Aug
10
2009
HIATUS
Author: BrendonWe will be on hiatus until September 8th, while we switch servers.
Look for a new and improved site debuting then!
Thanks for your patience
Jul
15
2009
DJ T – The Inner Jukebox (2009)
Author: Brendon![DJ T. - The Inner Jukebox [2009] [Album]](http://cdn.images.juno.co.uk/150/CS1440004-02A.jpg "DJ T. - The Inner Jukebox [2009] [Album]")
Get Physical
The follow-up to Koch’s 2005 Boogie Playground summons fellow Berliner Thomas Schumacher to helm the desk following the pair’s initial hook up for the slightly unremarkable “Lower Instinct” single from earlier this year.
Whereas Koch’s LP effort previous trod a path lined with brash synthesis and a palpable electro/funk influence, The Inner Jukebox moves with comparative subtleties. The hype cloud surrounding the album’s release was pervaded by talk of the “real” house sound Koch was returning to, and of the 2000-plus pieces of vinyl that had been painstakingly pillaged in the process. So was it a triumphant return? Well, yes and no.
While the eleven tracks offered do throw-up some marked moments of dance floor clout, the whole thing feels a bit too stuck on the grid; too rigidly quantized to cut loose and truly groove. Wheezing chords, bone-dry wooden percussion and razor-cut vocal refrains slip the album into a noticeable modus operandi; a path that leads down roads of reward as well as blind alleys. Lead single “Dis” probably fares best under the rule of this equation, and provides an effective enough dancefloor moment as reflected by its lofty placement in the latest RA chart. “Mr. Piano Hands” is one of the few occasions in which an idea is allowed to bleed legato into a subsequent phrase; fused with a dust-coated Rhodes, and the most effective bassline on the album, the track ascends to a definite high point.
Development takes place instead on an almost exclusively micro level, which helps the playful “Bateria,” but hinders the maladroit “Weirdo.” Elsewhere, “Shine On” is a nice enough homage to the Detroit minor 7 blueprint; “Lit From Within” ventures down a beat-less path for some much needed experimentation, and “Rituality” pushes a different headspace via softened jazz hats and a broad off-kilter bounce. Unfortunately, the dastardly duo of “Gorilla Hug” and “To The Drum” planted the seeds of doubt in my mind early on: cut-up samples, bang on the box percussion and creeping synthesis stuck on repeat, smacks of an idea flogged just a few too many times.
Despite The Inner Jukebox’s obvious shortcomings, there is enough here to suggest a continued partnership between Koch and Schumacher (of which there is already talk) would amount to a bearing of fruit. If either had the audacity to fully let their hair down, they could feasibly attain the heights scaled by their cherished predecessors.
01. The Inner Jukebox
02. Dis
03. Gorilla Hug
04. Bateria
05. Mr Piano Hands
06. Lit From Within
07. Rituality
08. Switch
09. Shine On
10. Weirdo
11. To The Drum
Jul
15
2009
Lank – No Sense of Direction (2009)
Author: Brendon
Boz Boz
Lank aka Peter Golyan is one of the most exciting Hungarian producer/DJs, and with his own debut album, he has created 12 tracks of electronica gorgeousness. everything from ambient, melodic electronica and techno, house music are all included.
Thanks to the impact made on him by folk, classical and electronic music, he has an eclectic style, his tracks ranging from chill-out to tech-house.
As one of the core DJs with Strictly!, one of Hungary’s most ambitious party series, he has DJ’d alongside the likes of Swayzak, Quivver, Jimmy Van M, Anthony Pappa, Özgür Can, Terry Lee Brown Jr,. He also runs regular radio shows on JustMusic.fm, Frisky Radio, Proton & Danceradio.gr.
It was back in 2006 that, after passing John Graham a CD when he was over in Hungary, he signed ‘Cowboys Again’ to Graham’s BozBoz label. It was a big step in his career as this release was supported by Sasha, Anthony Pappa, Nick Warrenm Sander Kleinenberg & co..
Building on the cooperation with BozBoz Recordings, the ‘Riverview/Dumbness EP’ came out on the label, again gaining support from the likes of Danny Howells, Steve Lawler .. as did his next EP ‘Wicked Soul / Confrontation’. Hybrid also used ‘Confrontation’ on their ‘SoundSystem 01’ album.
Lank’s slow and dark-toned, but energetic dubby sounds have given him a unique & appealing edge, and after many successful releases on bozboz, at the beginning of 2008, he started to work on an artist album as well as some collaborations with Quivver… which led to the album now in front of you!
01. Starting Point
02. No Distance
03. Le Porte
04. Dolphin Dance
05. Flakes
06. Twinge
07. Ounce
08. Ounce (Melodies)
09. Enclosure
10. Airlock
11. Alagonya
12. Ash
Jul
13
2009
Columbia
The full title of this record is actually a poem:
No more stories
Are told today
I’m sorry
They washed away
No more stories
The world is grey
I’m tired
Let’s wash away
…and the music within is just as ponderous and epic as that implies. For No More Stories, the band has dropped the continuous suite style of And the Glass Handed Kites in favor of discrete songs. The album features some tracks that stray from Mews usual quiet-to-loud song structure (see Cartoons) but their trademark epic prog-rock is still the dominant force here. This is the first time that Mew has recorded as a three-piece, since bassist Johan Wohlert left to focus on his family. The band has brought back Rich Costey, who also produced their breakout hit Frengers, to produce this album.
Jul
13
2009
Christian Naujoks – Untitled (2009)
Author: Brendon
Dial
A very strange album from Christian Naujoks, flipping from modern composition influenced by the likes of Steve Reich and Terry Riley (perhaps filtered through Hauschka) to strange cover versions – New Order’s ‘Leave Me Alone’ is serviceably re-imagined as ‘Off The Rose’, while Bob Dylan’s sublime ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ is degraded by what might be the worst cover in the history of musical reinterpretation. This is a grand claim without doubt, but seriously take a listen; it’s transcendentally awful, providing a comprehensive scourging of the ears. The album can be salvaged If you miss this final track off and simply pretend it never happened, but even so this genre-hopping home listening album is still fairly strange and brandishes its influences boldly throughout.
01. Horizon Scene
02. Maladies
03. Young Blood
04. Idyll
05. Two Epilogues: No.1
06. Two Epilogues: No.2
07. Off The Rose
08. Light Over The Ranges
09. Bar 27
10. TTT
11. Bloom
12. Bass Of Rome, No Radio
13. Baby Blue
Jul
13
2009
Bruno Pronsato – The Make Up The Break Up (2009)
Author: Brendon
Thesongsays
The Make Up The Break Up is the first release on Bruno Pronsato’s own Thesongsays label. It’s the longest track in his catalog (38 minutes), and an even deeper excursion into his stylized harmony. This track was originally a track uncompleted while making, ‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us.’ Revisiting it roughly a year ago, Bruno began to reword it. What began as simple attempt to create an EP track out of it became a monster.
What monster you ask? In a few words, the monster that is Bruno’s love of musicality and sound design. Muscially speaking, we are on a ride somewhere between a slithery house track and a drugged out night out in Chelsea, New York in the 60’s – and that’s a good thing because we get the entirety of the ride: the ups, the downs, the clouded mentality, the broken heart and perhaps the mended one. It’s happy, it’s sad – it’s something that you can dance to, but most importantly, it’s music that we think you can revisit for many years, as it somehow reflects us, our lives. A playful and extended journey through love and disaster, or at least the soundtrack to it.
01. The Make Up The Break Up (38:42)
Jul
7
2009
Anja Schneider – Beyond the Valley (2008)
Author: Brendon
Mobilee
Anja Schneider’s ‘Belize’ from last year was one of those moments when a fairly standard sounding techno track lifts off, spinning away from its recognizable elements into pure ecstasy. The canny melodies and detailed textures managed to transcend the bleep and bongo aesthetic, and something which started out as any-mnml ended up being memorable. This then was the challenge for Beyond the Valley: to defy her roots in tracky modern tech house and present us with something that was remarkable and playable at home.
So it was with a sinking heart then that I turned the album on and listened to ‘Safari’. It’s a track that screams “set opener,” but without something mixing in, the melodies wander and the vectors never resolve. But where ‘Safari’ misses, ‘Mole’ hits: Again it’s built from a recognizable sound palette, but the impassioned synth sighs and answering harpsichord strums egg on the track’s bass and build towards something memorable. It is all understated, but eventually you appreciate the way everything coheres. Indeed, this is one of the strengths of the album: what actually seems like indecision at the beginning of a track is revealed to be a masterplan by the end. ‘Maki’ slowly levitates, lifting first one foot off the ground and then the other before a folk-y sample is set in opposition to reverbed clanks, yet by the end both elements are working together for the happiness of dancers.
And it is dancers Anja is aiming at here; there are few concessions to home listening. Unlike, say False’s 2007, the collection is unmixed, and there’s none of the club experimentation of Bruno Pronsato’s Why Can’t We Be Like Us. The first part of the collection has an excellent flow though; it’s not unlike your standard DJ set. The album falls away from the early peak of ‘Mole’ before eventually climbing out of the depths again with ‘Belize’. After this, however, it’s hard not to feel that the album loses its way a little. ‘Get Away’ has a nice enough analogue squelch to it, and some good chords, but it shares an aimlessness with ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ that is disappointing. Just when you think the whole set is going to come together in one final hurrah, it fizzles out.
Taken individually, many of the tracks here are interesting due to their deftness of melody, construction and utility. Schneider understands exactly what makes dancers tick these days, and how to make tracks that will stand out in those dancers’ minds at the end of the night. Taken as an exercise in home listening though, the album is not quite as successful its component parts.
01. Safari
02. Mole
03. Maki
04. Beyond The Valley
05. Gimlet
06. Cascabel
07. Belize
08. Get Away
09. Little Red Riding Hood
10. Fish At Night
Jul
7
2009
Daniel Savio – Dirty Bomb (2009)
Author: Brendon
Klicktrack
Those crazy Scandos must still have a good supply of that Skwee sizzurp because Daniel Savio has just produced the label’s first full length album, packed with 10 hot trax of post-electro pulses and screwed Euro-synth workouts. The production values have been pushed sky high for this Flogsta release, with heavyweight vinyl cut and a Bobby Dazzler of a sleeve making this a bit of a collectors item. The music within is still suitably lo-fi and jovially smashed, reeling from darker John Carpenter style synth washes and chilly North European emotions ‘Eyeballs In The Street’ to Kraftwerk-on-nitrous melodics on ‘Fraud’ or killer Pametex style electro on ‘Pulguita’. There’s an abundance of fun and awkwardly odd rhythms to bend your head and legs to on here so we won’t hold you up any longer.
01. Dirty Bomb
02. Ohhh!
03. Kiss Of Death
04. Eyeballs On The Street
05. Machine Against Rage
06. Monkey Pee Monkey Poo
07. Pulguita
08. Fraud
09. Diamond Sutra
10. Hommage
Jul
7
2009
Planetary Assault Systems – Temporary Suspension (2009)
Author: Brendon
Ostgut Tonträger
When it was announced that Luke Slater was going to release his latest Planetary Assault Systems album on Ostgut Ton, it hardly came as a surprise. After all, he’d already given them an epic ambient cut for their Shut Up and Dance! Updated ballet soundtrack, and he’s been a semi-regular fixture behind the decks at Berghain since late 2006. But even given his previous record for raw techno and acid as Planetary Assault Systems, it does seem as if Temporary Suspension is Luke Slater’s “Berghain album”—a distillation of his adventures at the club, both in the DJ booth and whilst getting sweaty amongst the muscle marys and party animals. Even the introduction of the record draws direct comparisons to the Berghain experience, with the slow fade in to an already driving beat mirroring the walk up the first set of stairs to an already bulging dance floor.
After the maelstrom of murkiness that is the album’s opening gambit, Slater lures the listener into a false sense of calm with ambient noise and a rumbling bass drum, before slowly unleashing the hissing breaks of “Whoodoo.” It was Slater’s synergy of Detroit techno and breakbeats that first marked him out as a producer to watch in the early ’90s, but this time around he’s opted for a much more Teutonic set of influences, matching up vicious industrial cacophony with Flügel-esque whirring synths.
Things really kick off with the full-bodied bassline of “Om the Def,” a gruff but bouncy roller which is sure to demolish techno audiences across the globe later this year, but some of the album’s most interesting moments come with some of Slater’s more unorthodox experiments. “Hold It” sees the producer combine the Planetary Assault Systems sound palette with a jacking Chi-house template a la Paul Johnson, whilst the face melting bass onslaught of “Attack of the Mutant Camels” has a futuristic grimey feel that should slot right in next to more punishing dubstep and techno workouts. The only relief from Slater’s tenebrous beats comes in the form of penultimate track “Gateway to Minia,” and even that reeks of atmospheric eeriness with its tense triplets and twitching micro-percussion. This definitely isn’t a record for the more faint-hearted techno fans out there, but that’s just one of the reasons that it should be embraced in the current landscape of lighter textures and sounds, especially when it comes to the full-length format.
That said, Temporary Suspension isn’t without its faults: album centrepiece “Enter Action” feels relatively stale with its pedestrian gallop and stereotypical buzzes, and the sequencing could’ve done with a little bit of tightening—especially with album closer “Sticker Men”—which almost seems like an afterthought as its relentlessly charging rhythm appears out of nowhere. However, both of these complaints seem incredibly minor when you think of how this record will be consumed. Techno DJs will get use out of most of these tracks in both peak time and after hours situations, while fans of harder four-to-the-floor sounds will inevitably lap up an entire album of Slater’s hypnotic and engaging austerity. Sit back, press play and get ready to enter the dark side.
01. Open Up
02. Whoodoo
03. Om The Def
04. Hold It
05. Enter Action
06. X Speaks To X
07. Attack Of The Mutant Camels
08. Temporary Suspension
09. Gateway To Minia
10. Sticker Men