The best new singles this week
If singles had a Royal Family, this lot would all be in it
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Mike Ellison – Covalence (Underground Resistance)
Few, if any, labels are embodied with quite the level of mystique that enigmatically cloaks Detroit’s iconic Underground Resistance. As well as effectively functioning as a byword for subterranean quality, the imprint is infused with a fiercely uncompromising spirit, marked by its minimalist branding, mask-wearing protagonists, and proudly militant aesthetic. Launched in 1990 by Mad Mike, Jeff Mills, and Robert Hood, the label has presented seminal work from the likes of Suburban Knight, Aztec Mystic, Davina, UR and more, with an evolving cast of players that over the years has included Gerald Mitchell, Rolando, Don Caballero among a great many others.
As well as re-issuing a selection of pearls from the archives, the UR stable has recently been invigorated by a flurry of novel releases in recent months – the latest of which features a particularly alluring collaboration with spoken word artist, Mike Ellison. ‘Covalance’ appears in four versions here, beginning with a particularly buoyant remix from long-time UR affiliate, Mark Flash. His ‘Touch’ mix sees Ellison’s quickfire message presented over a classic Detroit house groove, with gritty beats embellished with analogue stabs, sweeping chords and propulsive Latin bass.
Seeing out the A-side, the inclusion of an ‘acappella’ version provides an opportunity to digest Ellison’s hard-hitting social commentary unimpeded, allowing, too, for some creative turntable manoeuvres. On the reverse, the harder-edged ‘Tech’ edit sees tightly-spun loops revolve over a stripped groove, with the spliced and affected vocal taking on new life over the dynamic rhythm track. Finally, the ‘Extended’ mix fills the sonic gaps with a deviant bass goliath, once again allowing the vocal searing vocal power to work its rhythmic magic across the cut. Simultaneously timeless and fresh, the UR collective continue their ceaseless forward march with laser-sharp focus and the most profound of musical visions.
PC
Haruomi Hosono / Vampire Weekend – Watering A Flower 2021 (Speedstar)
Rarely does the act of sampling – by one major music act of another – get so honored in the form of a one-off release. In 2019, Vampire Weekend released their fourth album ‘Father Of The Bride’, delivering a compendium of sunny blues-pop and country in a fusion not so easily nailed by other bands. It was well received, marking a shift away from their former three – much gloomier – albums for XL, which drew more on minimal punk and indie in more dubious tones.
One interlude from the album, ‘2021’, pined after last year. However, having been recorded in 2018 and released in 2019, the track looked to the 2021 of the future. Only one minute and forty seconds long, it concerned the fallout of a tumultuous relationship ended on uncertain terms. “2021, will you think about me? / I could wait a year / but I shouldn’t wait three… / Copper goes green.”
The track blended cut-up guitar and vocal one-shots, carefully woven around one peculiar sample that we wouldn’t have expected to have been sourced by the band. The intro to Haruomi Hosono’s ‘Talking’, one side of his 1984 cassette ‘Watering A Flower’, makes a stark appearance as part of the track’s backbone, forming its harmonic body – organs to the rhythmic skeleton added by hallowed weekender Ezra Koenig. Retaining more than just the original tape hue, the sampled version keeps every aspect of Hosono’s riff intact. And with the original piece clocking in at just under 15 minutes, it’s truly a clever case, with Koenig alluding to the passage of time in both his subject and source material.
Such a respectful reworking deserves recognition, and thus justifies this one-off 12” from Japan’s Speedstar. Now, the two moments in time are compiled, along with the newer 2021 version of the Vampire Weekend song, which removes the sample and merely interpolates the chords into a washier scape. This is a fascinating look at three disparate years – 84, 19 and 21 – and their effect on minimal pop music as a whole.
JIJ
Remember the name and remember where you saw it first. That said, Benefits – the one man, Middlesbrough-based gammon-busting machine – has a massive online presence. So much so, that it seems hard to imagine that ‘Flag’ is his first and only appearance on vinyl to date.
This is way up at the fierce end of the Benefits scale – tracks like ‘Imperfect and the movingly dour ‘Shit Britain’ will, when they get a proper release, no doubt do much more business. But ‘Flag’, a cauldron of post-Brexit rage at the politically conservative and closed minded and how they use patriotism as a cultural life-raft to cling onto as the rest of the world hurtle towards modernity, is rightly placed to land on top of the Jubilee celebrations. Backed with the equally gnarly, freeform noise sculpture of ‘Empire’, words flowing over electronic chaos and rising to a frustrated scream of a climax, this is visceral, righteous and bang on the money.
Buy two copies if you can get hold of them – one to keep and play, the other to ram up the nose of anyone who tells you that no-one has anything political to say in pop music any more. Sheer class – as debuts go, this is way up there. As well as being just the start of a story that will surely come to dominate the music scene over the next few years.
BW
Parris – South Of South West Waves (Peach Discs)
The iridescent glow of Parris debut album Soaked In Indigo Moonlight can still be felt lingering from its release last year. In the whipcrack rush of releases zipping by our receptors week in, week out, there was a sparkling finesse to the London-based producer’s record which cut through. There were the obvious poppy hooks like ‘Skater’s World’, but even in its more obtuse moments the album had a zest which elevated it beyond the usual murk and moodiness that permeates so much UK club music.
It’s hardly surprising that theme continues on the next transmission from Planet Parris, as he navigates towards another citrus-endowed enclave in modern dance culture. Shanti Celeste and Gramrcy’s Peach Discs is a reliably sprightly stable which favours bright and airy updates on house, techno, electro and the hybrid sounds in between. South Of South West Waves is unabashedly upbeat, but not in a saccharine, obvious way.
From the snappy soca hint of the beat on ‘South Of South West Waves’ to the fluid flair of the lead lines, we’re presented with an isotonic charger of a track. It’s fast, but not frantic, even when the claps snap on to the two and the four as the beat gear-shifts into techno. At all times there’s a prevailing psychedelia wielded to liven up the party with pure positivity, and not an obvious trope in earshot.
‘Dreaming Of Sunflowers’ is similarly tooled, albeit with a softer attack thanks to the mellow cadence of the primary melodic thread. There’s space for more bleepy accents around that hook and the drums have a twitchier demeanour, instilling effervescence into the track. Parris gifts us with versatile instruments to deploy on crowds that need a little more spring in their step, whether smoothing the curve of a rushing uptempo set or ratcheting up the energy during a lull. It’s rare and finely sculpted, just the like rest of his flawless oeuvre.
OW
Soichi Terada & Masalo – Diving Into Minds (Rush Hour)
Rush Hour present an era-spanning fusion here, with a senator of Japanese electronic music, Soichi Terada, joined by loveable maverick Masalo to re-imagine a pair of tracks lifted from the ‘Asakusa Lights’ LP. Actively producing since the late ’80s, Terada is perhaps best-known for the impeccable body of work he released via his own Far East Recordings label. The last few years have seen a renewed interest in his work, with the vintage/proto-house revival contributing to the re-issue of some of his most memorable work – not least 1989’s infectious joint effort with Nami Shimada, ‘Sunflower’.
Following the release of his ‘Sounds Of The Far East’ retrospective on Rush Hour, he returned to the Amsterdam-based label last year with a long-player of new material, ‘Asakusa Lights’. Here, Masalo hops on board to help deliver club versions of two of the album’s standouts. Bobby Masalo has shown sparkling form since entering the production arena six or so years ago with his ‘Testify’ collaboration with Jamie 3:26. He’s since scored underground hits – in the form of ‘New Dance’ as well as some inspired remix – and continues to work the festival circuit alongside his partner in crime, Kamma. A-side cut ‘Driving Into Minds (club mix) lands like an authentic house colossus, with feel-good chords powering over piercing snares before floating pads usher in a euphoric breakdown, the rhythm bursting back into life alongside propulsive percussion and shimmering synth textures. On the flip, it’s ‘Double Spire’ that’s gifted the ‘club mix’ treatment. Here, soaring synth solos and emotive strings drift across energetic bass notes and undulating synths while crisp snares and fizzing hats drive the tempo. Kinetically charged and rich with emotion, both tracks are entirely deserving of rotation and sure to work floors throughout the summer months (and likely, far beyond).
PC
Angel D’Lite – 303 Dalmations (Planet Euphonique)
Angel D’lite (Angela Davis) is coming along strong. The South London breakbeat DJ, producer, set designer, and queer dance stable is back, following up stonking ‘Re4mat’ EP on Ritual Poison with yet another liquefied magic brew, ‘303 Dalmations’.
D’lite’s psychedelic version of breakbeat is reminiscent of the US’ eminent 90s West Coast breaks, but she’s one of the few producers reframing this sound in a London context. She’s veritably wiping the frown off London’s face; there truly isn’t enough happiness in the capital’s dance music, and D’lite’s mission to unearth some of the UK’s more bubbly sounds (happy hardcore, pianobreaks) more than justifies her use of the devised genre names ‘cakebeat’ and ‘fabba’ to describe her own music.
Wittily alluding to the film ‘101 Dalmations’ while punning that with the name of the OG acid synth, this 5 track 12” is testament to some of the most exciting and jubilant sounds in contemporary breaks. Full of love-heart tartness and sickly bubblegum verve, every track here weaves through cackling melodies and/or humorous incorporations of bleep tropes like rave arps and lasershots. ‘303 Dalmations’ is just so, revving the acceleration pedal on the main melody and allowing its delays to seep into the melody itself, creating a timewarped blur. ‘Just Trippin’, meanwhile, perfectly captures the mood of having just been handed shroom juice in the rave and greedily snaffling it up; breaks-BPMs are upped to just slightly beyond the usual realm of temporal orthodoxy, while a resonant acid riff makes the track more than likely to summom geometric colours and shapes across the visual field.
Garage crooner Ell Murphy appears on ‘7am’, a wonky breakstep dedication to one of the most frowned-upon-by-Tories times of day to be out raving. The B-side is where the juice is; ‘Liquid Skies’ isa a pure wash of rainforest breaks and synth mallets, certainly one for the dolphin-pill-every-other-weekenders; ‘Relaxerciser’, meanwhile is one for the weekend in between, melding aerobic pulses with chillout moods, perfect for bouncing on both yogic exercise balls and dancefloors. Yet another modern classic from the producer.
JIJ
Black Loops – These Changes (Freerange)
When it comes to putting a shift in, Ricardo ‘Black Loops’ Paffetti puts most of us to shame. There can’t be too many protagonists operating on the deep house circuit as hard-working – or whose music bumps as consistently – as the Berlin-based dynamo. Active for a decade or so, he’s released an evolving stream of house jams on the likes of Shall Not Fade, Atteral, Gallery and Madhouse, and the kinetically-charged nature of his music sees it routinely championed by the most finely attuned jocks in the business.
His third appearance on Freerange features an intriguing collaboration with London-based producer and vocalist, Cody Currie, who has himself made a startling impact on the dance underground – thanks to a series of compelling and musically rich releases since debuting back in 2016. No slouch himself, he’s released on Classic, Razor-N-Tape and Toy Tonics, among others. On ‘These Changes’ the duo combine to perfection, with Currie’s soul-drenched vocal floating over bouncing bass, shimmering keys and a stirring four/four drum track. ‘Next’ hyper-atmospheric cut ‘The People’ arrives with heavenly jazz samples gloriously looping over a shuffling house groove, sure to strike a classically-charged chord with deep house purists. Finally, the energy levels are pumped up a notch on the bass-led simplicity of ‘Driver’, trimming the fat for a sublime dose of less-is-more dancefloor fire.
PC
Brainkillers / Lewi Cifer – On A Different Mission (Vibe Alive / Kemet)
The Kemet archives are being diligently combed through for reissues at present, holding the scalpers at bay and giving seminal breakbeat a fresh airing. A lot of the music from that corner of the proto-jungle scene is positively ruff, but Brainkillers and Lewi Cifer presented something a little more refreshing with the instructive On A Different Mission for shortlived sublabel Vibe Alive. When the record came out in 1993, hardcore was well established and spreading out as a sound. The tempos were nudging up and different sample palettes were being explored, but Brainkillers hadn’t quite arrived at the cut up amen madness they would demonstrate a year later on one of their biggest tunes, ‘Screwface’.
The sound on ‘On A Different Mission’ is much more in line with the linear hardcore rush that was setting raves across the UK alight in ’92, all tightly clipped break loops and a peppy kick line cantering away underneath. There are ragga licks and dubwise touches aplenty, but it’s actually the airiness of the pad which sets a special, giddy mood here. ‘One Style’ gets a little choppier in its drum edits while the mammoth throb of the sub drives the track forward, but as with ‘Hurt Me’ it’s the synth play which sounds distinct, lending the EP a sense of otherness. ‘Girl U Look Good’ tips towards the kind of cheeky, upferrit ragga hardcore sound that permeated the scene at the time, but again Brainkillers and Cifer weave a little synthetic magic around the core of the track to take it well and truly off terra firma.
OW
Johnfaustus – Dream Cabins (Zodiak Commune)
Doctor Faustus infamously sold his soul to the devil in exchange for power, knowledge and material gain. Now this new EP from Johnfaustus (which, while not carrying infinite knowledge and dark power, at least contains all the tricks of the trade for making banging electro) has the potential to land in your mitts… for a price!
Johnfaustus has been going since 2010, but in the last 2 or so years he’s almost exclusively deferred his music to the Dutch label Zodiak Commune – much like how Faust unrepentantly gave over his soul. And judging by the sound of this stonking EP, it really wouldn’t take much for us to believe John is the Robert Johnson of electro. ‘Dream Cabins’ has bangers of nigh impossible proportions in terms of might, electrance-ification, weight – surely a human alone can’t have made this!
Three originals and one remix occupy two sides. ‘Sub Assign’ blends totalitarian reese drones with pressurized-gas-pulsing snares, while ‘Gemini’ opts for a similar palette while adding maddening metallic clanks to the mix – wrenches, nuts, bolts, pots and pans all clammering for space in the mix. Both tracks express the mood of desperately trying to escape the halls of an alien spaceship, with no way out. On the B, ‘Dream’ delivers on John’s promise to “shape electronic dreams at your disposal”, calling on his devilish power to strike up breathable trance lines at his own whimsical command. Finally, a remix of Kristian Reinhard’s ‘Jungle’ wafts a lower-tempo, EBMmy umami. A tempting, spiritually crushing EP from the Dutchman!
JIJ
V/A – Leng 059 (Leng)
With its faultless stream of imaginative and carefully curated musical curios, UK label Leng has long been a staple of cosmic-inclined collectors and Balearic-leaning selectors. The Margate-based imprint marks its 59th release with a departure from its established norm of purveying original compositions – opting instead to present a selection of obscure gems plucked from the esoteric archives of collector and artist, Paul Beckett. As expected, the music is nothing short of exquisite, ranging in tone from woozy Euro-yacht headiness to spaced-out Italo.
The A-side opens with The Ray & John’s sumptuous 1984 track ‘Day By Day (Instrumental)’, oozing summer heat with its infectious bass, evocative chords, and stirring horn stabs. Maintaining the sun-soaked Mediterranean sensations, we sashay into the magnificent kitsch of ‘Angelo’ – lifted from Angel’o’s 1980 ‘Dream Machine’ LP – with its fusionist synths, bittersweet chords and end-of-summer vocals. On the flip, the temperature rises thanks to the sturdy synth bass of All Trouvee’s seductive 1980 cut, ‘Darling’, before the floating marimbas, sweet serenade and celestial tones of Angel’s ‘Tomorrow Night’ resume the horizontal mood. Finally, we return to lesser-known Italo-fusion territory with the innocent vocal allure of Eggs Time’s ‘Feeling Action’, elegantly gliding across glistening waters with its sparkling keys, splashing drums, and thick portamento bass.
PC
Overmono (Tessela and Truss) are finally breaking from their usual format of 130BPM breaks. ‘Cash Romantic’ is the latest in a string of releases for XL, and hears the modern London Orbitals work in new arenas not commonly trodden by this pair of rave-era obsessives.
Building on two teaser tracks that bookend the EP and which came out earlier this year – ‘Gunk’ and ‘Phosycon’ (an optimistic tech house tune and an ambient downtempo cut respectively) – the mood of ‘Cash Romantic’ is genre versatility. The just-mentioned ‘Gunk’ is minimal and bouncy, and is emblematic of Overmono’s recent tendency to work in impressionistic vocal samples: wailing children in school playgrounds, sensuous R&B wails (‘Gfortune’), and the cut-off sound of your 90s raver buddy chewing your ear off on the motorway overpass, while you spit on the cars and lorries below.
It all recalls something between Mount Kimbie and Dillinja. The titular ‘Cash Romantic’ is like Testset doing techstep, with its juddering breaks recalling the hardline love we struggle to maintain in the UK – the sonic expression of post-capitalist desire, dare we say. ‘Bone Mics’, meanwhile, encapsulates the practise of ingesting music in a hypermodern way, referring to the now-popular ‘bone-conduction’ earphones – which feed music straight to inner ear via the skull without blocking the ear canal – all while taking future garage and stripping it back to something more skeletal than a snake’s naked vertebrae. This is a striking meditation on outer-city club culture, consumerism and passion.
JIJ
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Patrizio Calaviere, Oli Warwick, Ben Willmott