PROSTITUTES Vinyl & CDs

Review: Cleveland scene stalwart James Donadio returns under the Prostitutes moniker, after a slew of post-punk reinterpretations for the likes of Diagonal, Spectrum Spools and Opal Tapes. This will be his second outing on Night School, the Glasgow-based label run by Michael Kasparis. On Aluminium Garage, the Stabudown head honcho presents "Born Wanderer" which has a twisted 'Madchester' kind of vibe about it, while "Jah Elegant" goes for a frenetic style of drill & bass that would make fans of early Warp and Rephlex releases dizzy with excitement. The flipside offers even more variety, in the form of "Errant Seagull" a lo-fi, old school house jam drowned in saturation (sounds like a fat cat trapped in a box), while some industrial strength gabber antics await you on the austere "Shroud Of Cellophane".

Review: There's a tongue in cheek sensibility and an air of confrontation to much that James Donadio does as Prostitutes which made him more than suited to Powell's Diagonal label when the Cleveland artist debuted on the label last year. It's nice to see Donadio back with the Simple Minds-riffing Ecstasy, Crashing Beats & Fantasy and contributing one of the final Diagonal records of 2014, a year that's been most successful for both artist and label. Donadio has said in interviews Powell tries to encourage him to take a more explicit approach to the dancefloor and that's evident on this quartet of Prostitutes tracks. The curdling acid of "Dollars To DMs" and the faltering bleep electro of "Side Effects Of Living" are particularly potent Prostitutes productions!

Review: Since debuting as Prostitutes in 2011 on his own StabUDown label, experimental noise and techno artist James Donadio has established his confrontational style with a slew of releases. This year alone has seen Donadio add two EPs on Avian's Mira sub-label and an album for John Elliott's Spectrum Spools label to a discography that already includes Diagonal, Digitalis and Opal Tapes. This Nouveauree 12" finds Donadio adding the prospering Night School to his collar, and you may think he makes a strange bed fellow with The Space Lady or Molly Nillson on the UK experimental label but Donadio's singular sonic fingerprint still feels strangely at home. Night School suggest Nouveauree to be "a purge, a palette cleanser," but it also feels like some of Donadio's most gratifyingly floor focused material. You can almost visualise someone like Powell giving it the screw face as he drops "Punk In The Street" in one of his sets.

Review: Prostitutes aka James Donadio has released his beautifully odd cluster of sounds on some of the hottest labels around, including our favourite Opal Tapes, and the uncompromising Mira series together with the likes of Shifted under his Covered In Sand moniker. This time, however, he lands a considerably larger role in the form of a debut LP for the ever-impressive Spectrum Spools, a label that has put out everything from Container's first tracks to a reissue of the gnarliest techno sounds by Donato Dozzy and Nuel under their Aquaplano guise. Petit Cochon is experimental music at its purest, where Donadio successfully blends ritualistic drones together with industrial landscapes and metallic swirls of percussion. It's one of those that should be listened to from start to finish, possibly while walking through some desolate terrains, but we do have some personal picks. "Build Your Kits" is an electrifying 4/4 monster that would pulverise any dancefloor, while "Cylindrical Habitat" is a wonderful slice of chaos and doom, wrapped in a thick coating of sonic fuzz. Another Spools classic...

Review: Avian offshoot Mira is the latest label to be graced with some Prostitutes material from Cleveland noise veteran James Donadio with the first installment of a two part release. With output in the last year on Diagonal, Digitalis, Opal Tapes, and Submit, the Prostitutes project is as good example as any of the fertile cross pollination of techno and noise and thus a perfect candidate for the industrial, coarse, and melodically muddy brand of music championed by the prospering Mira label. Entitled Truncheon Cadence, the four tracks included on part one offer some of the most minimal productions from Donadio as Prostitutes thus far, seemingly placing more emphasis on arrangement and rhythm than the harsher sonics of Crushed Interior for example. The wonderfully suggestive "Led Up Garden Paths" is a particular highlight, the tunnelling textures and soothing exhalations offering real contrast.

Review: Powell's Diagonal Records label continues to plunder it's own unique sonic path, with the label debut of Prostitutes following swiftly on from that excellent Shit & Shine EP. Prostitutes is the current creative focus of James Donadio, a veteran of Cleveland's underground music scene, whose blend of blend of primitive rhythms and industrial sonics have graced Opal Tapes and Digitalis after the project's emergence with a self titled release on the artist's own stabUdown label in 2011. Fans of Container, Metasplice and Carlos Giffoni will find much that appeals in the Prostitutes approach that is demonstrated with aplomb on the Shatter and Lose EP. Indeed we'd go so far as say there are echoes of vintage Cabs in cuts like "Poison The Masses" and "Sold A Decade At A Time". As with previous Diagonal releases great attention has been paid to the sleeve art; created by Guy Featherstone and photographer Robbie Maynard, the pair tracked down two real prostitutes off the Caledonian Road in London, and overlaid their pictures on top of each other to create the striking, if disturbing, cover.

Review: Few labels would choose to issue a CD compilation for their second release, so kudos to Perc Trax offshoot Submit for showing some ambition, more so when the focus of Feral Grind is on a number of producers who "operate at the intersection of techno, drone and DIY electronics". This 12" sampler sets the tone for what to expect from the compilation that's been curated by Ali 'Perc' Wells and music journalist Justin Farrar with tracks from Pete Swanson, Burial Hex, Prostitutes and Profligate sharing space either side of the record. If you've been a fan of the recent output from Diagonal, Spectrum Spools or Type then you should engage in this sampler - "Braces On My Fangs" by Prostitutes is a particular highlight.