Claro Intelecto - Second Blood EP (Delsin)

After nine years of putting out consistently high quality house and techno variations, new material from Claro Intelecto gets pretty much brought on sight nowadays, so I jumped on this three tracker for Delsin last time I was in the shop. Whilst Mark Stewart's earliest work was heavily indebted to Detroit and Sheffield, with a few influences from the burgeoning bass music scene, Second Blood sees him encorporating aspects of Demdike Stare's skeletal drone compositions and a fair dose of Deepchord's reverb-heavy echochamber work. Overdriving the high end and layering up ridiculous amounts of reverb, Stewart channels a goodly amount of Rod Modell's dreamy aesthetic, coating everything in fine-grained dust and echo that blur solid shapes. Adding to the oneiric feel is the distinct tempo drop - Second Blood and Heart both see Stewart slowing to 90bpm despite retaining a house/ techno blueprint for the beats - which adds to the floaty, disconnected feeling.
Final track Voyeurism raises the tempo back to 120bpm, and throws in a more solid palette of claps and percussion to drive things forward, but retains the scuffed and blurry aesthetic, building through three false climaxes before introducing a skronky acid line that's still brillinatly minimal. With a full-length album due on Delsin later this year, there's further reason to be keeping eyes on Claro Intelecto and his unique brand of dub. Awesome stuff.

Van Pain

Austrian DJ and producer Van Pain sent us some music via soundcloud and I'm digging this one, -30 Grad Degrees Celcius. It's a minimal, very acid-inflected slow burner that takes its time evolving a solid groove from squelchy synths.

Kuedo on Soundcloud

Found this. Happy days.

Model 500 - Control / The Messenger

Model 500 - Control / The Messenger (20 Feb R&S Records)
Model 500's triumphant return with OFI led to much rejoicing, and it understandably made many people's record of the year last year. The pounding techno undercarriage, coupled with maniacal electro riffs and magic Juan back in full force with epic rants about the mothership, time travel and dimensional shift, made for a genre-crossing dancefloor destroyer. Model 500's latest 12" however sees Juan setting control for the heart of the sun and heading into far more cosmic territory, layering up floaty synths and woogy-woogy theramin melodies that are all kinds of awesome. Despite Model 500's reputation for hell-for-leather electronic madness, both sides of the 12" are heavily influenced by the kind of machine-driven bleep-techno that Sleeparchive and Mika Vainio have made their mainstay, with Control translating analogue fetishism into a rolling italo number, replete with vocodered vox and flailing synth lines. It ought to be a jarring clash of styles, but Atkins weaves together the underlying fascinations with analogue equipment to create a brilliantly uncomfortable piece of machine funk. I can't say the vocoder impresses me, but it does add to the whole "this is detroit electro... in space!" vibe. The Messenger is less scattershot, boosting the theremin to the forefront of the mix and thankfully cutting out the vocals, it makes for a suitably epic B-side, that frankly outshines the A.

My only criticism of this record is that Model 500 seem straightjacketed by the electro template, unable to move beyond high-speed synth riffs and hip-hop beats, and admittedly neither track does much to change this. However, between Control's anashamedly retro sound and The Messenger's epic cosmic feel, there's plenty to like about it.

Church When The Church Hits The Fan - Under The Last Dust

Under The Last Dust from harlequinade on Vimeo.Played it as part of the new Shallow Rave radio, just found this rather awesome video in my email backlog. Shallowrave likes Harlequinade

The Shallow Rave Show, 13th February 2012

Shallow Rave regulars Boag and Liam (hosts of the much-missed Little Rock Radio Show on RadioMagnetic) join Bram, aka Black Lantern's Texture, to present the first in a regular podcast series! Showcasing the best in new experimental and electronic music, with some classics, exclusives, and on future shows, guest mixes from some of our favourite producers and DJs.

You can download and stream below. Show A has the hosts chatting about their selections and giving you news about upcoming gigs in Scotland, while Show B is just the music. Enjoy! We'll be back very soon with show #2...



Playlist for Shallow Rave 001:


Refused - Party Program (The Shape Of Punk To Come) [Burning Heart]
Church Of When The Shit Hits The Fan - Under The Last Dust (COWTSHTF2) [www.blacklanternmusic.com]
CRIM3S - HOLES (CRIM3S EP) [blackbusrecords.bigcartel.com]
Kuedo -Ant City (Severant) [Planet Mu]
Muslimgauze - Fez TiShan (Sulaymaniyah) [Staalplaat]
DJ Deathray - Bombs On It (Neus) [auralsects.bandcamp.com]
Ghostek - Mutual Surrender [soundcloud.com/ghostek]
Buraka Son Sistema - Burrakaton (Komba) [Enchufada]
Perc - My Head is Slowly Exploding (Chris Carter Remix) [Perc]
Claro Intelecto - Contact [Modern Love]
Function - Rekjavik [Sandwell District]
Plastikman - Helikopter [Plus 8]
Jonas Kopp - Mico [Curle]
Levon Vincent - Late Night Jam [Ostgut]
Sandwell Disrtict - Reality or Nothing (Silent Servant Mix) [Sandwell District]
Black Dog - Bass Mantra [Dust Science]
Wireman - Armour [Prime Numbers]
Sigha - Light Swells in a Distant Space [Hot Flush]
CREEP - Animals ft. Holly Miranda (Alpines remix) (Animals)  [soundcloud.com/creep-2]
Beastie Boys x Dead Virgins - Sabotage [soundcloud.com/lucianblomkamp]
Lowkey - Keep Your Hand On Your Gun (Sountrack To The Struggle) [Mesopotamia Music]
Loki - Seasons Change [soundcloud.com/volition-scotland]
Byetone - Topas (Symeta) [Raster-Noton]
Pictureplane - Real Is A Feeling (Grimes Remix) [soundcloud.com/pictureplane]
LetKolben - Valery [soundcloud.com/letkolben]
C.A.N.S. - Emilio Estavex [soundcloud.com/c-a-n-s]
Jetsam - Beneath The Ice (HMS Below) [phuturelabs.com]
Krowne - Spooky Action At A Distance (Distorted Thoughts) [www.blacklanternmusic.com]
First Place Science Project - Abusive Scary Language ft. p.WRECKS [firstplacescienceproject.bandcamp.com]
Coki - Celestial Dub (b-side for Don't Get It Twisted) [DMZ]

Been ripped off (again)

Cross post from Niallism.

So, somebody called Michael Trombley has started a new night in Detroit called Menergy. Hmm, "Menergy"... that name is familiar. OK, it's a Patrick Cowley song - we don't claim ownership of the name.

So, what is this new night's music policy? Italo disco and Hi-NRG, you say? Well, everyone loves disco! Right? Sure, can't take credit for that, especially when we admit to being influenced by well established club nights like Melting Pot and Horse Meat Disco. Only, we were one of the first clubs to focus strictly on Hi-NRG, a sound that is a huge and under-acknowledged part of Scotland's clubbing history (if you're in doubt about that, ask Optimo's Twitch about Fire Island or Bennets, or check out this Menergy guest mix from Stuart MacLean aka Frenchbloke)

But anyway, this must all be just a simple co-incidence. Oh, wait a minute...

Menergy Detroit poster (FEB 2012):



Menergy Glasgow Poster (JAN 2011):



Hmmm, ok. But that's a popular song lyric.

Sure.

So check this...

Menergy Detroit flyer (FEB 2012):



Menegy Glasgow flyer (NOV 2010):



Yeah, it's pretty obvious there's some direct "inspiration" going on here.

But I'm gonna let you in on a little something - my jaded tone of indifference to all of this (as opposed to fuming anger) has got less to do with a hipsterite archness and more to do with having experienced it before.

Since January of 2011 I have been promoting drag-and-disco parties in Manchester with my partner Joe Spencer. We go by the name of TRANARCHY. You can find out more about us at www.tranarchy.co.uk.

Imagine our surprise when, in December we found out about Sink The Pink presents TRANARCHY.

Here's one of our promo images from last year:



And here is theirs (low quality as it's the only one available):



Any similarities?

Oh well, just another co-incidence, I'm sure.

Just like how this article I wrote for the website Dangerous Minds (in April 2011)

So that makes you a square: In Defense of the Hipster

was absolutely no inspiration whatsoever on this article for Disinformation (from August, 2011)

In Defense of the Hipster

despite DM and Disinfo sharing staff members in the past who left very acrimoniously (including myself).
Yep. No "inspiration" going on there - just pure, blind co-incidence.

So. do you think I should be angry about all of this?
Because, surprisingly, I am not.

Maybe I'm just too jaded by the repeat experience, but I DO take being copied as a compliment. I take what I do very seriously, even if that is not apparent to everyone all of the time. I pride myself on being a writer and musician of intelligence and integrity who is often ahead of the curve (or on a totally different tangent to most other folks). This can work to my detriment sometimes, but I still put a huge amount of effort into all my endevours, because I believe a half-arsed job is not worth doing.

There's nothing I can do to stop people copying me, and conversely there's nothing copyists can do to stop me doing my thing. If someone else comes along and likes what I do enough to want to do it too, or even if they think they can do it better, that's their call. Because at the end of the day, when you bite me, it's a sign that I'm doing something right.

Lindstrom "Quiet Place To Live" (Todd Rundgren Remix)

Lindstrom is back with a new single on the Norwegian label Smalltown Super Sounds, called "Quiet Place To Live". It comes backed by a remix from 70s prog-rock-meets-white-boy-soul legend Todd Rundgren. As far as I am aware this is the first time Rundgren has remixed anything, and with its driving rhyhm, nagging vocoders and floaty FM synths, this is a marriage made in space-disco heaven:

The Warrior Show

How did this ever come to pass? Who the hell pitched the idea to MTV to have the utterly batshit insane Ultimate Warrior, play Drill Sergeant Nasty to waif-like emo and post-hardcore bands? Billed as an "extreme motivational mind/body/soul work-out", it seems to consist of the 52-year old, steroid-ravaged Warrior (his legal name) attempting to turn kids from complete non-athletes to "looking like a fucking god" by screaming at them in a personalised gym/ torture chamber. Oh, and by saying "fuck" more times than ought to be humanely possible.

Genius!





HEAVY FUCKING METAL!

Gross Indecency

You can read my rant about the MIA "controversy" and the incident's rather patronising and sexist coverage in Douchefork over at Dangerous Minds.

As other writers have pointed out in the past, Pitchfork has a legacy of sexism to its tarnished name, which explains the hyperbolic over-reaction to a common hand gesture in this news piece. Had this been done by a man it would surely be lauded as “punk,” yet when MIA flips the bird during a televised game where grown men BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER, she’s an asshole who hates every single person watching her at that very moment. Living and dead. I mean seriously, how is anyone watching American Football going to cope with the mental scars that seeing a raised middle finger can bring?!?

Sigha - Abstractions I-IV

Sigha - Abstractions I-IV (Hot Flush, 20 Feb)

Awww yeah. Sigha's new 12" for Hot Flush expands his range even further and confirms him as one of the most consistently interesting producers of modern electronica, blending industrial, drone and techno to brilliant effect. Whilst previous EPs have been a solid blend of techno and dubstep, with one more surreal number tacked on, Abstractions is firmly centred around Sigha's more disturbing machinations, with only How To Disappear working a conventional techno groove. Opener Something in Between Us is a beatless, glacial drone sketch, channeling a fair dose of Eno or Ulrich Schnauss and building up a wall of ambience that peters out far too soon for my liking. Working with a similarly frosted aesthetic, Sigha continues with the Autechre-esque Where I Come To Forget, which delivers a pallete of blips and snarls that continually threatens to morph into breakbeats, but resolutely fails to ever kick off. The absence of notable breaks and drops will doubtless infuriate, but the cold, mechanistic feel that permeates the record translates beautifully to repetitive, minimal structures.

As the title suggests, Abstractions appears to composed of extracts from live jams, with more attention given to sculpting sounds than to crafting DJ tools, however How To Disappear's eventual four-to-the-floor rhythm makes for great dark techno. With its gasping reverb and three-note melody, it sits somewhere between Sleeparchive and Regis and begs to be given a workout on full soundsystem. Closing off the record is Drown, and appropriately aquatic, polyrhythmic dub-techno number that feels similar to the Black Dog's more recent industrial experiments, albeit without their gift for a strong technoid narrative. Whilst the overall minimalism and lack of drive may render the EP less accessible to some, Sigha's ear for sound and dynamic continues to improve, and it's an enjoyable challenge to DJ with.