MKSTN – Someday You’ll Find Me #chill #house

•October 17, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Here’s Canada’s MKSTN doing the vowelless thing with Someday You’ll Find Me. Not if I see you first might be the response. Anyway, this is pitched as the perfect come down song. It isn’t quite that. School of Fish by Pete Namlook (RIP) and Mixmaster Morris hold that distinction. But it is a rather lovely track. It’s perfect for those bleary early morning sunrises when you haven’t been to bed and want something soothing but with a bit of beats as you’re not quite done dancing yet. Whose turn to skin up?

 

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TA TA OO HA #house #finiflex

•October 16, 2017 • 1 Comment

TA TA OO HA is the new EP from Finiflex. They are Music Producer and Finiflex Studio Owner, John Vick and DJ, Davie Miller. So, basically, a chunk of Finitribe. And this lovely track – available on yellow vinyl – is a lovely slab of dreamy, hazy house that wouldn’t have looked out of place on 1992’s classic Unexpected Groovy Treat.

This is no throwback, it’s MDMA haze of positivity and good times on the radio edit. There are then four variants. The It’s A Clap version does just that, takign it into a more minimal instrumental direction. The Origination version allows the synth to come through but it otherwise pointless. The Agent of Intelligence version takes the track down a darker, more techno, path far away fom the original’s positivity. A really good version. The final one is V2. A stripped down and drawn out version of the original mix it slightly lacks the cuteness of the radio version.

A good first release from Finiflex. Here’s to many more.

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Techno Twosome: Enamour and Troy

•October 16, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Two techno tracks for a Monday morning from Enamour and Troy proving techno isn’t faceless doof doof doof. We’ve some heart of darkness from Enamour and dub techo becoming more from Troy.

Enamour first. This track is Howl. It isn’t quite the techno rage you might imagine. The first part of the track has the equivalent of a blank stare as beats pace up and down the room. But by the half way mark a melody is allowed in and the track cheers itself up. Ends up as something that owes as much to progressive house as techno but without losing an essentially dark component. Would storm a dance floor.

Buy: beatport: bit.ly/GU2161bp

Troy offers Flux. The track’s released on Ben Klock’s label Klockworks. Flux is a more  dub techno track. And I do love me a bit of dub techno. This is less on the soothing side of dub techno and a bit more insistent. This pushes you on, rather than letting you relax.

Hardwax: hardwax.com/20201/various-artists/klockworks-202/
Klockworks.de: klockworks.de/shop/kw20/

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Phong Tran and the meaning of Ramen

•October 15, 2017 • Leave a Comment

You may be Lloyd Garmadon. You may be the Golden ninja. Your Dad may be Lord Garmadon the ultimate in evil (granted, that bit’s a bit of a downer). You may have to fight the final battle between good and evil. But you can still find yourself with an empty bowl but surrounded by pictures of food you cannot eat. The ache of hunger, the feelings of loss, the desire of that which cannot be had. All of these feelings are contained in Phong Tran’s Initiate.

Initiate (focusing on initiate as someone being inducted, rather than initiate as a starting off) is a 7 track ambient soundscape. It is by no means easy listening. This is music as art or ART.

204 veers between ambient sounds and buzzing aggression. Get is ostensibly less wound up but becomes so during the course of the track. Departure heads to the railway station and the screech of wheels on rails. Navel therefore comes as something of a relief when it chooses to contemplate it rather than rips its insides out.

Hu No ends up ambient glitch epic before collapsing back again. Burn jitters round in ever decreasing circles. The piece closes with Rooftops. Is it too much like wishful thinking to see this as a hopeful piece? There are certainly ascending scales that might sound that way. Eventually, the track skitters its way free of earthly bonds. And that’s your lot. Digest carefully.

Blurb: In his debut recording on slashsound, Canadian-born, Atlanta-raised, and Brooklyn-based sound/visual artist Phong Tran deploys an impressive arsenal of homegrown software synthesizers to explore the forces of sacrifice and reflection, as they appear on the brink of major life changes. A protégé of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon, Tran balances meticulous structures and forms with frenetic emotive energy.

Initiate [noun ih-nish-ee-it] takes its formal inspiration from the narrative arc of Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, and tells the story within every story in a 35-minute program of immersive industrial sound design, zero-to-sixty instrumental builds, and constantly breaking tides of melody and polyrhythm.

“A lot of people in my life were facing new challenges,” the composer explains of the concept behind Initiate, which is at once deeply personal and universally relatable, “both of my sisters were now becoming mothers, new friendships were forming, and older ones were becoming distant. We all work through the dilemma of how we bridge the life we led previously and the life that’s waiting for us afterwards”.

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Deep drone and depression: Jason Barty and Mindswimmer

•October 15, 2017 • Leave a Comment

A couple of downtempo ambient drone tracks that veer from the calm of nature with Jason Barty to the disquiet mind of Mindswimmer.

Jason Barty first with Ede. A free download this is an ambient IDM folktronica track. If that’s a bit of a blizzard of tags it justifies each one. From the organic strings to the background wheezes, this track has it all. Taken from the album Simple Day there are shades of Boards of Canada and Future Loop Foundation. It has a pleasingly calming pastoral air to it all. Like the texture and grain of aged wood.

Get the album here: fanlink.to/simpleday

Mindswimmer are in a different headspace. Their track between spaces is a 30 minute anxiety trip around the mind. It explores the connection between mind and body and mind and soul. I don’t pretend that this is easy listening at all. And it’s no surprise that Mindswimmer say “We creatives are prone to depression and anxiety because we put every ounce of ourselves into our crafts. Two months before the release of between spaces, we witnessed this firsthand when a dear friend and collaborator took his life after a long battle with severe depression.”

More postively they say “This album is a response to the peace, love and light that Mike gave to us as well as an invitation to the community to join us in addressing this sensitive issue. 50% of the proceeds from the sale of this record will benefit the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (“ADAA”). If you choose to purchase the record for more than the asking price ($10), the full amount above the purchase price will go directly to the ADAA to further support the great work that they do.”

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V/A – The Orb Chronicles (20 Years Of Shitkatapult)_Continous Mix

•October 14, 2017 • Leave a Comment

The Orb return to celebrate Shitkatapult’s 20th anniversary with an hour long mix of ambient and experimental tunes. It’s a great mix that marries mood and form. The whole thing still sounds contemporary and intermittently challenging and soothing.

[Link removed]

Blurb: Orbologists Dr. Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann are in their lab putting together a massive sound worm by hand for the anniversary of Berlin’s elite training ground, SHITKATAPULT. A lot will be sorely missed, but there’s no other way it could be done!

A comprehensive overview of works spanning 20 years of label history, from the heyday of electronic music to its established conflation – beyond all recognition – in 2017, would not really be a mix as such. And such is the intent of this compilation: a DJ mix or, better yet, a radio mix or radio show. As they often did, THE ORB liked to operate right at the convolutions and interfaces between work and quote, between interpretation and punctuation. That’s exactly what we have here – a fine, easy hour of music from the Orbital of Shitkatapult – The Orb Chronicles (20 Years Shitkatapult).

Featuring (in mix order):
Hamburger dub specialist Fenin opens the show with a darkly ambient hall “Adeto” (from Fenin – Mixes and Maxis – Strike 117) and is immediately layered through with “What is Paris?” by Bus w/ Dabrye (from Bus – Eagles – Strike 146). Both tracks blend together like a cut-up for adults into a single track, which also appears on the B-side of the maxi single released at the same time (The Orb – Suspected Hippies in Transit – Strike 165).

Next up, familiar spirits Phon.o (from his album “Burn Down the Town” – Strike 64) with “Verborg nie die 6” and wayward Finn Sami Koivikko (“Erisana” by Sami Koivikko – Kut Pulatin Pt.3 – Strike 28) deliver the most important building blocks of the minimal/tech house side of the label, coming from Cristian Vogel’s Telemorphosis from the exiled UK artist’s latest album, The Assistenz – Strike 160.

Followed and once again interrupted by Cristian Vogel, from the songs and more section with the Sorry Entertainers, Judith Juillerat, Khan of Finland und T.Raumschmiere (The Sorry Entertainers – The Only Thing I Know from “Local Jet Set” – Strike 129, Judith Juillerat – Vol-Ou-Vent from “Soliloquy” – Strike 67, Khan of Finland – H&M Freedom from “Nicht nur Sex” – Strike 162, Cristian Vogel – Barefoot Agnete from The Assistenz, T.Raumschmiere ft Lilian Hak – Nuclear Bedtime Stories from “I Tank U” – Strike 96).

A gloomy lightness takes hold and seeps into the depths with Ulli Bomans and Marco Haas aka Shrubbn!! and the track Drunen from their latest, vastly underrated album “Europa” (Strike 160), and misfits like Frank Bretschneider (Subharchorded Waves from “Komet”, Strike 124), Boxtype (Spin from “Sparkflight” – Strike 29), Oval (Kasino from “OvalDNA” – Strike 134), Sun Electric – Ricardo Villalobos remix and MM Studio counter cut – aka Toninas (Strike 85)/One Dub, culminating in Thomas Brinkmann’s Soul Center House Sache Pig Peg from the album “General Eclectics” – Strike 118.

THE ORB are killing it and make for the exit of part 1 with Apparat – Not A Number (“Walls” – Strike 84), Tom Thiel’s “Laissez Faire” (Strike 125), wrapping things up with the deeper Orb mix of Shrubbn’s “Echos” – Strike 130.

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Paul Kane – Sink #deephouse

•October 14, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Paul Kane provides a lovely downtempo deep house track on Sink. There’s a particularly melancholy edge to this track and a fluidity that allows the five minutes it lasts to slip by in what seems like a shorter time. Encourages repeat play. Delightful.

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