DOWNLOADS
Aura Anthropica - Nocturnal LowMinimalist dubstep, but not in the Distance sense... Techno-informed, but not in the Peverelist sense... Kind of a little bit of the best of everything. Meticulously made stuff.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?y3aq0zd8467bqdq
Beppe Loda and Macro DJ - 1990 Pre-Italowork EPGood, faintly spooky techno in the latter-day Black Dog vein.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?jbxy2lpn2862umi
CoH - Z-RatedClosely aligned with the Industrial Records people, Ivan Pavlov's latest. Contains material from an aborted Coil collaboration, if I could only remember which tracks were... In VBS, unfortunately. The CD version was sold out when the listing went up, which happens with a lot of really cool experimental stuff (happened to me twice before with new Keith Fullerton Whitman tapes).
Uncompromising sound artist Ivan Pavlov, aka CoH, releases his latest body of work in a special edition for France's Rotorelief label, housed in a stunning and unique pop-out digicase CD design. While relating to the release of Takahashi Miike's 'Zebraman 2' - a low budget Japanese superhero farce - 'Z-Rated' also doubles as a compilation of rare and previously unreleased early material dating from 1992 right up to 2009. If you've followed CoH's records over those years, you might know to expect the most advanced computer music and dynamic digital sonics sculpted with an innately playful, and eternally baffling sense of composition, an aesthetic which has marked him out as one of the worlds foremost and distinctly individual electronic musicians. Inside this disc you'll find two tracks from 1992; the almost Raymond Scott-like zaniness of a previously unreleased and untitled composition recorded at the Dept. of Acoustics, University of Nizhny Novgorod, made without a soundcard and mixed through the internal speaker, and another equally nutty ''92 track apparently recorded in an "attempt at sonic humour". Further in we find two versions of a track commissioned by Coil's Jhonn Balance for a project called 'Star Shaped Individual In Society' which never actually materialised, besides his meditation on the Japanese martial art Aikido. Fast Forward a few years and there's his awesome extraction and abstraction of The Beatles on 'The Dakota Strawberries' from 2004, besides a tribute to Mika Vainio and Jimi Tenor's 'Kocmoc' taken from his explorative 'Electric Electric' 12" on Mego, and again, plenty more artifacts of utterly inexplicable and completely compelling electronic music. Heartily recommended!
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?8p9j5nmo8m0zbgr
Distance - Skys Alight / 1 RegretA new single from Distance on the Autonomic imprint run by dBridge and Instra:Mental. To be perfectly honest I'm unsure of how these two haven't come together before - sure, Distance can get pretty brosteppy but at his most subdued he's pretty sympatico with the Autonomic style. Cold, cold steppers.
Autonomic's exceptional taste for the techiest riddims around finds Distance killing it on their latest plate. While his tracks are always built to the most exacting specs, we've always been after more than the halfstep thing from Distance, which is why these two productions are such a blessing. 'Skys Alight' ups his game with the craftiest swagger imaginable, setting proper tech-stepper patterns and highly affecting bursts of Autonomic-standard synths. On the flip '1 Regret' sets augmented Photek-style drum syncopations against a backdrop of warehouse-ready bass snarls. Both cuts are as solid as anything we've heard from the label yet, and highly recommended to fans of T++, DBridge, or Instra:mental.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?3u94dpogffbff4o
Seven - Sinister / AbductionMore traditionalist dubstep for you. Traditionalist in that it's quite dark and has fuck-all to do with dub music!
Solid dubstep tools from Seven on Black Box. The choice cut is 'Sinister', an uptempo roller punctuated with skull-splitting snares and ghostly rattling percussion to suit the midnight rave vibes, while 'Abduction' is more on the big intro, build-and-drop halfstep tip, bearing a mammoth subbass heave and super crisp percussion. One for fans of V.I.V.E.K, Vex'd, Hatcha, or Youngsta.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?xn4dmglwxvj44l6
Halp - LeeksReally not sure what to make of this - The Seclusiasis imprint looks to mostly deal in Philly-bred Street Bass (DNAEBEATS, Dev79, etc.) but this guy is kicking it in true Skwee style, with a little more widescreen in the sound. The Coco Bryce remix caught my eye, but the rest of the EP caught my ear.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?2niedsxb621b7w6
Haz - Above the Tree LineThis was an impulse buy I'm not sure if I regret. It's sort of post-rocky without the po-faced regalism of so many post-rockers, but it's not exactly electronic either. Seems to be mid-tempo, slightly uplifting instrumental rock with some pervasive electronic elements. There's something about it that sneaks up on me, I feel like I should skip to the next track but somehow I just keep on listening to the end.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?ot6lesaste3mxde
House of Jezebel - Love & HappinessFuckin' Voyage Direct and Night Slugs are hammering a secret love of house music into my brain. What am I going to tell my friends? This is just as awesome as you'd expect coming from these guys. Did you know that Rush Hour (from which Voyage Direct springs) is actually a venerable House-oriented record store? I sure didn't!
Tom Trago's Voyage Direct series serves a truly awesome take on the oft-sampled 'Love & Happiness' soul classic from House Of Jezebel aka Legowelt. Before checking the sales notes we could have sworn this was some long-lost original House classic coz Legowelt's production is just SO vintage sounding! On the flip there's an instrumental, but seriously, what's not to love about that vocal?! Check the sample and fall under its spell... Well recommended!
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?lnxnxp4edw38z3p
Martyn - Left Hander / Shook UpMartyn's been around the block a few times, first as a house/techno head, then as a house-leaning dubstep guy, and now he's back to house/techno with a few rhythmic tricks pinched from his middle years up his sleeve. Clever boy.
Man-like-Martijn Deykers slinks into motion with two outright killers on 3024. Remarkably, this is Martyn's first solo 12" of 2010, a year in which he dropped a crucial Fabric mix and expanded his label's horizons to draw blunted and Techno sounds into the fold. With 'Left Hander' he cuts in from a broken house angle, sharing certain rhythmic traits with Altered Natives while firmly retaining his feel for soulful, classically-informed Detroit melody in grand style. On the other side, 'Shook Up' goes one step duttier, dragging the drums down to a gruffly accented swing while sly strings, twinkling keys and fluttering synth motifs imagine some infectious fusion of mad effective South London and Detroit disciplines. Basically, this 12" is lethal and your turntables want it, badly!
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?ak26atagmsm7dan
Planes - My Intentions (EP2)A surprise encore of Planes' Nosaj Thing-y chopped up hip hop/funk production. Even better the second time around.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?977rk3zewphf3z9
Last but not least there's
8bitch - EquinoxLots of buzz around this lady, used to be a TV personality in Eastern Europe or something, now she's supposedly dating Rustie and putting out singles for Starkey's Slit Jockey imprint, and now Seed. Pretty cool that she's going with the boutique labels when with her heat she could easily get a Warp or Planet Mu contract. Check it out.
n 2010 there's a been a fair flurry of interest around London/Glasgow's 8Bitch. With an inclusion on Mos's 'Adventures In Dubstep' comp and tracks offered on the promising Svetlana Industries, the Slovenian ex-pat has established herself at the leading edge of electronic UK club music. 'Equinox' is her debut proper, a four-track introduction to an energetic and confidently abstract sound. Bass serves only a functional presence, as all the propulsion and bristling energy generally comes from the mid and upper echelons, as with the glitching textures and tweaky space melody of 'Orpheus', or the angelic R&B vox and bustling tribal drums in 'Hathor'. Again the rapid-fire rhythms of 'Astarte' seem to jit so hard it feel like they're gonna evaporate with sheer excitement and the glistening 'Isis' highlights just how sweet her melodies are to the ear. Unfortunately, 'Equinox' is limited to 250 hand-numbered copies for the world, so get in quick because we think this might be one you'll kick yourself for missing.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?d7z2zc9da2sk2be