Miles - Faint Hearted

Miles Whittaker, who's had his fingers in acts as diverse as Pendle Coven, MLZ, Millie and Demdike Stare basically gives us massive nerd-boners with every new release, and has chosen to follow up Demdike Stare's obnoxiously heavy Test Pressing with a full-length album under his own name. Boiling down everything from contemporary electronica and techno, to retro Chicago and old-school jungle, it's a seething mass of intricately engineered sounds, smothered in distressing levels of noise - opener Lebensform takes the fairly ubiquitous filter-house / dub techno sound and pushes it to a terrifying level of extremity, dissolving into a wall of white noise and oscillation. It just gets weirder from then on, and definitely takes a good few listens to get into.

Function - Incubation (Ostgut Ton)

Function - Incubation (Ostgut Ton, March 4th)

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.

This is how to do a techno album properly.

Bass Clef - Reeling Skullways (Punch Drunk, 30 April)

Bass Clef - Reeling Skullways (Punch Drunk, 30 April)

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.

Monolake - Ghosts (Imbalance Computer Music)

Monolake - Ghosts (Imbalance Computer Music)

Robert Henke's Monolake project returns with its first full length since 2009's foray into untreated sound Silence, this time utilising more drum and bass-inflected structures to explore the malleability of sound. One of Henke's major achievements has been his continual ability to utterly reinvent the contemporary zeitgeist, redefining the minimal sound with Hong Kong, creating a terrifying industrial/ breakbeat hybrid on Momentum, and reinterpreting the merging strands of dubstep and techno as an experimental untreated album on Silence; as such, it's slightly jarring to hear a man widely regarded as being at the cutting edge of electronic music's philosophy and science reacquainting himself with his D'nB and Breakbeat roots. It's fair to say that credibility of both genres has been severely strained over time, with the tools of the trade (funky drummer, reeses bassline etc) having been overworked to the point of boredom, or pushed to extremes of speed and volume that inevitably burn out.

Whilst Ghosts opens with a rapid 2-step pulse and lfo-wobbled sub-bass that sounds very breaksy, it's immediately recognisable as Monolake, with dessicated vocal snippets and armour-piercing percussion that sounds like absolutely no-one else - it's Henke at his most terrifying; doomier than ever, haunted by freakishly engineered vocals and sprays of digital glitch. Whilst much of the tempo of the album is decidedly upbeat, as a musical journey, it's a slow-moving beast that takes gazes on Goan psychadelia and eastern mysticism, playing out through singing bowls and the echoing sounds of great valleys. Creating natural acoustic phenomena through digitial synthesis, then feeding them into an array of digital effects is a stark contrast to Silence's unmastered beauty, and as such, even the more ambient moments of the album feel imbued with darkness and doom.

Ultimately, any new record from Monolake is happily recieved, and even total curveballs such as silence, and Henke's inimitable style makes for compelling listening. With Silence and Ghosts the first two parts of trilogy, I'm eagerly anticipating the final third.

Scuba - Personality

I'm not as immediately sold on this record as I was by Triangulation, but there's a great deal of depth here, and it definitely rewards repeat listening. Scuba continues to be awesome.

Ali Renault exclusive interview

You shouldn't have to ask who Ali Renault is or why we love his music by now - we've featured him a bunch of times in the past, whether it be as himself and his incredible releases that formed the backbone of the now-legendary Dissident imprint, his darker Cestrian alter-ego (via releases on Monox), or as one half of the sexy Italo love machine that is Heartbreak.

So you'll be over the moon to know that Mr Renault (not his real name) is just about to release his debut album on London's italo/electro imprint Cyber Dance. Already picking up some serious accolades, the album is a stormer and shows off Ali's excellent and unique brand of dark slo-mo techno-funk over 8 new tracks (ok, some of them are older tunes re-worked). Vice likes it, and while that may be a bad sign, be consoled in the knowledge that DJ magazine describe it as "superior machine funk" and Mixmag think Ali has "the original electro and Italo sound nailed". And what do we think of it? It's awesome of course, as good as anything out of Detroit or Rimini, but then we always knew it would be. Let's just say that Ali Renault is untouchable at making machine music that will get you up off your feet while chilling you to your very core.

There's a very special launch party happening tonight for the album at Stoke Newington's Baby Bathhouse venue, coming at you by way of Magic Waves and featuring a live set from Ali and a dj set by the awesome Casionova. To get him in the mood I sent Ali some questions to answer - including some about his darkly magical tech set-up which he was very keen to avoid answering:

How did you get into music? What were your formative influences?

I got into playing in bands as a teenager, going to gigs and buying records. My formative influences were metal and techno.
 
Who is your favourite dj and why?

DJ Drug Money aka Peter Mangalore. His sets are amazing. He has a varied collection of strange vinyl’s and makes records you already have sound totally different. Go Peter.

Ali goks his cat Tiesto - no kittehs were harmed in the making of this photo.

You have a very particular sound, how did you develop it? 

I haven’t really changed my set up since I started making music at home with synthesizers years ago, apart from updating a few bits here and there but I make music the same way I always did. Sequencing, recording, arranging etc. I like using old cheap hardware and I enjoy trying to evoke a dark mood with machines. It’s fun.
 
What synths do you have in the studio?

Not telling.
 
What other current producers do you rate? 

I rate Tommy Walker 3 for his absurd synth funk, Brassica for his beautifully crafted music, Mark Du Mosch for his fresh interpretation of house, Gatto Fritto for his psychedelic long player released earlier this year and Antoni Maiovvi for his modern horror disco.
 
Your music is very cinematic, have you ever scored anything?

I have scored a couple of short films and worked as a foley recordist for a couple of years, which was nice. I would love to score something big one day for sure.

What's your favourite 70s or 80s soundtrack?

Has to be the Terminator soundtrack by Brad Fiedel. Total suspense drama.
The Suspiria soundtrack scored by Goblin would be my second choice and musically its far more advanced but I love the minimal approach from Fiedels work on Terminator. Genius.


 
You are well known for your live shows - how have they been going recently?

Yeah pretty good, I’ve taken it around the UK and Europe and it seems to go down well. It’s very different to DJing, which I also love but its nice to play your own music in a live context.

Are you going out on tour in support of the album?

I’m currently gathering some live dates for 2012. There will be a few UK shows until then.
 
Tell us a bit more about Cyber Dance records, like what other artists are on the label and what other releases you have coming up? 

Artists we have released so far are Matzo & Pauli, Andy Romano, Serious Lover, Mark Du Mosch, Casionova, Spruxx, Brassica, Bill Ambrose, Tommy Walker 3 and Meschi amongst a few others. Our current release (Cyber Dance 011) is my album and after that we have Antoni Maiovvi, Bandido’s Gang (featuring 2 great remixes from Denmarks’ Flemming Dalum) and Electric Dragon for the foreseeable future.


In the spirit of awesomeness, here's a couple of tracks from Ali's album for you to download. You can get the wicked "Pagan Run" as a download from the lovely peeps at 20 Jazz Funk Greats, and Mixmag also have an unmastered version of "Promises" for you to grab: :

Deepchord - Hash Bar Loops

Deepchord - Hash Bar Loops (Soma)

Deepchord - Hash Bar Loops (Soma)

I've always enjoyed Rod Modell's work as Deepchord - his ability to manipulate and deconstruct the basic building blocks of house, techno and dub has made him one of the most intriguing modern electronic propositions, and the depth of sound conjured is second to none. Previous album The Coldest Season, released on Modern Love, rather than his own Deepchord imprint was a perfect synthesis of his sparse dub sound and Modern Love's own experimental ethos, so bearing in mind Soma's reputation for dancefloor-orientated house and techno, one would expect this to contain more focused material than the twenty minute live performances he's taken to putting on the flip sides of vinyls as CV313. Opening with Spirits, we plough headlong into proper Deepchord territory; delicate washes of white noise, massively refined sound-desk work and groans of synthesisers slowly sweeping and decaying, before building into Vainquer-esque dub-techno on Stars and Sofitel. The majority of the album sticks with a similar sound palette of cavernous bass, far-away synths and reductionist percussive riffs, but with these simple tools Hitchell manages to build a narrative that guides us through Amsterdam (where the album was recorded), from the heady, stoned vibes of its coffee shops and bars, to the throb of the city centre and the blare of its red light districts and nightclubs. There's few obvious breakdowns, and like most of Deepchord work, it seems to be extracted from long, extended jams rather than designed for DJs. At the heart of the album is the shuffling Oude Kirk, which utilises a chattering percussive riff reflecting Amsterdam's ever-moving tramways, and smoothly seques into City Centre, the most focussed track of the album with a kickdrum high in the mix, sensory encounters fleeting, transient and washed away into nothingness.

Closing the album off are Black Cavendish and Neon and Rain, polar opposites of the bustle at the heart of the album that paint a much bleaker picture. Black Cavendish, again focusses on a kickdrum, but elevates it high into the mix, with a claustrophobic amount of sub-bass. With hisses panning around the speakers and little let up, it serves as a paranoid counterpoint to the sunny dub of Merlot or Balm and leaves the listener drained and shaken. In contrast, Neon and Rain is a beatless, doom-laden peice of ambience that draws all colour from the synth stabs and groans with far away blasts of noise. It's the perfect coda to a powerful piece of modern dub that proves Modell is a force to be reckoned with.

Surgeon - Breaking the Frame

Surgeon - Breaking the Frame (Downwards, out now on vinyl, CD / Digital next month)

Anthony Child returns to his Surgeon moniker with his first album in just over a decade, channeling everything from the brutalist techno of British Murder Boys, to his more experimental works with Karl O'Connor and Mick Harris into a seething melting pot of electronic head-fuckery. Considering Surgeon's vast body of work, plus his status as one of techno/dubstep's most singular DJs, there's a lot piled into Breaking the Frame - the gatefold artwork alluding to this with it's chaotic mix of colour and shape.

Dark Matter opens the record, with a series of analogue tones and glitches taken straight from Mika Vainio lilting over a subtle sub-bass, before Transparent Radiation rolls in like T++ or Dettman turning it up to full volume. We get the same treatment with Radiance and Power of Doubt, both running on grinding metallic pads and barely recognisable snares and hi-hats, utterly demolishing everything in their way. This isn't just a case of 4/4 destruction throughout though; Child continually shifts the dynamic of the tracks, ending one set of beats halfway through and giving way to an epic run-out of keys on Transparent Radiation, and indulging in some more Autechre influenced down-tempo work on Remover of Darkness.

It's undeniably Surgeon, contrasting the raw, to-the-knuckle techno, with warpy, melodic and offbeat passages. At times though, it almost feels like the repetitive beats are merely there as an afterthought, and Breaking the Frame focuses more on space, depth and atmosphere, floating off towards the end in a haze of analogue blurs and washes of sound.

Stagga - The Warm Air Room

Stagga - The Warm Air Room (Rag and Bone)

Following on from his singles on Rag and Bone and Rudeez, Stagga drops his debut album, The Warm Air Room, fusing violently nasty basslines to subtle hip-hop frameworks, and chanelling it all into a doomy, dread-fuelled warehouse sound. Whilst Face Get Splat and Sick as Sin were rooted squarely in the kind of full-on dubstep-mutant-bassline territory that Rag and Bone have made their own, The Warm Air Room displays a surprising amount of subtlety and delicacy of touch, without in any way sacrificing heaviness; following the Zomby-esque bleepy intro, Is This The Future rolls in bouncing hip-hop boom-bap, complete with G-funk strings and as detuned sample of U-God's famous "Roll like cocaine, straight from Bolivia" on the breaks. The Dragon heads more for a UK funky feel, with the monstrous bass-drone offsetting rattling tabla percussion and slightly surreal manga-esque quotes about summoning dragons. Even the pixel-driven psychedelia of Zomby and Rustie rears its head, on the likes of The Chilski and Original Misty, both featuring many-time collaborator Monky and skillfully bridging the divide between hip-hop and purple wow.

Neatly fusing the major strands of UK bass music, and creating a few anthems in the process, The Warm Air Room is an accomplished album from an artist who risked just plastering big basslines over everything and riding the Ket-massive all the way to the bank in his first few singles.

Atari Teenage Riot - Is This Hyperreal?

Atari Teenage Riot - Is This Hyperreal? (June 20th)

Atari Teenage Riot's new studio album, their first in 10 years, is vicious, nasty music for angry people, full of jackhammer beats, overdriven noise and screamy, riot-inducing vocals - it's absolutely awesome. Opening with the two recent singles Activate and Blood in my Eyes, ATR launch into gloriously mental, breakbeat-driven hardcore, full of hooky sloganeering and raucous gang-vocals, the latter drawing the powerful vocals of Nic Endo to the forefront. Drawing on subject matter as diverse as political activism, sex traffic, freedom of information and plastic surgery, ATR cut through the malaise and apathy of the consumer culture like a chainsaw through a mattress. There's more of the same in Codebreaker and Rearrange Your Synapses; three-chord, high speed machine music that rips up everthing in its path with cheerful abandon. However, as fun and effective as the breakbeat madness is, it's limited in its scope and can grow a little repetitive - title track Is This Hyperreal? is one of the album's stand-out numbers, working a series of vocal chants over a beatless 303 bassline that continually threatens to erupt and comes across like some early Scorn or Head of David number. With hints of (Pandemonium-era) Killing Joke's brooding paranoia, Nic Endo, Alec Empire and Cx Kidtronix take turns at inciting the listener to action and rebellion, and the rare sense of restraint actually delivers a far more powerful message than bellowing along at 180bpm.

One of ATR's central concepts has always been a fascination with machinery and the evolution of digital technology, both lyrically and technically; there's a nice homage to the retrograde Atari sound in Collapse of History, which begins with the classic pong sounds building up a beat. As well as being one of ATR's most interesting aspects, it's also a limitation at times, and Empire rarely lets vocals pass through the mix untreated - everything has to have delay, distortion and reverb, which can become frustrating and make tracks feel overworked towards the latter half of the album. Overall, Is This Hyperreal? is a brilliant slice of digital hardcore that sits neatly alongside ATR's other works, and hopefully, is a springboard for a triumphant return. Considering the tour dates lined up (wot, no Glasgow show?) it seems a fairly sure shot.

Alec Empire's Eyho Blog Presents Dim Mak Records Biggest & Hardest Tracks For Miami 2011 by Alec Empire's Eyho Blog on Mixcloud

Kode 9 - Black Sun

Kode 9 - Black Sun (Out Monday)

Yes, though the hype is absolutely through the roof over Kode 9 and the Spaceape's second album (over four years since Memories of the Future), it is actually as good as you want it to be. 'Memories was a barren, scorched record, full of empty, echoing soundscapes and sparse percussive frameworks; a low-end depiction of the wasteland after the apocalypse, where Spaceape's almost inhuman poetry growled across the emptiness. Jesus, Sine of the Dub consisted of a low-end rumble and an uncomfortably loud chord, with a few cymbals trapped in the high-end. Black Sun, despite the apocalyptic title, and Spaceape's ever-doomy delivery is a much warmer, richer record, reflecting the evolution of UK bass music in the intervening years, with tracks like the R'n'B inflected Love is the Drug and the reworked Black Sun (Partial Eclipse Version) brimming with richer percussion and evolving synth work. It's still dark and upsetting, with Spaceape spitting viciously about "the prophets taking liberties and re-arranging the words we say" and "a god who has underachieved", and Goodman crafting Bullets against Bone from the sounds of riots and protest. However, this feels like the place after the wasteland, a post-apocalypic, dystopian society - everything feels recognisable, but deformed and reworked according to a stranger set of values than we can comprehend.

It's a massively accomplished record, and far more accessible than Memories, without ever-losing the dread dub feel that the pair have made their own. Spaceape in particular has become a far more potent MC, combing the violent growling we last saw on Fuckaz with R'n'B aspects, hints of Roger Robinson's abstract rasta poetry, and even delivering a few bars in straight-up rapping. It's as broad and compelling a mix as we've come to expect from both Hyperdub and Kode & the Spaceape, and frankly is a good contender for album of the year already.

Out on monday.