God damn. Can Blackest Ever Black do any wrong? Complementing their existing roster of dark ambient, minimal and industrial artists, their latest release comes from Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, who's black magic rituals for Hospital Productions so far have been utterly superlative. Stretching synth tones and industrial malfunctions out until they attain monolithic proportions, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement craft a form of ambience that drowns modern electronics in a brutalist swamp of afro-dread. Whilst previous releases have drawn comparisons to Raime, with their skeletal beats and noticeable dub-influence, Black Magic Cannot Cross Running Water is a mostly beatless affair more indebted to Carpenter, Lustmord and Frank Bretschneider - the second track Refugees From Black Magic opens with a strangely ominous patter of rainfall that develops a loping half-rhythm before being subsumed under a wash of crepuscular synth noise. Top quality music.
New Shallowradio episode dropping very soon - killer tunes from Skudge, Cristian Vogel, Space Dimension Controller and brand new material from techno's grizzled vets, The Black Dog. Two hours of aural chaos from the best damn radio show on the internet.
It's hard to believe that Function's been producing tracks for over 15 years, when he continues to put out music of such depth and variety that it constantly feels fresh. His debut album, released in March on Ostgut is a remarkable testament to Function's ability to stay fresh and relevant and continually incorporate new sounds and dynamics into his work.
Having been working since the techno boom of the early 90s, Function (David Sumner) produced a number of reasonably-well received records, before reinventing himself as part of the game-changing Sandwell District collective around 2006. This time last year, Sandwell released a statement declaring that "As of December 31st 2011, all audio communications will cease", signalling the next stage of Sumner's metamorphosis, which kicked off with the slow-burning Obsessed on Echochord last year. Finally, after six months of news reports and speculation, Sumner at last releases his debut album on Ostgut, and whilst it's perhaps not as widely significant as Sandwell's work, it's certainly one of the more interesting techno albums I've heard in a while. Whilst some artist albums are just a larger bunch of singles and filler, Incubation is a single, cohesive, dense narrative, broken down into individual tracks. Ostgut describe it as "like the soundtrack to a suspenseful Techno-thriller", an apt description that fits with the widescreen sound Sumner's crafted - Function's still making his distinctive long-running techno, with its cavernous synth riffs and reverb-drenched percussion, but each track feeds into epic whole that nods to Carpenter, Vangelis and Jeff Mill's iconic Time Machine.
Feeding into the concept of a soundtrack, Voiceprint is a definite credit sequence; its kickdrum conspicuously absent, and it's arpeggiated repetitive riff creating a paranoiac mood, which breaks open as soon Against The Wall rolls in on highly strung acid squelch, cold washes of decay and solid kicks. Continuing the cinematic feel, the aptly-titled Inter approaches Deepchord levels of washed-out ambience for a second interlude, whilst Counterpoint enhances the widescreen feel by plucking the synth riff from Sandwell's killer Sampler #1 and submersing it in a haze of radio signal and stabbing metallic keys. To some extent, it's Function showing off his influences, dropping in aspects of dub, ambient and industrial, but in his experienced hands, it integrates seamlessly to enhance the techno. However, the withhold-and-tease dynamic can grow frustrating, and Function delivers seriously meaty pay-offs with the likes of Incubation, Voiceprint (Reprise) and Psychic Warfare, which come on like vintage Red Planet - all overdriven kicks, cosmic atmospherics and epic percussion riffs. Whilst this will rightly appeal to techno geeks, Modifier is my standout track - fusing Function's signature sound with Vainio-esque monotones, it's brilliantly dark, gradually shifting from icy fragility to skull-crushing heaviness, whilst riding a sinuous tom pattern.
Techno/ house producer Jack Dixon has a wealth of releases under his belt, via a number of hi-quality record labels - we dig free music and we dig his work, so check this 3-track EP out. Combining spectral atmospherics and wonky percussion, it's an enjoyably diverse set of tracks. Get it here.
I didn't get a chance to give this props before its release, but Recondite's work continues to impress me. It's not massively genre-breaking stuff that he puts out, but there's something about the his delicately vintage take on techno that appeals strongly to me - not the raw, aggressive vintage of old acid house, but the soft, warmly produced sound of classic analogue kit. This neat little two parter doesn't complicate matters with wild drum patterning or big drops, but sets up simple loopy riffs and lets it all unfold. On one side, DRGN drops a wickedly vibrating bassline, building up a slow-burning filter shift backed by taught percussion to make for a solid techno tune - something like Redshape, taken down a notch or two. For me, the flipside's where it's at, cooking a couple of simple analogue key riffs for nine minutes, shifting the decay or the pitch every now and then to switch up a little. Recondite really makes the most of a minimal palette, making every aspect count, and when the clap starts up at the four minute mark, Wist 365 translates the slow-burning energy into a quality house groove. It's not a peak-time destroyer or a definitive anthem of any sort, that's for sure, but I'm in love with the rolling pace and rich sound that's going on here, so listen out for it on the radio show.
Bass Clef - Dawn Chorus Pedal (Idle Hands, Sept 17th)
When Bass Clef's excellent Reeling Skullways dropped a couple of months back, a discussion on our radio show ended up with us concluding that he'd obviously purchased a whole bunch of tech and had made an album just to get some use out of it. Reading an interview in Wire from a couple of months back, turns out we weren't exactly wrong, and his forthcoming single on Idle Hands is equally techno-driven and rich sounding, indulging Cumbers' love of vintage drum machines and analogue synthesisers. The warm bass synth from Reeling Skullways reappears in Dawn Chorus Pedal, providing a springy Detroit undercarriage for otherwise screwy techno - Bass Clef experiments with discordantly tuned toms, erratically delayed hi-hats and uncomfortably mixed snare smashes to continually mess with the techno formula. Consisting of three movements, Dawn Chorus Pedal starts off with a solid four-to-the-floor kick, building to an obvious breakdown before re-emerging as erratic breakbeat that in turns dissolves in reverb washes and synthesiser drones - a structural technique that enhances the offbeat feel.
The flipside, You Don't Know Don't You Know is a simplistic, loop-driven sketch that takes its cues from hypnagogic pop, ambient and dub - vocals get chopped and screwed around varying delays, with a warm bass riff and epic tom rolls. Reeling Skullways saw Bass Clef growing as a producer and moving away from his lo-fi sound, and whilst the title track seems to continue in the same vein, You Don't Know Don't You Know is something very new and unique sounding that shows growth as a producer.
Pole - Waldgeschichten 3 (August 27th - Pole Music)
Pole continues to broadcast from the most strangely isolated places with the third and final part of his Waldgeschichten series, producing two defiantly dub cuts that work the listener hard with seemingly unending repetition, before finally allowing rays of light to permeate the mix. In contrast to the skanking dub of the first EP, and the more agressive follow-up, Waldgeschichten 3 takes the slip-slide groove of minimal hip-hop and spreads every element thin, amplifying and enunciating the edge sounds to create a spectral palette. In keeping with the minimalist aesthetic, both tracks work with very simplistic dub structures, slowly shifting timbre and key until the repetitiveness verges on unbearable... and then carries on a while for good measure. Moos places particular emphasis on a resonant clave that becomes almost jarring, so that when the simplistic two-note bassline finally emerges, it's dynamic impact is far more significant. In other hands, this kind of slow-burning minimalism could end up uninspired or boring, but Pole's delicate engineering always ensures a certain level of quality, and Lurch's deliberately rough recording quality and heavy emphasis on static and microphone pickup yields an intriguingly different aesthetic.
14.09.12 Sopot (PL) – Open Source Art Festival (video by P.MA)
Hemlock continues to impress with an unsurprisingly solid 12" from
head honcho Untold, which channels a very satisfying amount of Berghain darkness, shot through with subtle melodies and counter-rhythms. Whilst Untold's biggest strength is his fluid percussion and complex approach to rhythm, I've always been particularly keen on his lower end landscapes; the strange way that he manages to combine both misanthropic gloominess and a surprising amount of delicacy in his subs and basslines. Check out his work on Round Black Ghosts for proof. Caslon takes an
entirely different root - with an arpeggiated acid synth bludgeoning the listener, it's way more aggressive than previous works. Complementing this more hard-nosed aesthetic is some beautifully
over-driven percussion, with the white noise on all the hats and cymbals turned up to a wickedly distorted level that recalls Karl O Connor's work with Peter Sutton. On the flip, Breathe adopts a more late-night
house feel, mixing classic garage-house with sparkling keys that recall Claro Intelecto's early analogue fanboyisms. The problem is that Untold never really gets beyong fanboyisms, despite the mentally innovative nature of Stereo Freeze (RandS ), and with the current wave of Berghain-fixated UK producers, this doesn't stand out as much as Can't Stop This Feeling or Anaconda. It's not that either of the tracks on this 12" are bad (Caslon's definitely
getting rinsed), but that considering the cross-genre masterpieces Guy Andrew's been dropping on Hemlock, this feels limited in its scope, and slightly masturbatory.
In 2012, dubstep is at best an ill-defined concept, and at worst, an excuse for terrible rave music; it's very satisfying to see once "dubstep" labels like Hemlock, Hessle and Hot Flush shaking off the last vestages of that shroud and turning out great dance music, period. Untold's definitely a big part of that change, but as good as these tunes are, they lack that ineffable je ne sais quo, or "what the fuck is this?" factor to make them truly great.
Radio Magnetic are proud to present the Shallow Rave podcast, bringing together members from Black Lantern Music, Little Rock Records (currently on hiatus) and a number of other projects. With a heavy focus on experimental and Net Audio releases, Shallow Rave covers everything from hip-hop and experimental music to dub and straight-up techno.
Their first for Radio Magnetic,
and fourth experiment so far, this episode features a guest mix of
stately dark electro and dream-pop from hip-hop witch house producer BLACK CEILING (Aural Sects / I Had An Accident / Black Lantern), and an extensive interview with Scottish hip-hop legend Loki who talks about his work with Volition,
an organisation using rap to transform the lives of young Scottish
people, upstaging Shakespeare and his experiences in the battle rap
scene.
Tracklist
Death Grips – I’ve Seen Footage – Epic / Thirdworlds
Deadbeat & Danuel Tate - Lazy Jane (BLKRTZ, 30 April)
Following his 12" for Exone that we were rather into, Deadbeat fires out another intriguing cut, a collaboration with Cobblestone Jazz's Danuel Tate that's reminiscent of the Main Street releases, with a deep dub and a jacking house rework of the same material. Danuel Tate's vocals are a strange beast; tremulous wails heavily distorted by a vocoder, and whilst I usually dislike (Read: utterly despise) vocoder work, Tate creates an intriguing tension between organic, soulful and harshly mechanistic sounds that feels fresh. The A-side plays very much in the Tikiman/ Burial mix style; a loping dub composed of little more than a kick, a woodblock hit and two-note bass riffs, before introducing Tate's vocals and warpy valve organ flourishes. It's a typically warm Deadbeat production that's very much made for the smoking, and a solid addition to any record box. On the flipside, Lazy Jane 909 Dub is exactly as it sounds; a classic house-driven dub workout of kicks and claps, stripping away the vocals and throwing all the synths into the echo chamber to bounce around. It's probably the most beguilingly straightforward cut from BLKRTZ so far, and has more in common with the retro-analogue style of Horizontal Ground or Jonas Kopp than the experimentalism of ~scape Monteith cited as his inspiration, but it's a quality counterpoint to the A-side's somnambulic half-time shuffle.
Deadbeat's greatest strength is his ability to combine an encyclopedic knowledge of dub with a his own unique approach to sound - Radio Rothko and Drawn & Quartered are great examples of combining intelligence and passion to create great music. Despite the high calibre of both tracks, Lazy Jane does err a little too heavily on the fanboyisms, skirting dangerously on the edge of pastiche and wearing its influences proudly on the sleeve; it's hard to shake off the feeling of listening to an unreleased Main Street record. However, only the most aggressively cynical hipster could moan "heard it all before" at what is, in truth, a well-rounded, well-produced EP that fits nicely into Monteith's catalogue of releases, and deserves praise for its strengths.
Shallowrave likes Bass Clef - watching him rise over the past few years, we've been in attendance at some wickedly screwy live sets in the Subby and in Stereo and repped his EP's as best we can. So a new full length on the excellent Punch Drunk is very welcome, and sees 'Clef unveiling a totally different style to his traditionally freeform dub/noise/IDM blend. Taking his cues from the wonkier moments of Chi-town and Detroit, Reeling Skullways is nine tracks of house twice-removed; a roiling mix of analogue modulation, swung four-to-the-floor rhythms and epic cosmic riffs. Whilst A Smile Is A Curve That Straightens Most Things, Hackney Centralist and Cumbers' early works are strongly carnivalesque, with trombone riffs and sampled MC lines, Reeling Skullways focusses more on the delicious quirks of analogue kit, and draws heavily from Model 500's space-age feel. Equally, the likes of Hackney-Chicago-Jupiter and Suddenly Alone Together show a far more focussed side to Cumbers, being edited and arranged into more coherent dancefloor numbers than the deliciously erratic Clapton Deep or Promises. Most striking is Embrace Disaster, where the warm analogue heart, delicate synth strings and conga percussion come together to create something that sounds like a beefed up Moroder classic.
Whilst Reeling Skullways first gives the impression of being some strange new beast, it's possible to hear elements of Cumbers' past experiments across the album, from the echochamber and delay work on Stenaline Metranil Solar Flare, to the EkoClef-esque industrial grind on the opening and closing beatless segments. It's a singularly bold step forward however, and opens up many new possibilities for Bass Clef.
When Deadbeat launched his BLKRTZ label last year, with the excellent album Drawn and Quartered, it seemed that Scott Monteith was returning to a darker and more downbeat sound, so it's a pleasant surprise to hear him teaming up with Exercise One for a more dancefloor orientated 12". Never straying from his signature dub-techno blend, Monteith leans more on the latter aspect with strongly, well, acidic synths in contrast to his usual valve organ and Basic Channel-inflected sounds, underlain by a solid four-to-the-floor kick. At eight minutes long, everything from the bass to the bleeps is given a solid workout, and there's plenty of DJ tool potential in this solid solid roller. The Exercise One remix does little new, mostly content to blow away the cobwebs and strip the track down to a more straight-up technoid aesthetic. Neither track's really blowing my mind, and in comparison to the rich journey that was Drawn & Quartered, it's somewhat less exciting dub, but solid enough tools from two quality artists.
Shallow Rave's radio team returns! After last month's triumphant guest mix from TEXTBEAK, which garnered in excess of 1500 listens, hosts Liam, Boag and Bram (aka Black Lantern's Texture) are back to present their selection of the finest cuts in experimental and electronic music, with exclusives, classics and red-hot mixes.
You can download and stream below. Show A features some chat from the presenters about their selections, while Show B has just the music, nothing else. We'll be back very soon with Show 004, when we'll have some exciting news about the show, and some very special guests, including a guest mix from dark electronic / hip-hop wunderkind BL▲CK CEILING.
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.
DMZ have done a great deal of good as part of London's bass music scene, and I was particularaly vocal about Mala's epic remix of the Moritz Von Oswald Quartet; their cross-over into more techno-influenced territory and gigs in Berghain have only served to cement my respect for the work they do. However this record from Coki feels like a step backwards, a regression to dubstep's ket-friendly, strictly-formula blend of massive basslines and loping percussion that feels tired and done to death. Tree Trunk opens the record promisingly with Carpenter-esque horror-synths and breathy atmospherics, building the kind of hypnotic dub Pinch or Martyn do on their best days. And then the bassline comes in. All nippy high-end and wrenching pitch shift, it murders the majority of the mix and is an unpleasantly abrasive addition to what was shaping up quite nicely - when the drop hits, it reverts back to being a well-engineered, intriguing track. Following it up with Lower Octave, Coki fires back in with exactly the same kind of nagging look-at-me sawtooth synthline that dominates everything in sight, and the predictable one-and-threes kick & snare pattern. Obviously it's a question of taste, but in comparison to the substantial body of work Coki had amassed, and the reputation of DMZ, this feels immature and badly-worked.
The biggest shame about this record is that the second plate is a pretty solid piece of work - Celestial Dub's hydro-inflected organ is a thing of beauty and adds a much needed dubby element to the record, offsetting it with mental levels of delay on everything. Everything. Leaving aside the brain-melting basslines, Coki builds up a very competent and blissfully stoned steppa's riddim that deserves a good run out. The fourth side of this EP again throws a total curveball, and garners that same "what the hell has he been smoking?" reaction that Boomba brought out - the bassline flip-flops around, contorting and meandering, whilst a plethora of Bomberman melodies skew across the top. It's as abrasive as anything off the first disk, but the level of surrealism and completely over-the-top nature make it a genuinely interesting piece of work. Buy the tracks digitally.
I was pretty excited by Pole's first release on his new label, and enthused about the new ideas he's been working with, so it's pleasing to see him gather momentum with the follow up 12". Warm and resonant subs underpin Pole's trademark glitchy sound and shuffling, rootsy structures, fusing the best of techno and dub with the kind of syncopations more often seen in the work of Headhunter, 2562 and Martyn. There's a far more distinct sense of narrative to Aue and Pirol than exhibited on the first Waldesgeschichten, with more evident build ups and breakdowns, despite being built around long, evolving loops. Equally, the tension between Aue's solid, bass-driven repetitiveness, and off-kilter two-step bounce of Pirol gives the EP a sense of structure with it's contrasting styles.
Continuing in the same Romantic vein as the first EP, the track titles are drawn from natural imagery - Pirol is a vibrant yellow songbird, whilst Aue roughly translates as grassland - and channel the same sense of vitality and organic growth. Betke's work has often focused on the mechanistic, fetishising technology and searching for the ghosts in the machine, but this change in direction is a welcome refresher, without losing sight of what make his work so special.A-Aue-Excerpt by pole original B Pirol-Excerpt by pole original
Pole plays the following dates in December, if anyone wants to buy me a ticket to Berlin...
Guy Andrews of Iambic / Moving Dawn Orchestra turns his hands to more dancefloor orientated material with this intriguing EP for Hemlock; taking on a more dense, percussive style but retaining his signature warm production, it's intriguing stuff. Shades kicks off in typical Hemlock fashion - skittery rhythms and snare-heavy drum fills that recall Pangaea, whilst warm swathes of synths build up in typical Iambic fashion. Despite the higher tempo and influences from UK funky, it's surprisingly delicate and melodic material, even with the beefy 808 kicks and hefty bass that come in on the drop. Chopping and changing throughout, Andrews uses some seriously convuluted percussive structures and dyamic shifts that are a welcome challenge to DJ with. AA Side Textures similarly skews perceptions, balancing neatly between techno, dub and funky (small f) percussive arrangements, refusing to ever settle into a solid groove to the point of infuriation. Again, Andrews manages to apply a welcome dose of melody and warmth to the UK funky template, and builds a powerful dancefloor tune. Another big hitter for Hemlock, and really intriguing work from Andrews, who manages to turn out quality dancefloor material without relying on cheap tricks like wobble bass or over-compression. Perhaps a little too subtle for some, but definitely worth watching.
