DJ RICHARD Vinyl & CDs

Review: It would be fair to say that White Material co-founder DJ Richard's latest full-length excursion is an album of two halves (to mangle a football cliche). Stick on the first slab of wax, and you'll be confronted with a string of dark and moody treats, from creepy ambient interludes to grumpy electro, to mind-altering dark-Italo (see standout "Vanguard") and pulsating, off-kilter electronica (the restless acid pulse, off-kilter drums and paranoid chords of "Tunnel Stalker"). Whack on the second disc, though, and you'll be comforted and calmed by a series of intensely blissful, occasional melancholic compositions that are much lighter and dreamier in tone. Of these, it's the sublime "Final Mercy" and "Ex Aere" that stand out.

Review: Following the "working man's techno" of Young Male, the second release on the fledgling New York label White Material, comes from the equally unheralded DJ Richard, and its equally as good as the label's debut, if not better. "Leech 2" combines a Baltimore club style vocal sample with a steely NYC house backbone and rumbling analogue bass, all flipped on its head at the mid point by an inbuilt rewind and a sonorous melody that sounds like creaky pipes, something expanded upon in the ambient industrial tones of "Stone Worx". On the flip "M.D.W.B" offers something completely different; the flanged chord strums that open the track suggest a delicacy that soon gives way to an imposing analogue saw tooth and suspended strings, while "Shade Of '77" pairs cavernous ghetto style 808 rhythms and a looping vocal sample with a soundscape that is pure sci-fi dystopianism. Put simply we haven't heard a release this exciting in quite some time.