The best new singles this week
The singles you mustn’t sleep on this week
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Franz Scala and Fabrizio Mammarella’s Slow Motion Records deliver a treat for lovers of retro-futurism with this shimmering EP of melodic synth wonderment. The ‘Eye BM’ EP sees Mammarella join forces with compatriot Bottin to present this special, one-off project, with the release crowned by a scintillating remix from Italian synth wave pioneer, Alexander Robotnick. A supplemental layer of intrigue is added via the birthplace of the featured music, with the tracks originating from experimentations recorded at the CIMM Studios Bottin co-designed in 2019 for the Venice Biennale.
If the title isn’t descriptive enough, fans of Slow Motion – or, indeed, any or all of the featured artists – should know approximately what to expect, with synth-fuelled sounds that lean heavily into the hazy outer-reaches of proto-dance very much the order of the day. ‘Eye-BM 1’ sees an instantly memorable synth melody skip across a bed of bubbling acid and fizzing machine drums, with atmospheric pads adding suspense to the club-focused arrangement. Next, Alexander Robotnick steps up to tell the world exactly what time it is, reforming the track into a life-affirming dance classic. He maintains the lead melody, adding gorgeously harmonic chords and delicate overdubs to usher the music into timeless territory.
On the flip, the altogether more impolite ‘Eye-BM 2’ dispenses with the lavish melodics and strips back the music to its grubby core. Piercing drums drive growling bass and sinister synth motifs deep into the strobe-lit floor, with haunting pads and off-kilter effects darting over Energy Flash-style vocals as the groove unfolds. Finally, ‘Eye-BM 3’ takes us deeper still, with the tempo dropping to a more tentative pace as the narcotic haze takes full effect. Paranoid synth swells and detuned chords echo over pulsing acid as low-slung drums and cascading snares steer us into the cold light of morning. Predictably, there’s plenty to enjoy here, with each well-formed track equipped to work the dance at various junctures.
PC
DMX Krew – Serious (Magnetron)
DJ, producer and all-round studio bad man Ed Upton continues his prolific release schedule with a first appearance on Dutch label, Magnetron, dishing out six exquisite electro pearls on the ‘Serious’ EP. It’s easy to admire Utpon’s DMX Krew output over the last 30ish years, with his three-figure back-catalogue effortlessly gliding across stylistic boundaries and routinely striking the target. Though the Breakin’ Records boss has frequently veered into techno, house and disco territory, it’s for electro that he’s best known, and that’s precisely what he offers up on his latest collection – albeit garnished with a particularly heavy dose of funk. Indeed, opening track ‘Seriously’ is so heavy on the funk flex that it could almost pass for an Egyptian Lover joint, with freaky synth leads bursting across thick analogue bass as syncopated chords add thrust to the stripped electro rhythm.
While we’re making comparisons, ‘Back Again’ brims with the hard-edged swagger of Bambaata groove, with menacing synth bass as spooky pads combining over quick-fire drums. ‘Game Of Life’ dives deeper into off-kilter wobbliness, with mischievous synth lines darting between sparkling claps and rolling toms for three minutes of relentless dance energy.
Next, the eerie melodies of ‘Shut Uck’ join atmospheric pads and all manner of deviant bleeps on an unfettered rhythmic journey, morphing through four/four drums into fragmented breaks as the arrangement drifts into deep space. ‘Twinkle’ ups the tempo as we arrive in the sweat-filled throngs of an acid house rave, with undulating 303 and hypnotic bass notes powering over shuffling drums and saucer-eyed pads. Finally, ‘Weird One’ concludes a typically engaging set from Upton, with heartfelt harmonies gliding over biting bass and scattered drums as the lead melody soars. Plenty of bang for your buck here, with all six tracks sure to score points in far-flung corners of the dance galaxy.
PC
Yan Cook – Mirror Maze (Delsin)
Over the past 10 years Yan Cook has positioned himself as a steadfast presence in the European techno scene. The Kiev-based artist is a flag bearer for the Ukranian club culture, which was of course blooming before Russia’s invasion, and his presence on Delsin and affiliated labels like Ann Aimee confirms the appreciation he’s met internationally. As with much of the music Delsin carries, the art in Cook’s music lies in the ability to work within well-established tropes of Detroit-rooted techno and find a distinctive mode of expression.
The dub techno chords which pulse out of ‘Buddy’ are absolutely familiar – dub techno being a genre utterly rooted in formulae. But Cook makes those chords spring with funk around the fathoms deep thump of the kick and quivering hats. As with so much of the best straight-up techno, it’s sometimes hard to express why one approach stands out versus another, but ‘Buddy’ truly leaps forth with urgency and elegance in equal measure. ‘Gambler’ meanwhile creates an interesting dichotomy between the mellow immersion of its melodic parts and the upwards thrust of its peak-time tempo.
In fact, the snappy pace which also drives ‘Mirror Maze’ may well account for the vitality in Cook’s sound. The metallic top line and strafing bassline gain a certain urgency when fired out at 140 bpm, hinting at a potential compatibility with the techier end of the dubstep spectrum. Things don’t let up for the B2 ‘Lemur’, which slams on a quintessential 909 beat even if the shimmering synths are doused in delay. You’ve undoubtedly heard these sounds before, but in Yan Cook’s hands they radiate an appeal which sidesteps issues of familiarity to grab you on an instinctive level, as the best music rightly should.
OW
NAD – A Day In May (Rush Hour)
Rush Hour’s latest electro morsel brings to mind the well-known adage about London busses, with enigmatic outfit NAD returning to the fold with the ‘A Day In May’ EP. Formed by Mustafa Ali way back in the halcyon days of rave, the NAD project first appeared 30 years ago with the Detroit-esque double-header ‘Distant Drums/Sphere’. The revered album ‘Dawn Of A New Age’ arrived a year later, but it was a cool 27 years before we heard from NAD again, when the ‘New Aural Discourse’ EP popped up on Rush Hour. (Interestingly, the comeback 12 included UK house maestro Tony Thorpe’s name on the production credits, and, while uncredited on the earliest NAD material, he now appears to be very much part of the team. Perhaps he always was. Oh, the intrigue).
The descriptively titled ‘The Electro EP’ was next to appear, showing up in April of this year, and they’re back again a mere five months later with their latest machine funk escapades. The four-track EP sounds suspiciously as though it’s been resurrected from a long-lost DAT, embodied, as it is, with a delicious rawness that many contemporary productions appear to have glossed over. The title track sees a detuned synth lead play out an abstract melody as suspenseful pads and wobbly acid lines combine over electro drums and hyperactive bass.
‘What Race The Cyborg’ is dirtier still, with jagged rhythms driving aberrant synth lines and alien effects over robotic vocals. ‘Assemblages’ introduces some four-to-the-floor flavour to the mix, with sturdy house drums driving dusty solos and funk-flecked synth motifs for an irresistibly tilted dancefloor strut. Finally, ‘Singer Of Siren Songs’ completes an unmissable package, with moody pads and evocative synth stokes intertwined over crisp drums and brooding bass. Ranking among the very best of NAD’s less-is-more output, the entire EP oozes quality, with each track as devastatingly seductive as the last.
PC
DJ Plead, DJ Slyngshot & DJ Neewt – Genre Music (OK Spirit)
With a run of prior releases that takes in the amorphous experimentation of Bear Bones, Lay Low, Employee, Pawel’s Bar and other such outsider forces, OK Spirit return from a two year silence with a dexterous club record from three artists with otherness etched into their output. DJ Plead is probably the best known of the bunch, having delivered swerving rhythmic incantations to AD93, Livity Sound and Nervous Horizon amongst others. That said, DJ Slyngshot and DJ Neewt have been quietly cultivating their own hype via the alarmingly consistent, break-tooled house label YAPPIN.
Quite how these three crossed paths is unclear, but either remotely or physically they pooled their percussive tricks into an EP which highlights just how compatible their approaches are. ‘Studio Pressure’ uses breaks with a light touch, embellishing the sound field with a plethora of mystical flourishes which thankfully swerve the trancey trapdoor to offer up something with real bite (not least when the snarling D&B lead comes winging in for the final stretch).
‘Studio Release’ drops down into a low tempo creeper with enough gnarly, distorted synth licks to conjure the ghosts of illbient past, albeit strapped to the kind of purposeful half-step system structure that ensures this will be no back room wallflower, no matter how much dubwise FX trickery snakes its way through the mix. ‘Studio Pleasure’ offers up the sleekest cut on the record, riding an insouciant dembow beat and threading in some MC licks to keep the vibe reliably sexy. There’s even a cheeky hi-hat drop to provide maximum satisfaction for the hypothetical dancer.
That leaves it to ‘Studio Relief’ to finish the EP off with a reprise of the sonic approach on ‘Studio Release’, switching up the rhythms but offering the same moody, mean-tempered sprites with enough space for a slither of jungle to worm it’s way into the mix in the closing section. Overall, it’s a sound that’s entirely contemporary and compatible in that non-specific corner of jagged club music, but more importantly there’s heaps of personality pouring out of the tracks, playing pied piper to anyone who values attitude and swagger in their dancefloor dynamite.
OW
Dez Andres – Danceteria (Papaya Records)
There’s a near-infinite ocean of house music out there, and bar a few stylistic swells here and there, fundamentally the song remains the same. All that’s left when it comes to new releases is sincerity and authenticity, heart and feeling – we can’t expect innovation when we’re talking about a four to the floor beat, a bassline and some chords n’ samples. Dez Andres knows exactly how to communicate the soul in the music, and so his name remains one of those that guarantees an instant check when a new release drops, and it’s rare that he lets you down.
With his Papaya label hitting a comfortable rhythm of releases, he’s clearly having fun and aiming for pure musical pleasure on this eighth release, which doffs its cap to legendary New York clubs in its titles. ‘Danceteria’ keeps the beat bumping and swinging, firing off as many samples of people singing ‘dance’ as Andres could find in his ample record shelves. Embellished with some mellow chords and a shapely b-line, it’s simple but perfectly formed, oozing that MPC house vibe that the Detroit grandmasters do so well. ‘Loft Night Therapy’ has a more discoid bone structure, but the keys remain blue-hued and soulful, making great use of Erykah Badu singing ‘I’m feelin’ high” in the mix of the other call and response samples scattered in the mix. It’s Dez making impeccable house music, what more needs to be said?
OW
Robotron – Fehlfunktionen (Skynet Cybersonix)
The artist known as Robotron works under many other guises, including Robotr808n, Interfunk and The Man Behind The Screen. Roboton’s style of electro appropriates themes of robot subservience, German ingenuity, and human functionalism into the music. It takes ideas found in machinic electro to the extreme; for example, ‘Kein Virus Im Bootsektor’, released in May of last year, salvaged instrumental acid beats made in 1998 on the retro MS-DOS tracker, and mixed them in with an archaic speak n’ spell software from Atari, Speaktex.
Such knowing exercises in retrofuturism are charming enough, but Robotron takes them to the next level with ‘Fehlfunktionen’, his latest contribution to the label Skynet Cybersonix. “We are machines – built to serve” goes its mantra. From the off of ‘Der Vorfall’ we are thrust into distorted, scraping, and laboured electro ploddage, a theme which continues right until the EP’s industrial collapse at around the 20-minute mark. Robotic determination soon dominates the mix of ‘Gebaut Um Zu Dienen’, with its crunching yoy-basses abounding and rebounding.
‘Morphologie’ continues the charge with an unlikely exercise in cold EBM, finding itself deconstructed to bit-reduced miasma. ‘Logische Fehler’, finally, moves into Drexciyan territory with a melody that maddens, stooping neatly into bubbling funk that binds. The track proves that ghosts exist even in the electro machine; perhaps even artificial intelligences would replicate their own metaversal parties given the chance.
Each of these tracks are like the six horsemen of the industrial apocalypse. Industry; precarity; ingenuity; individualism; robotics; pollution. Robotron has delivered stunning EP of electro that is sloshier and livelier than what can be usually expected of it.
JIJ
Cosmic Garden – Come With Me (Cosmic Rhythm)
Puglia-based label Cosmic Rhythm is a surefire bet when it comes to golden-age-inspired dream house and rose-tinted rave. Their latest release sees head honcho Nicola Loporchio don one of many hats, adopting his Cosmic Garden moniker to serve four gloriously carefree house jams. Perhaps best known for his work as Nico Lahs, Loporchio successfully manages to endow his music with a vintage feel while bringing enough imagination to the compositions to avoid positioning himself in strictly revivalist realms.
True to form, each track here bursts with equal measures of emotion and dance-ready drive. Title track ‘Come With Me’ sees sliced vocals pitched over skippy garage drums and melodic synth hooks as delicate pads add an evocative air. The seductive sweeps of ‘Night Traveller’ saunter over shuffling rhythms as cheeky synth motifs cascade across the steamy panorama, before ‘Drive Me To The Sun’ rises in to provide a hands-in-the-air sunrise moment, with rubbery bass powering emotion-heavy pads and whispered vocals. Finally, ‘The Rydm’ strips things back to the fundamentals, as sample slices are layered over out-of-focus drums and sparse bass rhythms. As ever, this is supremely seductive from Loporchio, with the EP destined to follow its Cosmic Rhythm predecessors into the boxes of the most looped-in house heads.
PC
Kim Rapatti is emblematic of the inherent fringe nature of the electronic music transmitting out of Finland. Alongside compatriots such as Jimi Tenor, Mika Vainio Sasu Ripatti and Freestyle Man, Rapatti has been working away since the early days of techno and electronica, and yet maintains a low-key, cult appeal which reaches tuned in ears all over the world, but never breaks through to a broader profile. Mono Junk is the most enduring of his projects, and it continues to mine an idiosyncratic strain of hardware expression that sounds as inspired as ever on this 12” for Cold Blow.
If you were to start your Mono Junk journey with the last track on this EP, ‘Jam Band’, you might well think Rapatti is more of a jazzed-out solo tweaker playing to the beat rather than a techno veteran. The electro structure is solid, but the synth flex is loose and crazed, exhibiting indifference to perceived conventions and coming off fresh and original, which is no mean feat for someone doing the do for as long as Rapatti has.
There’s also a thread of the synth pop performer detectable in the vocal turns on ‘IÄTI’ and ‘I Am Your (You’re Mine)’, although the more insistent, raw rhythmic jack is perhaps closer to minimal wave than new wave. ‘Love Divine’ might well be the stand out though – a towering spectacle of melodic techno thanks to the mighty lead line rotating with purpose through the heart of the mix.
OW
Adelle First ‘Don’t Give Up’ (Kalita Records)
You have to hand it to the Kalita Records team. When it comes to sniffing out ripe-for-reissue musical delights, they’re among a handful of imprints whose output is approaching buy-on-sight status. Their latest sonic truffle arrives in the form of Adelle First’s sought-after ‘Don’t Give Up’, presented here in the original vocal version alongside the epic ‘Dub Mix’, with the latter arguably proving the most irresistible to dusty-fingered suitors.
As with much of the Kalita catalogue, copies of the original 1986 release on Solid Records are both extraordinarily rare and hard on the bank balance, rendering this an unmissable opportunity to own the music on wax. South African artist Adelle First was active throughout the ’80s, with ‘Don’t Give Up’ and ‘Dance With Me’ proving her standout hits, with both tracks produced by studio legend, Tom Mkhize.
The sing-along original of ‘Don’t Give Up’ features sugary vocals dancing over a boogie-fuelled bed of synths, sax solos and machine drums, and lovely it is too. If the vocal proves a little too pop-heavy for some, the dub provides an excellent alternative. Stretching out the arrangement, making the most of the loosely woven instrumentation, and incorporating just enough vocal hook to burrow into the ear canal, it’s nothing short of dancefloor dynamite.
PC
Many Juno readers will recall coming face to face with the sea for the first time, perhaps on a first-ever visit to the coast. The feeling of being overwhelmed on witnessing the sea is especially prevalent to childhood, and difficult to recall in adulthood. It’s a feeling of wanting to conquer the water, of fleeting liberation in the imaginary domination of the sublime. Then, on casting the first pebble and watching the waves crash back at our feet, we realise just how futile our efforts are.
When faced with Muziekkamer’s 1982 ambient masterpiece ‘Op Zee’, it’s all too clear that the artists behind the project were well aware of this innocent feeling. The concept behind this calming, tapey drone mini-album was simple: “Imagination as the engine to overcome the sea.” In other words, the sea as healing, an indeterminate “place that triggers your brain by telling you you’re in the right place,” in the words of its makers.
Originally released on a rare cassette – beautifully etched on its side with the shape of rippling water – in the Netherlands, Op Zee came about as the brainchild of Cees Van Den Oever and Martin Keuning, two virtual unknowns in the ambient music landscape at the time. It wasn’t long before that that ambient music had even been defined, making this an early example of nautical drone. The techniques involved in producing the wavelike tones that make up this album aren’t known either; like the sea, we’re just left with what we can see and hear.
Undulating swells, two-tone riffs, tape hiss soaring over it all like fizzing bubbles lapping on the cusp of our toes… ideas duck in and out like segments of waves, existing only to never be perceived again. As with the cassette, this vinyl reissue from Stroom brings the piece to two sides of identical wax, with the same piece on both sides, as allowing us the rare chance to tame the sea not once, but twice.
JIJ
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick, Patrizio Cavaliere.