This week at Juno
Banging techno from Xosar, Peace Edits from Gobstopper, immersive house from Entro Senestre, a piping hot Detroit collaboration and more are our picks of the week
“This is a record to scare weak-hearted ravers,” wrote Oli Warwick in his review of Xosar’s Black Opal debut. As our reliable contributor points out, when Sheela Rahman first emerged it came through her warm and approachable, hardware-centric house jams for Rush Hour, Créme Organization and L.I.E.S. Rahman’s first album, which finds its way to the Opal Tapes sub-label, is quite the opposite – in the best possible way. This seven-track LP is a concoction of steely techno bangers tough enough for Tresor, while there’s also a selection of muggy, experimental sessions of pulsing rhythms that sound like they’ve come straight out of Metasplice’s studio. Let Go certainly turned a few heads when we played it in the office this week and if there’s a techno record you should hear this month it’s Xosar’s debut long player, in particular tracks “Sail 2 Elderon”, “Prophylaxis” and “Hades Gates”.
Listen/buy vinyl
If there’s something to be said about Tri Angle right now it’s that the American label are excited as everyone else when it comes to a sound proliferated from Berlin’s mutant crew Janus. Last week the label released Lotic’s freakish Heterocetera EP – a malformed five-track that’s crossing over into a pseudo-mainstream of commercially alternative pop culture. Tri Angle keep their foot on the gas with this Baptizm EP by Rabit, a producer also on the rise that’s previously released music for Irish label Glacial Sound and Soundman Chronicles, to having tracks featured on Sound Pellegrino and Keysound compilations. This record is Rabit’s highest profile to date and in parts it’s as soft and delicate as the music of Mr Mitch, while “Straps” sounds like Portishead’s “Machine Gun” reloaded and blown up by a greasy-faced Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Listen/buy vinyl
Mr Mitch – Peace Edits (Gobstopper)
In 2013, Mr Mitch started releasing Peace Dubs; edits of fellow grime producer’s music that was a neutral reaction to the War Dubs being thrown around by grime crews at the time. Miles Mitchell would simmer down the aggression of original works by artists like Wiley, Plastician and Spooky with disarming results, and now he and Gobstopper label mate Loom, Strictface and Silk Road Assassins have done the same to well known pop hits by Dru Hill, Alice Deejay and T-pain. Weightlessness is a word that’s thrown around a lot to describe Mr Mitch’s music (just take a listen to last years Parallel Memories LP on Planet Mu and you’ll know why) and once more it’s a fitting term for this debut 12″ from Gobstopper. Just take a glance at Loom’s rework of Kate Bush’s much loved “Hounds Of Love” where the original’s vocal are repitched and detuned to the point of sounding like a chipmunk’s squeal caught up in an Ableton warping malfunction. Strictface’s “Alice” is a soulful, smoked-out accapella, while R&B sentiments glisten through a fog of grime atmospheres in Silk Road Assassins’s “T”. Peace, love and ecstasy.
E-GZR – Wania Presenterer E GZR (Wania)
The nerdier completists of Wania out there will be the one’s to point out E-GZR first appeared on the label in 2013 with that Mellow Mix to XI’s “Mania 16”. It was a thick slice of luscious Basic Channel techno that a Juno Plus colleague made it known they could recognise playing through this writer’s headphones. E-GZR now makes a complete debut with this curtain raising Wania Presenterer E GZR EP that demonstrates this enigmatic producer isn’t restricted to only producing crepuscular sessions of long-winded dub techno. Instead we’re presented with five highly animated drum machines sequences teeming with light distortion and wobbling Nordic future funk.
Listen/buy vinyl
Mumdance – fabriclive 80 (fabric)
Fabric stands uncontested at the moment when it comes to releasing mix CDs and there’s plenty to be said about Mumdance’s sweltering contribution to the London night club’s storied series. As soon as the tracklist for fabriclive 80 was unveiled it’s safe to say this edition was the most anticipated in some time. With instrumental grime firmly fixed in the spot light – a lot of which has to do with Mumdance’s own productions – and with industrial techno yet again experiencing another rise to prominence, Mumdance finds himself connecting disparate ends of electronic music through a meshing of weird, fierce and wonderful production by artists like Sculpture, Fis and Shapednoise to UK’s bass-spectrum of Untold, Acre, Logos and WANDA GROUP – not to mention a curtain call of old school hardcore and rave – what a mix!
Listen/buy vinyl
Nimam Spregleda – No Future (Borft)
First emerging in the late ‘80s out of the Swedish tape scene, you’d have to be pretty senior to call yourself an authority on Frak and the Börft Records discography. That’s not something we consider ourselves at Juno Plus, instead we are more recent adoptees still enjoying the process of joining the many dots with each new Börft release. The No Future mini LP from the tongue twistingly named Nimam Spregleda is a fine case in point; before dipping into this wonderfully frazzled collection of primitive electronics we had no idea who was behind it. Do some digging and it turns out to be the work of Goz Mongo Alliance man Henrik Bengtsson who has of course previously featured on Börft offshoot UFO Mongo along with all manner of odd cassette releases in a similar vein to No Future dating back to the early ‘90s. Fans of Beau Wanzer and Light Sounds Dark will be all over this.
Listen/buy vinyl
Mo Kolours – How I (Rhythm Love Affair) (One Handed)
As his artist name Mo Kolours suggests, Joseph Deenmamode’s approach is a vibrant and rich style of music that draws from a multiplicity of images, fused together into something refreshing and quite distinct. The Anglo-Mauritian first served notice of his obvious talent on a trilogy of 12”s for One Handed Music, though it was last year’s self-titled debut album where the percussionist and singer truly excelled. We’ve been fiending for some new Mo Kolours ever since, and his return to the 12” format with How I (Rhythm Love Affair) does not disappoint one jot! Commencing with a title-track that feels destined to get picked up and played by Theo Parrish, the record distils that intoxicating feeling you got from Deenmamode’s album into five short cuts the more adventurous and quick fingered selectors will adore and cherish.
Listen/buy vinyl
It’s become quite customary to expect the unexpected from PAN, one of few labels you could truly say excel at the art of curation these days. Despite this, you’d need advanced levels of ESP to predict that Bill Kouligas was going to dip into the archives of obscure ‘90s US hip hop with a reissue of a rare cassette mix. That’s just what’s happened here with Ruff Kutz, a double LP issue of an uber rare mixtape WordSound founder Skiz ‘Spectre’ Fernando Jr. put together in 1998. How this came about is yet to come to light and we hope Kouligas is given the platform somewhere to detail this most interesting of PAN releases. Split into four continuous segments over two slabs of vinyl, Ruff Kutz very much belongs in that canon of mixes that were forward thinking way beyond the technological means of their time.
Listen/buy vinyl
Entro Senestre – ES (WT Records)
After launching WT Records simply as a means to release a $tinkworx track he’d been given, one of the next artists William Burnett turned to was Entro Senestre whose La Caccia 12” was the label’s third release. From here Burnett and Senestre, real name John Beall, have continued to work together on an intermittent basis which has resulted in some truly memorable material as Daywalker + CF – most notably last year’s LIES 12” Supersonic Transportation. Beall returns to solo endeavours as Entro Senestre and WT Records with this quite sublime EP that contains perhaps his deepest and most diverse work yet. Having listened through a few times today, lead cut “Rosegold” is a real stand out and resonates every bit as much as a recent FIT Siegel production “Carmine”. For the most satisfying “Rosegold” listening experience outside of playing the 12” we recommend this unofficial video.
Listen/buy vinyl
K2 – Two (Detroit Underground)
Based on the quality of Kyle Hall and Kero’s first collaboration there’s no denying we’ve been hanging out for a follow up 12″ since that Zug Island/K2 Attack record first dropped in 2012. It may have taken several years but Two has arrived, and although it might not be as mutant as their debut, it’s a worthy sequel that adds to the story of this truly Detroit combination. This time they deliver a full EP of four tracks which is heavy, analogue and beat down – but anything but linear. For a haunted session of industrial funk check out “126BPMNONAME” while cheesy horror thematics are made to sound devlishly techno and bit-crushed in “EP2-3”, and for shuffling beats and awkward rhythms it’s all about the B-side. Sizzling Detroit hotness.
Listen/buy vinyl