MUSIC

Artificial Dance founder Interstellar Funk releases Live At The Rest Is Noise - Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Limited to 150 cassettes, the recording documents Interstellar Funk’s performance at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw concert hall in October 2021. The 45-minute set ebbs and pulses, leaving behind Interstellar Funk’s penchant for hard-wearing club sounds in favour of melody and texture. Some passages mirror elements from the studio album Into The Echo (Dekmantel, 2022), but the live setting allows Interstellar Funk to expand and explore richly detailed sonic spaces that highlight his skills as a composer-performer. Download card included.

Hajj’s Paris-based Dawn label delivers Modern Collapse’s debut album of dembow, drill and D&B tinted witch house-gothic. Leading down their unmarked path from Ronce’s frightening ‘Aquatics’ comp and the ‘From Dawn Till Dusk’ set that introduced us to Modern Collapse in 2021, ‘Usual Case Scenario’ serves to grasp the full scope of Gabriel De Sercey & Hugo Fabry’s slant on chthonic, contemporary club styles. To our ears they merge salient aspects of now-decade old witch house and ricocheting ballistics of ‘00s junglist breakcore with flourishes of ambient chamber classical and dembow that temper the emotions at the shadowy limen of club music’s sweatier peaks. The eight tracks are arranged with a underlying narrative thrust or arc that makes for an absorbing ride, bookending the session with particularly tender, cinematic parts of icy keys, vaporised vox and ambient subtlety, while the main body staggers between ruggedest UK-style dubstep (‘Gateway to Nihilism’), gothic chamber classical (‘Untold Subjects (Skit1))’, and scowling brukouts of dembow-rooted jungle/breakcore on ’Stolen Whispers in the Club’ and ‘Rush’.

»Tides« marked a radical change in direction for Arovane. After Uwe Zahn had made a name for himself with cutting-edge IDM rhythms and slick ambient textures on a slew of releases, his sophomore album saw the prolific producer opt for a sample-based approach that resulted in a more organic sound and laid-back downbeat grooves. Having reissued Arovane’s seminal »Atol-Scrap« as a double LP in 2021, the Berlin-based Keplar label now makes »Tides« available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2000 through the legendary City Centre Offices. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork. It shines a new light on a release for which Zahn quite literally ventured into previously unknown territory — »Tides« is an album that emits a timeless, quiet calm and nonetheless stays constantly in motion. »The idea for the album came to me after a vacation in France«, says Zahn. Inspired by the landscape, especially the coastline and the sea, he made field recordings throughout his trip that were also used on the record, giving it its sensual feel. The foundation of the album however, the loose yet gripping grooves at the heart of every track, result from Zahn working extensively with samples. »I wanted to make use of drum sounds and small excerpts from old jazz vinyl records«, he explains. He maintained the unique sound signatures and rhythmic flutter of the source material while building intricate beats with them. Most of the material was culled from the record collection of Christian Kleine, whose spontaneous guitar improvisations over the first musical sketches were recorded and edited by Zahn and can be heard on four tracks. Also employing the occasional cembalo or spinet sound, he worked with a hardware sequencer and a delay to integrate the different, discrete elements into nine tracks that feel both dense and light at once. What’s astonishing still 22 years later is how spacious »Tides« sounds. This is due to the fact that Zahn not only paid close attention to the sonic idiosyncrasies of his source material, but also to what happened in between those sounds. »Mark Hollis’s solo album was a huge inspiration at that time«, says Zahn. »What I find fascinating about it until this day is how silence and the subtle hiss of the mixing boards were being used on that record.« Silence was also an important stylistic element on »Tides« and adds greatly to the overall atmosphere of an album that with the appropriately named »Theme« immediately sets the mood with intricate spinet melodies: Zahn opens a door for his listeners and invites them to follow him to see a specific part of the world through his very own lens. As a whole, the album mirrors Zahn’s trip that took him along the steep cliffs on a foggy day (»Seaside«), to an abandoned house in which he found old maps (»A Secret«), along the coastline during a long car ride (»Deauville«), to a sleepy village and the slowly moving sea (»Tides«) and finally back home to his native Germany where he started reflecting upon his experiences, ultimately deciding to translate them into music (»Epilogue«). »Whenever I listen to this album now, the images and memories it evokes are incredibly vivid and vibrant«, he says. It’s not hard to see — or rather hear — why. »Tides« may have been a deeply personal project, but it effortlessly evokes universal feelings by (re-)building an entire world in the course of only a few pieces of music.

Pontiac Streator mints a solo debut for Brian Leeds’ (Huerco S.) West Mineral Ltd. label with a bouquet of plasmic ambient lobe strokers, dusted with the guest charms of Ben Bondy, Perila, Nikolay Kozlov, and Protozoa Project. Arriving as a more personalised pursuit of the genteel themes that bound his pair of albums with Ulla in 2018-19, ’Sone Glo’ portrays the Philly-based ambient avatar at his most slanted and enchanting with a sandman suite of late night ambient blissouts. It’s an effortless listen, lathering aqueous textures and wistful melodies into a therapeutic hush, blessed with a prized sensuality that has placed him at the bosom of the neo-ambient love-in over the past five years. A good handful of those ambient lovers chime into his sound here too, drizzling whispered vox and smudged hooks into his vaporous matrix with results that ooze across variegated strains of balmy to gruff ambient dembow with a deeply seductive appeal and mind-drift pathos. Streator steers clear of any tricks or stunts in favour of slow-burn textural depth and subliminal rhythmic hypnosis. He cuts straight to the heart on opener 'Atlas Obscura' with Protozoa Project’s soothing glossolalia suffused to a sloshing dembow groove that underlines the whole album’s subtle pressure changes. He patently cares for your downtime, gently EQ’ing the chakras with the tongue-tip lather of ‘Picture of the Woods’, and later placing Perila’s narration over liquid electro pulses on album standout ‘I Want Something’, while Ben Bondy lends a reverberant touch to ‘Purp Thread’ and Folder’s Nikolay Kozlov brings a thawed ambient thizz to ‘Heliacal’. Still, Streator is the inventive star of his own show, effectively doing for dembow what Kassem Mosse did with deep minimal house on the irresistible sway and heavy-lidded pads of ‘Ixora’, before liquifying limbs with the slinky roll of his instrumentals on ‘Surge XL’ and the eyes-down delicacy ‘Red Kings’.

Genius-level, fractal re-arrangement from Keith Fullerton Whitman on his first vinyl release in what feels like years, here blessing Japan’s NAKID label with a new instalment in his forever-evolving ‘Generators' project, arcing from bleeping post-Kosmische sounds into completely unexpected drum mutations in footwork and grime modes. It’s properly head melting gear that links the algorithmic mindgames of Laurie Spiegel with the floor-bending rhythmic experimentation of Mark Fell, Rian Treanor or Jana Rush, and the first in a three part series that offers some of the strongest gear we’ve heard from one of the very best in the game. Modular synth scientist, critic and historian Keith Fullerton Whitman first debuted his ‘Generators' set in 2009, using a modular setup to create non-repeating melodic patterns that basically came close to generating themselves. Over the course of hundreds of live shows (and a handful of releases on Root Strata, Editions Mego and other labels), Whitman glacially honed his process and allowed the concept to slither down different avenues, mutating as it picked energy from the various venues it was situated in. His rigorous method meant ‘Generators' was never played out the same way twice, veering from psychedelic Kosmische experimentation to obliterated, off-grid Techno. In 2019, on the tenth anniversary of the project, Whitman was invited by the GRM in Paris to set up in Studio C, where he avoided the arsenal of pristine, museum-worthy modular synthesizers and instead reprogrammed his classic ‘Generators' patch. Recorded in a single take using luxe analog-to-digital convertors, the result is a 45-minute durational piece, split into two distinct sides for this release. "Very little manual interaction happened," Whitman explains. The music is, as its title suggests, generative, and at this point basically sounds as if it reached its most advanced, final form. The first few minutes of the opening side mine the original theme, with clocked LFO shapes triggering oscillator blips in mind-expanding non-looping patterns. Soon, percussion enters the matrix, at first wrong-footing us with a 4/4 fake-out - possibly nodding to the piece's 2010 Root Strata iteration - before splitting into staccato polyrhythmic abstractions of the most loose-limbed and deadly variety. General MIDI drums can sound almost hilariously boxed-in, but handled by Whitman they show off a plastic cultural sheen to piercing effect, deployed in a way that re-draws the rhythmic bass music of someone like Jlin while nodding to Mark Fell and Rian Treanor's quasi-generative dance explorations. These comparisons take on even more weight on the second side, where Whitman opens up his filters to allow the synth bleeps to sing even more loudly, introducing that all-important clap/hat interplay that dialogues with Atlanta and Chicago simultaneously. KFW is without question one of the greatest contemporary artists to prize electronic music for electronic music’s sake, addressing its fundamentals and relishing its capacity to generate peculiar forms and trigger hard-to-place feelings. ‘Generators (GRM)’ is an ideal case in point, providing essential brainfloss for anyone who appreciates the concept, but ultimately connects to the visceral, fluid energy of anything from Parmegiani to Autechre to DJ Nate. Unreal.

Mouse on Mars’ Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner return with their most inventive album to date, Dimensional People. The new album finds the Berlin-based duo reunited with Thrill Jockey, a powerful aesthetic partnership marked by such seminal albums as Radical Connector (2004), Idiology (2001), and Niun Niggung (2000). After a series of notorious dance floor releases, Dimensional People reveals them working deep within their own vernacular, digging into fertile terrain of their inexhaustible vault of digital and acoustic experimentation, and charismatically making elemental components new again. This album makes clear how their craft is of discovery, of finding new contexts for places, sounds, memories, sensations, ambiences, technologies, relationships, and of course, people. A number of prolific guests joined the production: Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Zach Condon (Beirut), Spank Rock, Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National), Swamp Dogg, Eric D. Clarke, Lisa Hannigan, Amanda Blank, Sam Amidon, Ensemble Musikfabrik, and about 20 more musical collaborators. The cast of characters are as unique as they are vast, clearly a rich quarry for the prodigious duo. Dimensional People, initially titled new konstruktivist socialism, gives each participating guest a platform to imprint the album as whoever or whatever they want to be: a narrator, a perfect moment, a jam, an ensemble member, an abstract sound, a multiple persona, a mood, a soloist. Originally premiering as a spatial composition using object-based mixing technology playing with the possibilities of sonic design and collective musicianship, the recording expands upon these ideas. Dimensional People expresses itself as a dynamic 50-piece orchestra, telling a story in sound. Each player is a multifaceted character, the recording an imagined stage, and the production is direction, lighting, and setting changes. Mouse on Mars offer sound as a means to encourage open-minded societies, aided by cutting-edge technology including their own MoMinstruments music software or a spatial mixing technique called object based mixing, with which a spatial version of the work was created. It is a conceptual puzzle composed around one harmonic spectrum within one rhythmic scheme, mostly in the tempo of 145bpm (inspired by Chicago footwork, so the dance floor is not entirely absent). Looking ahead, Dimensional People will also be realized through installation, presenting the work as an immersive listening experience, as well as performance.

In 2004 Jan St.Werner and Andi Toma, aka Mouse On Mars, celebrate their 10th anniversary. Many will claim their music already was so revolutionary and pioneering back in 1994, that it could well have been written today without sounding the slightest bit dated whatsoever. Starting as an avant-garde experiment in electronic music and philosophy, Mouse On Mars has evolved into one of the biggest music exports from Germany. After a decade of producing music, the duo have released eight full length records including their newest: Radical Connector. In true Mouse On Mars style, Jan St.Werner and Andi Toma came up with a perfect way to celebrate their anniversary. In conjunction with the prestigious Kunsthalle Düsseldorf they worked on an art exhibition called "doku / fiction: Mouse On Mars reviewed and remixed" in which artists delivered their visions of Mouse On Mars, but and here's the special twist (or should we say 'twift') without being able to use Mouse On Mars' music or to generate any sound. The exhibition opened on April 3rd to huge acclaim in both the art and music worlds alike and, as such, constitutes the perfect start for the launch of Mouse On Mars' new album Radical Connector. Due for release in the second half of 2004, it is the follow up to 2001's Idiology. Critical acclaim has been heaped on Mouse On Mars for their significant contribution to the development of electronic music, their importance for the German music scene as a whole, and for their innovations using live instrumentation in performance and recording long before it became common place in the power book scene. Mouse On Mars are true innovators. Jan St.Werner and Andi Toma provide positive proof that despite it being an incredibly difficult undertaking, it is nevertheless possible to write and perform sophisticated music as part of a theoretical framework and still rock like hell. Anyone who has ever been to a Mouse On Mars show will testify to the latter; anyone who has ever talked to Jan St.Werner or Andi Toma will confirm the former. Mouse On Mars' unique way of creating music demonstrates that intelligence and playfulness are not mutually exclusive terms. Their music is both challenging and funny - complexly layered yet with a simple driving beat. Mouse On Mars has a unique vision and a unique way of expressing this vision, resulting in an unmistakeable sound which functions on a universal level and makes people move their minds and their bodies. In a musical genre not noted for longevity, Mouse On Mars has not only found their own distinctive voice, but have remained a force of imaginative innovations for a decade. The new album Radical Connector includes nine new tracks which took Jan and Andi three years to write and produce in their famous St. Martin studio in Düsseldorf. Long-time musical collaborator Dodo Nkishi was part of the recording team once again, and the album fe atures both his drumming and his strangely recorded vocals most prominently in the aptly named "Wipe This Sound". Never has Mouse On Mars written a more danceable track with such irresistible drive. Expect to see dance floors from Tokyo to Santiago de Chile full to overflowing. Sonig recording artist Niobe also participated in the recording her wonderfully aloof vocals ("the end is near...") adorn two tracks. With Radical Connector Mouse On Mars is taking an important step forward both in terms of musical vision and international standing. Their Touring will focus for the first time on North America. Making appearances not only with Drummer Dodo, but as both a duo and as DJ's. When you show up remember to bring your dance shoes and your thinking cap! If in 1994 Mouse On Mars sounded like 2004, then Radical Connector is a portent of what the year 2014 will bring. Enjoy!

Dublin-based dub techno producer Odd Ned released great Dub Techno album from the very mysterious Irish label , which started its activities in 2018 and is gradually gaining underground popularity with good releases by very cult act such as Nashpaints and Frog Of Earth. An experimental dub techno album where a strong rhythm / bass skeleton, aquatic dub ambience, and derailed and freaky electronics intersect! 4-panel digipak CD.

The latest single from Pretty Sneaky, rumored to be an alias of SHED, who is also known for his work on Ostgut Ton and Delsin, features four tracks of superb ambient/dub with a 90s electronica/IDM aesthetic. No digital, analog only.

Heavy 180g black vinyl + free digital (Bandcamp exclusive) Expanded Edition w/ 4 bonus tracks, japanese obi, a 72 photography collage of the many people who inspired this music and liner notes by composer Neil Ollivierra aka The Detroit Escalator Company. Sirio Ultra Black debossed sleeve 400gsm Half Speed Mastering Sublime and perfectly produced cutting-edge ambient techno masterpiece made in 1996 by unsung Detroit hero Neil Ollivierra, an album as underrated as it is essential. 25 years after its original release on UK label Ferox Records, Soundtrack [313] still provides a deeply futuristic aesthetic experience, warm and emotional electronics, along with glistening melody lines that create a peaceful, relaxed environment. This album possesses a formidable aptitude to always instill its listeners with a life-affirming feeling of serenity. A true timeless and unique classic that exists within its own genre and which still pushes the envelope of electronic music that transcends the club experience. This expanded release includes 4 bonus tracks (6 tracks on CD / digital), a liner note by the artist, and valuable photographic footage from his personal archives. This reissue has been mastered from original files by Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner (former Deutsche Grammophon studios in Berlin), using the half speed mastering process, and pressed on heavy vinyl at 45rpm. 25th anniversary audiophile edition. For fans of Detroit Techno, Global Communications, Black Dog, Manuel Goettsching, Tangerine Dream, Susumu Yokota, und Klaus Schulze.