Review: A fascinating new slice of neue Deutsche welle from the artist Eine Welt. The track romanticizes the traditional Middle Eastern dish, Knafeh, through the lens of post-punkish electronics, German rawism, and myriad layering and production. The fact that an artist would go to such great pains to record, master, press and distribute a song with such a niche subject matter truly shows the power of Turkish cuisine. Clearly, even in back the '80s, there was mutual cultural appreciation between the Germans and the Turkish.
Review: A veteran of the Berlin electronic music scene, Sascha Funke is no stranger to local expatriates Multi Culti, debuting for them back in 2016 with the terrific In Relationen EP. For his latest outing, he paris up with multi-instrumentalist Niklas Wandt, one half of Gehoelzpflege, for some trippy and low slung sonic shenanigans on the Kreidekreis EP. From the slo-mo tribal trance of opening cut 'Kometenschweif' which will propel you into the cosmos in vertically locomotive fashion, followed by the funky sundown nu-disco of the title track which receives a wicked rework by Alexander Arpeggio up next - taking the track into psyched-out lounge territory. Also on the remix is Neapolitan Whodammanny, channelling '80s Neue Deutsche Welle sounds, German vocals to boot, on a rendition of 'Kometenschweif'.
Review: 1990s electronica duo Neural Network - renowned for their contemporaneity with the likes of Biosphere and Autechre - are currently seeing a large reissues campaign at the label Re:discovery. These 'Excerpts' highlight the bulk of their work made from 1993-1997, which, unlike their albums, didn't gain label / distributor traction at the time. This EP focuses on the lattermost year, compiling four wobbly, bubbly, depth-plunging and serene cuts - all with 808s or 808-ish snares mired in serendipitous pads - into a neat EP.
Review: You might think that you could cop a copy of New Order's seminal hit 'Blue Monday' fairly easily and cheaply given its ubiquity over the years. But no, copies in good condition still fetch around 50 quid, so this remastered reissue is well worth a cop. The single's iconic bassline and twitchy synth modulations very much soundtrack a generation, if not an entire youth revolution, but still enliven any dance floor many years later. What's more, the de-humanised vocals will always provide real singalong joy. On the flip is a 'The Beach', which is drenched in echo and reverb and general sonic filth.
Gipsy Kings - "You've Got A Friend In Me (Para El Buzz Espanol)" (2:14)
Randy Newman - "We Belong Together" (4:00)
Review: Who doesn't love Toy Story? It's an on going classic with a heart of gold, some of The best animation in the film world and most loveable characters to ever make the silver screen. Whether young or old, snuggling down to watch this sone is always a treat, and now you can bring some of that magic onto your decks with the red vinyl compilation album. It brings together some of the best tracks and favourite musical moments of the movie such as, of course the most notable song of them all, 'You've Got A Friend In Me (Para El Buzz Espanol)' as well as 'I Will Go Sailing No More' and 'We Belong Together.'
Review: Nitechord is an anonymous "ambient-tech duo" that impresses with this fine debut, Lume, which is a meditative exploration of the calmness and mystery of the night as distilled through mid-tempo rhythms and atmospheric whispers. These sounds were first submitted as a raw, uncredited cassette demo in 2002 and have hardly been changed from that state but for the mastering. Tracks like 'Reflect' and 'Near' blend shimmering guitar loops, sub-bass and subtle twangs over dancefloor beats. 'Dim' breathes with layered drones, while 'Absent' offers mournful serenity and last but not least, 'Carry' blossoms into orchestral harmony. A sublime soundscape.
Imaginary Time (Gesloten Cirkel Keep Playing remix) (6:30)
Imaginary Time '99 (Revolutionary Industrial Trance mix) (14:48)
Review: Acoustic instruments played by Charlotte Bill, "disarranged" by Nigel Ayers, Nocturnal Emissions' Imaginary Time is as much of a landmark as it is a total obscurity. The album title itself references a theory prevalent in some approaches to special relativity and quantum mechanics, a representation of time also used in certain cosmological theories. It's not made up, or unreal, but expressed via imaginary numbers. We can understand where Nocturnal Emissions were coming from with this record back in 1997, then. A strange, beguiling percussive experiment that's at once linear and yet pretty obscure. Here presented with two incredible remixes - Gesloten Cirkel's pounding but fun techno take on things, and the misleadingly-titled 'Revolutionary Industrial Trance mix', a slow building amalgamation of drums and vibe - this is strange yet totally accessible business.
Review: The young but auspicious Amplify label is back with a four fearsome techno EP. Normal Stage is at the buttons and heads out on a warm and dreamy dub techno vibe that soon soothes your soul. 'FV2' is another eight-minute plus dub excursion that quickens the pace but is no less smooth and supple, while 'FV3' brings some airy and organic melodies up top that drift about with a curious charm. 'FV4' shuts down with the most masterfully empty dub of the lot - a wide open space in which to lose yourself and all your woes.
Review: Ever reticent contemporary ambient techno artist Nthng shares 'Two People', their latest EP to hit the shelves. Building on their always wordless sound - one native to a certain "mysterious" corner of the techno world, one that implies that words are insufficient in capturing both breadth and depth of sound - 'Two People' is a minimally stirring EP, one that relies on the bare associations of just two visual indicators of theme: snow, unity. Imprinted on the planar white surface shown on the front cover is a lowercase trace of the title track, which, in sound, hears a vocal recollective of a baby's gurgle, and a lonesome pad lilt that only ever so much as teases a movement, ghosted by the absence of (and so haunted by the promise of) a beat. When beats do interpellate the scape, they do with the textural quality of stalactites, breaking and dropping to the floor in step on both 'Echo Trak' and 'In Statik'. Nthng's filtrated percussion and long-release tails serve to dust the surface snow off many ambered, glaciered memories, preserved in the unspelunked caves of an antarctic psyche. Closer 'Don't Be Scared' plods forth, steppers style, with the stridency of an epiphanic polar walkabout, its swells contrasting to the many radiophonic FX peppering the mix: they give the sense of the odd "do you read me?", grounding the far-yonder miracle pads in telecommunicated reassurances from the outpost.
Review: Cult experimental outfit Nurse With Wound has had their Alas The Madonna Does Not Functiion 12" cut to picture disc for this special reissue. It has also been beautifully remastered by Andrew Liles and is one father band's more rhythmic and musical offerings. It joins the dots between their earlier and second phase work and sounds as good now as it did over 30 years ago. This one-off pressing comes in a lovely die-cut sleeve with Babs Santini artwork to make it an extra special collector's edition.
Review: For the second release on New York City's Peace Anthem Records, Annie Garlid
Aka UCC Harlo - a viola player and singer from Connecticut, living in Berlin - joins NY Graffiti for what the label so eloquently described itself as 'Ketamine-paced grooves, baroque miniatures, hazy-humid sonics, and dub inflections'. On the A side, you've got UCC Harlo serving up the minimal atmospherics of 'Let's See' awash in shimmering FM synth aesthetics, followed over on the flip by the evocative breaks of 'UN' by NY Graffiti, not to mention each of them delivering a remix of the other's track.
Review: Many people's first taste of Nocow was amid the second half of the dubstep era - a time when boundaries between established genres and more explorative, contemporary and adventurous beats were blurring, feeding directly into the beautiful mess we see before us today in the dance music scene. Since then, he has graced us with a raft of excellent work which, much like the ethics of the time he emerged from, never really stand still or regurgitate. The difference between Odinocow and 2017's Ledyanoy Album is a case in point. Whereas then we were going through sounds that owed much to 1990s ambient techno, IDM, and associated noises, here we take a very different path, with a haunted R&B undertone running throughout the work, and plenty of nods to polished beach house, trance, and chill wave.
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