Electro charts

Review: Golden Pudel's number one DJ-turned-producer, Helena Hauff, returns to Actress's Werkdiscs with her debut LP, marking a fine start to the September release downpour! Compared to her last effort for the label and her banger of an EP on Lux, Discreet Desires spans across much vaster landscapes, and while we knew that she was heavily into Detroit electro, the album is heavily focused on fast, broken beats brimming with synths. "Spur" and "Funereal Morality", for example, are a pair of Drexcyian bombshells, while "Piece Of Pleasure" clearly takes inspiration from Kraftwerk and the resulting synth pop wave. Instead, "Silver Sands & Boxes Of Mould" showcases her more experimental side thanks to its cinematic soundscapes and sparse beats, along with the beatless sway of "Dreams In Color". A fine debut LP that cements Hauff's position at the vanguard of current electronics.

Review: The creative partnership between Tiga & Hudson Mohawke expresses a mutual love of "hardcore romance," a liminal state where the bounds between euphoria, melancholy and the raw power of friendship disintegrate completely. Recorded in Los Angeles from 2019-2023, these commonalities ebbed and flowed through various recording sessions, culminating in their debut album - L'Ecstacy - the sounds in which "all come from the same place, the same musical universe," in Hudson Mohawke's own words. Referencing the album's locus of bouncy elasticity and cinematic gloss - "we're building a particular kind of zone where it all fits together. A place lost in time." With guest appearances by luminaries like Abra, Channel Tres, and Jesse Boykins III, as well as album artwork by Wolfgang Tillmans, the result is delivered with "no apology, no cynicism, no irony, no winking."

Review: Last year, Belgian imprint De:Tuned decided to commission a wealth of remixes of 'St8818r', Future Sound of London's 2019 re-make of their 1988 UK acid/techno fusion classic as Humanoid, 'Stakker Humanoid'. Kicking off with the peerless, breakbeat-driven, TB-303-riddled '88 original, this CD contains all nine commissioned reworks, plus a wealth of bonus material. There's plenty to excite those who love the intersection of acid, electro, techno, IDM and Rephlex-style 'braindance', with highlights including a murky and mind-bending Autechre rub, a storming, Phuture-inspired acid-jack interpretation from Mikey Dred, an impressively uncompromising breakbeat take from Plaid and a gorgeous, piano-sporting twist from Roel Funcken. Bonus cut 'Blue Beans', a psychedelic ambient acid excursion, is also superb.

Review: Mikko Mattlar, a walking encyclopaedia of Finnish electronic music, has been responsible for some killer compilations over the years, but 'Black Hole', his latest collection, may be the best yet. It focuses on exceedingly obscure 'culth synth disco music' produced in his home country between 1979 and '91 - mostly in the early-to-mid-80s - with every track either being an unreleased oddity of a genuinely uber-rare private press record. It's both eye-opening and extremely entertaining, with the included tracks doffing a cap to heavy disco-funk, underground gospel disco, bedroom-made late '80s synth-disco and quirky Scandinavian electrofunk.

Review: You'd think there weren't that many stones left uncovered in the quest to reissue all Drexciya-related works, but here's a little nugget from 2013 which may have passed many by. NRSB-11 is a collaborative project from Gerald Donald, Sherard 'DJ Stingray' Ingram and Penelope Martin which resulted in one EP and one album. Disciples have opted to reissue Commodified, and with good reason. This is advanced electro of the highest calibre, absolutely wrought from the same lineage as Donald and Ingram's myriad accomplished endeavours but with a distinct flavour which speaks to Martin's input.

Review: Helena Hauff is surely one of the most important envelope pushers in the modern electro scene, able to lay waste to parties big and small with her razor-sharp fusion of early EBM and industrial, slamming, deeply-dug machine funk and thunderous techno. Cutting hard and fast to keep the energy up and our minds fried, her invitation to the Fabric presents series is just another confirmation of the stature she commands. If you're down with Hauff's style you'll get exactly what you crave here - all-time classics from the likes of Clarence G and Radioactive Man alongside up to the minute bomb drops from IMOGEN, Nite Fleit and so many more besides.

Review: The latest new compilation series from Soul Jazz Records is another doozy. It comes on several formats and this is the CD version of Space Funk - Afro Futurist Electro Funk In Space 1976-84. It is the second volume in the already esteemed series and makes for another twist trip to outer space on body-popping Afro grooves and obscure space funk that was all originally put out on small indie labels in the US between 70s and 80s. The likes of Alien Starr, Maggatron, Tribe, Rich Cason and the Galactic Orchestra and more all feature so prepare yourself for quite the ride.