Review: Two years after his critically acclaimed album Ultrachroma, Kangding Ray makes a typically bold return to ARA with his dance-floor-focused new long player, ZERO. The artwork reflects his diverse explorations and influences which converge here into a cohesive sound designed to ignite movement in the club. This album revisits the essence of his early work and is rather reminiscent of his debut on the experimental label Raster-Noton but it also incorporates the hypnotic elements characteristic of his DJ sets. Continuously evolving his sound and pushing the boundaries of the genre, all 10 of these tunes are mend melting and atmospheric rollers speed in great sound design.
Review: Since delivering his debut album on PNN a decade ago, Matt Kent AKA Matt Karmil has proved adept at adapting the club-focused sound of his EPs to the long-playing format - as his inspired and wonderfully atmospheric sets for Idle Hands and Smalltown Supersound prove. He continues this notable run of form on this Studio Barnhus released set, crowding ultra-deep, dusty grooves in opaque chords, cut-up sample snippets, lo-fi crackle, hazy ambient textures and nods towards a myriad of ear-pleasing electronic styles and sounds. Highlights are plentiful, with our picks being the dubby, mind-altering late-night hypnotism of 'Still Something There' and the becalmed, meditative ambient deepness of superb closing cut '15 Mins' (which, confusingly, is just 13 minutes long).
Review: Kike Pravda is back on his Senoid Recordings outlet with a new album one year in the making. The eight cuts find him further hone in on the essentialness of techno with nice hardware textures and that lived-in analogue feel that always elevates things. 'The Chaos Of Silence' is an intense opener with loopy bells and dark bass, 'Sequential' sounds like a futuristic factory floor at peak production and 'Late In The Night' is classic deep space afterparty minimalism. A proper album that covers plenty of ground.
Review: Layer is the new label from Berlin techno favourite Berghain for the music released by its residents. Ben Klock is one of the most celebrated of those and here he links up with Fadi Mohem for an album that eschews his famous techno sounds in favour of a new blend of IDM, ambient and experimental sounds. 'Layer One' comes on double vinyl and opens with 'Ultimate (feat Coby Set)' which is an atmospheric opener with icy synths and sparse landscapes, then 'Escape Valley' explores kinetic rhythms and glitchy synths, 'The Vanishing' is another exploration of a distant corner of the cosmos and 'The Machine' brings more cinematic and evocative electronic designs.
Review: You might say the clue is in the name, but as well as bearing a nice selection of differently cut beat action, this double album from French/Syrian producer Ahmad Qatrami aka Konalgad on New York's Dance Data label, is also a nicely cerebral affair jammed with celestial adventures for mind as well as feet. It refuses to get stuck in any stylistic rut, from the cloud-like ambience of 'REM' to the brooding bass and dubby stepping of 'Subzero Experiment' and the simmering shimmer of 'Dots To Dots', half digi-dub thump and half subtly filtered junglist trimmings, it keeps on giving something new right to the end. Konalgad apparently translates as "the universe of tomorrow" in Arabic, and this artist definitely has a bright future to match his already quite impressive track record.
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