it moved away from reggae, disco and boogie towards an enduring electro sound that had a vast and lasting impact on the Miami scene. The biggest tune from that time was when Noel Williams linked with local songwriter Lawrence Dermer aka Der Mer for the track reissued here. 'Fall Out' soon became a hit with its driving electro-funk rhythms. The original sits next to the later Fresh '86" mix as well as a NAD disco mix from Dan Tyler, best known as one of the Idjut Boys. It's an irresistible package of body-popping electro with hooks for days.

Review: To coincide with the reissue of the standout Exaltics album Das Heise Experiment, Robert Witschakowski has reached out to an all-star cast for a bonus 12" of remixes and collaborations which will only serve to add weight to the whole project. Iconic Detroit duo ADULT. team up with Exaltics on 'Dreizehn Habits', which is a vocal update of a track from the original soundtrack. Then Gesloten Cirkel jumps on for the typically incisive, edged-out machine language typical to his Bunker Releases. The mighty Keith Tucker dons his K1 cap for a punchy slice of Motor City machine funk, and then Gerald Donald's Arpanet alias locks on for a creeping, slippery excursion to close the record out on the B2.

Review: There is some serious electro talent on this new EP from Fanzine, starting with now US-based, UK-favourite Carl Finlow. His machines are in fine fettle once more as crisp, kicking electro rhythms are overlaid with bright, silvery, pixelated melodic fireworks on the sublime 'Organoiods'. Hoax Believers get more gritty with the sheet metal snares and in-your-face arps of 'Short Circuit' while Sound Synthesis offers something moody and unsettling on their 'Vertex43'. Univac will make your eyes water with the abrasive textures of 'H Beat.'

Review: Remastered and reissued with new a new album cover via the Clone West Coast Series, Adult's 'New Phonies' EP first appeared in 2000 as the duo moniker of Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller, two legit electro stalwarts. This is a proper snappy electro EP - of the least sympathetic and most coldly calculating kind - evoking the fright of becoming trapped inside an inescapable subliminal-sonic cybernetic feedback loop, with all human faculties thrown to the wayside. 'Hand To Phone', for example, locks us into a communicative-cybernetic stasis, with spitty acid 16ths betraying the mood of becoming affective chasers of electromagnetic signals, unwittingly carrying out the bidding of our new techno-evangelist overlords. The A-sider 'New Object', meanwhile, with its sizzling 808s, transitional fluctuations and hip-hop vocal refrain - "I need you to accommodate my comunication needs" - touches on several layers of objectification at once: sexual, commodification, loss of the ability to speak. Adult truly dealt with adult themes and embraced their recapture into the machine - now you too can own their New Object.

Review: Privacy bounds into a tenth year of releasing with labels like Klakson, Klasse Wrecks and Cultivated Electronics already under his belt, and now it's the turn of Trust to carry the goods. The goods, as we've come to expect, are high-grade electro and techno with vintage synthesis at their heart. '+(82)' isn't a purely retro track though, but rather it takes a classic Detroit approach and gives it certain discoid shimmer which works a treat. 'Sword, NYC' is a nastier slice of down-low machine funk, while 'Ikebukuro Underground' explores techy 140 in outstanding style. 'Meduse' offers some light relief to play the record out in a more delicate kind of electro style.

Review: The propulsive, tectonic Force of Electro is embodied in the eponymous moniker, returning for their its release since 1997 (notable indeed, that the multi-moniker artist should return to this one only now). Six masterclassics in the mode of acid electro beckon us into alternate frenzies, highlights among these experiences being the central banger 'Beyond After Dark' and the lesser-spottable ambi-acid closer, 'Beyond The Beats'.

Review: Isophlux Records revives a stone cold electro classic from the vaults here with this superbly remastered reissue of Gosub's' Night Mal'ach EP. It is an immersive world of cinematic electro that is dark and moody but always alluring. It was first put put back in 2005 on just 500 black labeled copies but has since become a cult classic from the man born Shad T. Scott . His shadowy soundscapes blending eerie melodies with kinetic drums and iconic tracks like 'Forcequit Your Love,' 'Fuck Satan,' and 'Populated Data Cells' sound as good as ever and will surely win lots of new fans this time round.

Review: Lake Haze has landed on a wide array of labels from Shall Not Fade to Time Is Now but always his music exudes the same great qualities - electro, acid, techno and prog doused in gorgeous ambient designs. He exhibits that again on this new EP for Atlantic Thunder which kick off with the gurgling synths and tanging bass notes of 'First Contact'. Silky arps are what ensure it takes flight through the cosmos, though. 'Niburi Ritual' has a darker mood and heavier kick patterns and 'Ionosphere' is a supple and lithe electro workout that channels the best of Detroit. A fine sense of menace and end of the world finality then characterises the excellent closer 'No Escape.'

Review: We don't know who is involved in this brand new Diner's Club International project but we do know that they have put together three superb new records, all of which are landing at the same time. We also know they have come from Detroit, specifically Joy Rd on the West Side, and so come drenched in plenty of the swaggering attitudes you would expect. Diners Club International Part 1 fuses electro, ghetto and techno into booty-shaking cuts designed square for the club. The rhythms are infectious, the drums booming and the vocals bawdy, so snap these up before they're gone as quickly as they arrived.

Review: Sheffield's peerless Central Processing Unit welcomes a new signing here in the form of Larinoov. The artists has previously shown great creative nous across releases that suggest he is well versed in classic electro and also loves a good melody. He has dropped them on Craigie Knowes and Rotterdam Electronix in the past and here kicks off with a soundtrack to a trip to the far flung corners of the multi-verse. 'Asteroid Attack' then adds some extra intensity to a similar framework and 'Flying High' then hits a sweet spot in between. 'Vimana Ride' closes with a gurgling bassline that will melt your mind and smart, snappy drum work.

Review: Introducing Diner's Club International, a new and anonymous collective, we have been told on the low down, that is here to keep clubs bumping. They hail from Joy Rd on the East of the city of Detroit and are here to keep the ghetto tech scene going strong with a vast array of breathless new rhythms across three different records. Their MO is to get in and out quickly with each track - short, snappy sketches packed with attitude, cut-up vocals and spongy drum and bass patterns. As physical as all these cuts are, they also have a real human heart thanks to the warming pads and well-deployed r&b stabs. These are red hot so do not sleep.

Review: Spanish imprint Sungate has been rolling out the jams for seven years now and next up to head into deep trench waters is the talented Dutch artist Taupe aka Tobias Blankenstein. His five tracks here are sublime, to be honest - liquid explorations of classic Motor City electro with stylish synths and plenty of mediative and melancholic melodies that make you think while your feet lock into the rhythms. The title track is celestial and spaced out, 'Still' suspends you deep in the cosmos and 'Arctic' picks up the pace with more jittery rhythms and silky arps.

Review: The last of the Konduko series from Emotional Rescue arrives now and quite possibly it is the best of the lot from Noel Williams. His 'Fantasy' saw him work with Larry Dermer aka Der Mer on what is an effective and catchy electro jam that operates at the higher end of the tempo chart with some classic vocoder vocal action to really make it pop. Despite being released originally in 1984 this one still bangs with its emulated TR-808 beats and nagging melodies. The instrumental heightens that and then the Jonny Rock Discomix shuts down with long-form rework that shows why the DJ, editor and all-round amiable bloke is so well regarded.

Review: The Exaltics is always a dab hand at crafting cinematic sci-fi scenes out of his dystopian electro, but even he took it to another level with Das Heise Experiment. Conceived in 2013 as a soundtrack to a graphic novel, it was the perfect outlet for Robert Witschakowski's music beyond the function of a club 12". The atmospheres and moods he elicits from the Exaltics sound bank are brilliantly rendered across the whole release, which gets the ten year treatment on this reissue with striking, all-new full colour artwork which brings the visuals to life alongside the music like never before.