This week at Juno
KiNK, Ishan Sound, the new Dog In The Night label and more make our pick of the week’s best records.
Perc – The Power and The Glory Remixed (Perc Trax)
When you’ve got Tessela, Untold and Clouds all providing remix duties on one record, you know the overall result is going to be infinitely better than the majority of remix tie-in records. While we didn’t think it possible to add much to Perc’s brilliant The Power And The Glory album, the three names here all take the source material to punishing new places. All three efforts are great, but Tessela’s skewed take on “Take Your Body Off”, filled with satisfyingly meaty breakbeats, takes it for us.
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KiNK – Under Destruction (Macro)
Largely known for his vast discography of fairly straight up house and techno, Bulgarian producer KiNK may not seem like the most obvious candidate for a release on Stefan Goldmann and Finn Johannsen’s idiosyncratic Macro label, but on the Under Destruction LP he turns his arsenal of hardware to creating all manner of strange and twisted shapes. Filled with otherworldly bleeps and disorientating textures, and held together with the most lopsided of drums, Under Destruction is almost certainly not the album you’d imagine coming from the mind of KiNK.
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Blasé – Sunset Dawn (ESP Institute)
Blasé is the new collaborative project of Secret Circuit and Suzanne Kraft, two producers known for their cosmically charged excursions which fit very loosely into the category of disco and Balearic. As such it’s no surprise that Sunset Dawn, their debut LP for Lovefingers’ ESP Institute, should come so drenched in sumptuous analogue textures. Although the name is supposedly inspired by their shared “lackadaisical style and confident panache”, you wouldn’t think there was anything lackadaisical about Sunset Dawn, which is a effortlessly professional take on sun-drenched kosmische disco.
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Valerio Tricoli – Miseri Lares (PAN)
Miseri Lares represents the first full-length from the PAN stable this year, and it’s as challenging as you’d expect from the label that last year brought us diverse LPs from Dalglish, Heatsick and Rashad Becker. Last seen on Bill Kouligas’ label contributing to a split LP with Thomas Ankersmit back in 2011, Italian artist Valerio Tricoli returns to PAN with what the label describe as his “magnum opus”. A contemporary take on the original musique concrete techniques of the Institute GRM, it’s nevertheless an album that focuses on langauge as much as it does the sounds coming from his reel-to-reel tapes, featuring pieces of poetry and prose form The Bible, and the works of Dante and HP Lovecraft.
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Ishan Sound – Namkha (Tectonic Recordings)
Although the more experimental 130BPM club fare collated recently on his Cold Recordings imprint have provided some real gems, it’s good to see Pinch hasn’t completely abandoned traditional dubstep with the signing of Young Echo member Ishan Sound to his Tectonic label. You’re unlikely to hear a better pair of dub-leaning steppers tracks this year, and the accompanying remix of “Namkha” from fellow Young Echo man Kahn is another stone cold soundsystem killer, cranking up the atmosphere with his trademark brand of malicious bass oscillation.
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Palace – Touch Me (Hot Haus Records)
The Unknown To The Unknown-affiliated Hot Haus label is becoming an increasingly reliable source of club-ready house music, and this record from Palace is one of their best yet. The ubiquitous US garage house sound may be the reference point across the three tracks here, but Palace adds his own infectious brand of shuffling percussion, heavy kicks and UK influences across this fantastic 12″, elevating it above the soundalike work of many of his peers. Put quite simply, this is some of the best club music you’ll find this week.
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San Proper – Yestoday (Perlon)
A new record on Perlon is always worth checking out, even more so when said record comes from our favourite Amsterdam resident San Proper. Last seen on Zip and Markus Nikolai’s label back in 2011 with A Cat Called Mice, the three tracks on Yestoday are filled with all of the strange production idiosyncracies we’ve come to expect from the producer, especially the sampled horn and string sections that rear into the otherwise driving “Drop & Run” and the all out vocal performance given on “Burn For Love”. With this being Perlon number 99, we’re interested to see who will feature on the hundredth release.
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Person of Interest – Untitled (Russian Torrent Versions)
Although Person of Interest also saw a blink and you’ll miss it entry in to the L.I.E.S. White Label series this week, it’s the enigmatic producer’s Russian Torrent Versions 12” that’s doing the business for us. On the basis of his name P.O.I. is evidently someone who wants to have a bit of fun with the anonymous producer concept, and his tracks, while fitting into the lo-fi techno bracket between industrial, ghetto house and acid, have enough manic energy to keep things interesting. While “NC-17” might sound like a straight to tape Jeff Mills track, the weird synth flute of “Side Sirena” offers a shimmering take on the L.I.E.S. sound that will go down well with fans of Vereker, Greg Beato and Beau Wanzer.
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Robert Crash – Under Party (Dog In The Night Records)
Granted, this is another lo-fi techno record in a similar vein to Person of Interest record, but it also happens to be very good indeed. The pesudonym of IFM member Fran Mela, these five tracks run the gamut of analogue production styles, with “Candem Town” combining inebriated synth lines and strung out vocals which bring to mind recent Ron Morelli’s recent Hospital Prodictions releases, and the wiry, rubbery techno of both “Vertigo” and “Toys Slip” coming form the Greg Beato and Funkineven school of rhythm. Dog In The Night might be a slightly odd name for a label, but don’t let that put you off – this record is a killer.
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Covered in Sand – Crescent Shaped Scars (Mira)
Shifted first debuted the industrial-leaning Covered In Sand last year on Avian’s Mira sub-label to fine effect, so the arrival of his second record under the name is very welcome indeed. Those who basked in the dense textures of the first record will be right at home with Crescent Shaped Scars, though the palpable sense of menace and unease is increased across these three tracks, especially on both “Luarica” and “Venetia”, whose ritualistic drumming and blown-out hiss come across like a collaboration between Powell and Cut Hands.
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