This week at Juno

Galcher Lustwerk, Aurora Halal, Florian Kupfer, Wen and the Blacknecks headed up this week’s fine selection of records.

There was one record that everyone seems to have been waiting eagerly for this week, and that’s the Nu Day EP from house sensation Galcher Lustwerk. Seeing him move to Tsuba from his usual home of White Material, the EP is nevertheless as rewarding an experience as either his sublime White Material debut or his 100% Galcher mixtape, with “216” and “Chillin’ In The Booth” both providing the kind of low-key storytelling that makes his tracks so great. However, for us it might just have been edged out by the debut release from NYC-based Aurora Halal. Best known for the Mutual Dreaming parties she puts on in Brooklyn, the Passageway EP displays her unique take on house and techno, featuring four “shadowy and intimate dance landscapes of shifting subterranean textures” and a fantastic remix from Detroit enigma Terrence Dixon. Complementing these nicely was the debut album from Italian producer Panoram on Firecracker Recordings. Seemingly more than happy to flit between classic disco, funk and Dilla when looking for inspiration, the the 12 tracks on Everyone Is A Door take you on a journey that’s refreshingly psychedelic and filled with squelching funk.

This week’s big album was the debut long player from young grime producer Wen, who delivered the seriously impressive Signals for Keysound. Rather than taking an overtly melodic approach like Slackk or a wildly experimental one like Logos, Wen’s take on grime is considerably darker, with vocals samples that hark back to the early days of the genre. More pulsing bass frequencies could be found in Akkord’s stellar remix of Djrum’s “Dam” on the latest 2nd Drop 12″, a proper club tool joined by one of Felix K’s typically experimental D&B reworks on the flip. This week also saw the debut of Giganta on Actress’ Werk Discs label; although the producer hails from Greece, the Force EP recalls a combination of classic UK funky and tropical bass styles which are very much at the opposite end of the spectrum to with Actress’ Ghettoville album.

Also returning this week to much fanfare was Florian Kupfer, whose first release for L.I.E.S. last year featured highly in many end of year lists. If you gripped Kupfer’s contribution to the FunkySouls-baiting Russian Torrent Versions label, you’ll not be surprised to find the German producer trading in a more hard-edged techno sound on the title track to This Society, while “Reach Another System” can perhaps best be described as a turbo-charged MCDE. Some more melodic house styles could be heard on the new album from Magic Touch, whose Palermo House Gang album on 100% Silk saw him rounding up a host of collaborators including Octo Octa to deliver eight tracks of classic ’80s-influenced house tunes. The Uncanny Valley label also released the second of their various artists EPs to celebrate twenty releases, with Jacob Korn, Lounge 22 and more providing some sumptuous Dresden-sourced house music.

This week’s bumper crop of techno was headed up by the return of the formerly anonymous Blacknecks who emerged last year with a fanciful back story describing them as a “new, anonymous side project of two prominent UK garage producers & remixers”. The fifth plate from the project is filled with just the mix of Italo synth and industrial techno that made previous records so much fun, though “Hotline” should definitely be approached with caution. Similarly searing was Helena Hauff’s logical appearance on Bunker sub-label Panzerkreuz, with the 1028 EP featuring six devasting cuts of jagged hardware techno and electro hybrids. The most head-spinning techno of the week however came from Avian regulars SHXCXCHCXSH, whose VVVLLLLVVV 12″ saw them continue to refine their singularly psychedelic take on the hard-edged, noisy techno aesthetic

More cerebral techno sounds could be found in the debut album from Vril, whose Torus album for Giegling puts his usual influences of dub techno and murky reflections of rave together with what sounds like elements of electro, house and industrial techno, while the ever-impressive Semantica came through with a pair of killer 12″s from Xhin and Yves De Mey, with the incisive sounds of the latter’s Double Slit EP being particularly essential. Finally, the Mickey Mouse-masked A Sagittariun followed up last year’s Dream Ritual album with The Jupiter Chronicles EP, which took his stargazing techno into frantic Robert Hood style territory.

This week’s experimental offerings were capped with the vinyl release of Bass Clef’s excellent Acid Tracts cassette from last year on Luke Younger’s Alter label. Complete with new artwork (a surreal and psychedelic smiley icon) and a new track, this round of modular techno is some of the Clef’s best work, and fully deserves its pressing to wax. Juno Plus favourite Tork Hawk released his latest Valcrond Video despatch this week under his given name of Luke Wyatt. Entitled Songs From Bad Kid School, it’s perhaps some of Wyatt’s most overtly nostalgic work to date, four tracks of heatsick guitars and beatless ambience which sound like they’ve been left out to warp in the sun.

Similarly emotive sounds made up Your Sketch, the Astro:Dynamics cassette debut of Russian producer Nenado, whose palette of looped field recordings and deep sub-bass come across like a combination of instrumental hip hop and dub techno, while on the opposite side of the coin William Bennett’s Cut Hands project collected a number of previously released and remastered tracks on Volume 3 and Volume 4 of his bracing Afro Noise series. Those looking for some interesting archival material have two excellent release to choose from; Editions Mego’s Recollections GRM sub-label presented its latest piece of essential archive material, a collection of Music From Computer by French composer Jean-Claude Risset, while Into The Light followed on from their inaugural compilation of Greek rarities with The Sleeping Beauties: A Collection Of Early & Unreleased Works, a focus on Athens musician Vangelis Katsoulis.