The best new singles this week
The superlative singles of the week
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Trent – Devil’s Music Flies With Fire (Bless You)
Berlin-based Trent rides in with some seriously intriguing left-of-centre house jams on his new ‘Devil’s Music Flies With Fire’ EP. The Italian producer has previously impressed with a handful of edits on Cockring D’Amour and Homesick, while the Greenvision project he co-piloted alongside Juan Ramos back in 2017 continues to live long in the memory banks. Last year’s expansive outing on San Diego’s Bouquet Records marked a sidestep away from overtly edit-focused material, with a set of hard-to-define dance floor jams that were united by their out-of-focus aesthetic and proudly aberrant strut.
Complimenting his production achievements, Luca ‘Trent’ Trentini gained traction for his selection work behind the controls at Greissmuhle’s Oscillator events alongside Budino, Dama and Italian icon, Beppe Loda, so it’s abundantly clear where he garnered his undeniable dance chops. His latest work picks up approximately where he left off, cooking up a pair of gorgeously off-kilter grooves that each overflows with sinister intent and saucer-eyed charm. Kicking things off, the yearning vocal line of ‘Devil’s Music Flies With Fire’ captivates as it swoops over the sonic bed that undulates beneath. Loose, Latin drums power the groove as throbbing bass adds body, while dub effects and weirdo sweeps dart across the twilight panorama. Dark, intense and kinetically charged, this is music with a forceful dance thrust. Over on the other side, the slower-paced but no-less compelling ‘Equinox’ completes the set, sharing the grubby sensibilities of the A-side while pitched at a more heads-down tempo. Full-bodied drums and pulsing bass creep under spooky vocal chants and freakish synth textures, the jarring melody serving as an irresistible siren song calling through the eternal darkness. Imaginative and striking, this is discerning club music designed to spark undulation among strobe-lit throngs.
PC
We generally expect Jeff Mills to be concerned with the future most of the time. Whether indulging in haute couture or soundtracking sci-fi, Detroit’s foremost practitioner of wizardly arts and 909 flaring has hardly spent much time stuck in retro-fetishism. He was way ahead when he was cutting up electro and new wave tracks in the early 80s, and he’s kept pressing forwards ever since. The Extension 12” comes billed as an explicit reflection on the future, however, picking up the thread from two prior releases to form a series. 1994’s Growth and 2004’s Expanded are the previous instalments in this slow-burning investigation into what tomorrow might hold, however broad a concept that might seem.
Possibly upsetting the overall theme of the record, a trip back into those previous releases highlights this series as some of the more meditative, delicate techno Mills has created in his time. That especially rings true listening to ‘Solarized’ or ‘Humana’ and considering it was the same year as Waveform Transmission Vol 3. The tracks on Extension feel absolutely aligned with those previous releases, and considered as a whole they make for some of the most sublime techno in Mills’ considerable canon.
‘Rise’ has an added resonance in the context of contemporary deep techno with its fractured patterns, ambiguous atmospherics and avoidance of a dominant kick. You could well believe you were hearing this spill out of a Konduku or Valentino Mora set, which only serves to point out Mills’ pioneering position from way back in ’94. ‘The Storyteller’ has a cosmic, bleepy quality which links neatly with ‘Humana’, but there’s a slinkier groove guiding this track, while freeform impulses mark out the space in an eerie yet playful fashion. ‘Entanglement’ is a rawer form of machine music – perhaps the least experimental of the tracks in its more vintage sound palette, but still the patterns fall with an angular rhythm which makes it far removed from rote techno formulae.
OW
Alien Mutation – Starship Heart Of Gold (Transmigration)
Seasoned Discogs diggers are likely to be aware of ‘Starship Heart Of Gold’, one of the few releases to be released by Alien Mutation, one of the many names of the late multifaceted artist Jake Stephenson (aka. Shamanic Tribes On Acid, The Psychedelic Strippers, and Curly Wurly Spirits to name a few more). The two-track EP from 1994 is a prized possession for anyone with even so much as a hint of enthusiasm for British psychedelic dance music, and this is now yet more true in light of Stephenson’s recent passing. Running parallel with the genre’s US heyday in San Francisco, Stephenson’s music was at the pinnacle of a genre we might now know as ‘hippies do techno’. Don’t be fooled, though. The statement might have humour value, but this is seriously numinous music for the cream of brain-fried trippers, unafraid of plunging the divine geometric depths of the psyche.
Originally released on Stephenson’s own short-lived Ambient Space Acid label, we now gratefully receive this remastered reissue from Transmigration Records, thanks to much demand. Released on vinyl only, the titular A-side sounds centred, airy and droning, slowly plodding through a repeated acid motif on top of a bed of pressurized texture. The more you listen, the more you realise just how many sounds are chucked into the mix. You’ve got reversed hi-hats, spring reverbs and echos, and even a robotic tannoy voice reassuring us, “please do not be alarmed”, as if some kind of alien-parasitic gas leak has broken out onboard a colossal space station, as we hopelessly make our way through its green fog.
The real star of the show for us is the B-side ‘Alqa’. Showing off the extent of Stephenson’s musicianship, this is a dense extraterrestrial soundscape of cinematic strings and buzzing, squelching audio FX, resembling something between what we might hear in the new Avatar film and the original Forbidden Planet musique concrete soundtrack. Booming kicks, convalescent birdcalls, and alien cicada sounds; it’s nothing less than a sonic trip through an exoplanetary wilderness.
JIJ
What’s in a Rominimal track? Well, the term itself is a funny one, sometimes used pejoratively to define a strain of minimal tech house which can very easily fall foul of formula. Of course all dance music micro scenes have common traits that manifest in some kind of sound, but there was an undeniable surge in soundalike minimal tech from Romania spearheaded by the Arpiar crew amongst others around the late 00s which has just not let up since. There is a seductive charm in the sound – the foggy pads, feathery percussion, undulating basslines, dubby shimmers – but with any amount of time spent following the sound it all starts to blur into one infinite after party.
As with all genres though, there are the operators doing interesting things within the constraints of a sound, or sometimes just the odd releases which catch your ear. Arapu is a long-standing exponent of the Romanian sound, and he’s never short on music to release. This drop on Atipic is his fourth of the year, and the second he’s delivered to the Bucharest-based label. There’s quite simply something ear-snagging about this 12” which draws you in. The standards of the genre are adhered to, but on ‘Acoustic’ especially he’s mustered up a sweetly addictive combination.
Breaking down the component parts, there are shimmering piano mirages in the middle distance, disembodied voices in an unintelligible conversation and a finely balanced assortment of dubbed out impressions marking out the space behind the steadfast beat. On this occasion though it might well be the bassline which glues everything together – a sweet, understated house-y lick which enriches the melodic interplay between the other parts and somehow results in that elusive minimal magic.
‘Replacement’ is equally stand-out, perhaps for the ways it disrupts the conventions. The broken beat arrangement is a familiar tenet within the Romininal microcosm, but what’s noticeable is the bright and punchy jazz chords – an element more direct than you usually expect in minimal, and actually closer in spirit to actual broken beat or at the very least jazzy house. This simple touch, which is of course still deployed with restraint, is enough to mark out a special track versus another refined but ultimately predictable genre exercise. Between Arapu’s production and the label’s selection, a standout record was achieved. Minimal heads, take heed.
OW
Human Space Machine – The Zone (re:st)
Quite whether Human Space Machine is intentionally referring to ‘the zone’ from season three of Twin Peaks is anyone’s guess, but for now let’s imagine he is. The Dutch producer steps up to re:st with a surgical, subliminal slice of hinterland techno-electronica which, on the title track, could well be shaping out an eerie dimension alternative to our own. There’s a technoid insistency to the cut-glass beat, but it’s charging out into unnerving, cosmically-charged space, and that space keeps slowly morphing to enhance the sense of disorientation.
As with the other releases on re:st, The Zone consistently heads into that grey area sound where meditative club styles and high-end production collide and create steely, inventive forms. The formula in this area isn’t about rhythm, tempo or melody, but rather a prevailing mood. The icy pads in ‘Unmade’ spells this out in chilling terms, and the lonesome bass on ‘Sigh’ pings out like a hopeless lighthouse in a dense fog. There’s a club sensibility which can be felt in the latter track, but overall the EP feels more indebted to home-listening electronica – something to truly lose yourself in mentally rather than submit to physically. That said, with the right dancefloor at the right time on the 24-hour spectrum, you could find yourself truly transported by the hypnotic swirl of ‘Slo’.
OW
Fishmans – Go Go Round This World! (Pony Canyon)
Fishmans are among the most well-respected bands from Japan, thanks to blending rock music with dub, rocksteady and Shibuya-kei. A favourite of users of 4chan and Reddit, they are an integral yet obscure part of the /mu/ canon: a stock roster of bands and albums that most indie music lovers who hang out online may draw on.
But the web-centrism of Fishmans’ appeal does little justice to their actual music. There is much more about them to read into than mere inclusion in a meme. This new reissue of the EP ‘Go Go Round This World!’ is a case in point. Far from the done-to-death album that is Long Season, this EP was released after their much earlier 1993 great, Neo Yankees’ Holiday.
The four tracks make up a set of beloved outtakes from its sessions, and they’re as varied as they are infectious. The titular opener is something of a Shibuya masterpiece, sounding like an ironic version of what one might hear blaring from the backstreets of a ‘90s Japan cafe society (although it’s not without edge; Yuzuru Kashiwabara’s quick bass licks can still be heard). That all changes with the Primal Scream-style dub remix of ‘Smilin’ Days, Summer Melody’, which is fittingly called a Kick The Space Echo Session and lends fabulous credence to sound engineer ZAK, who was the band’s go-to engineer. The B tunes keep the fire stoked; the Naked Funk version blends dry breaks with funk, rhythm guitar, jazz motifs and electronic production, while the ‘Future’ remix is something of a lost steppers gem. While Fishmans saw little acclaim for their music until the unexpected death of their singer Shinji Sato, this EP also does him neat retrospective justice.
JIJ
Floppy Life – Stokeswood Sessions Vol 1 (NDTAL Muzik)
Kai Alce and Stefan Ringer re-unite under the Floppy Life banner on volumes one and two of the ‘Stokeswood Sessions’, delivering various shades of deep house wonderment over seven authentically charged cuts. The duo previously combined on 2018’s ‘Beneath The Surface’ EP on Basement Floor Records, but their connection extends back further, with Ringer’s debut solo outing appearing on Alce’s NDTAL Muzik back in 2014. The Atlanta-based house protagonists clearly share much in terms of creative vision, so it’s particularly pleasing to see them once again join forces on this alluring double pack.
The EP starts on a fantastically strong footing, with the atmospheric textures of ‘Bassline Waves’ setting a seductive tone to set things off. Dusty beats power hypnotic synth sweeps over thick bass, with growling motifs rising in to add weight to the suspenseful soundscapes. ‘Meagan’s Favourite Position 1’ continues the evocative theme with a touch more bump, with bass notes bumping under sumptuous synth chords and evolving piano licks as jagged drums propel the rhythm. Next, the sparse, dance-focused strut of ‘NDTAL @ FXHE’ proves particularly striking, with vast chords and freaky synth motifs soaring high over infectious bass and crisp machine claps. Three tracks deep and we’re already well and truly in the groove, but the arrival of a certain ‘New Prescription’ does wonders to further lift spirits. Here, driving organ chords saunter over shuffling drums, melodies unfurling as dramatic string stabs and rolling bass galvanise the groove. Retro-themed and entirely propulsive, the track’s feel-good thrust provides a subtly effective change of pace. The same can be said of the profoundly positive ‘Everything’s Alright’, where searing vocal lines burst over precise drums and energetic bass for a powerfully propulsive dancefloor explosion. Veering into deviant territory, ‘BPB Floppy Life’ strips things all the way back, with murky bass stuttering under frantic drums and unrelenting stabs. Finally, warmth radiates from ‘Meagan’s Favourite Position Part 2’, with optimistic harmonies and animated bass combined across thick machine drums. House heads are best advised to grab this while it’s hot.
PC
Folie 2 – Eingriffe (Themes For Great Cities)
Folie 2 follow up on their eponymous debut album from earlier this year with more delightfully idiosyncratic audio manoeuvres, serving a pair of originals alongside remixes of two favourites from the LP on ‘Eingriffe’. The Dusseldorf-based trio of Gregor Darman, Marlene Kollender and Sebastian Welicki found a happy home on hometown label Themes For Great Cities, and it’s another local player who gets things rolling with a typically inspired remix.
Detlef Weinrich dons his familiar Toulouse Low Trax moniker to breathe new life into ‘Fullness Of My Heart’, delivering a gorgeously kaleidoscopic eyes-closed interpretation with spaced-out motifs blissfully combined over a stripped but engaging rhythm. Next, the energy levels fizz via the mutant flex of TBZ’s version of ‘Disco’, with grainy synths, altered vocals and deviant swells vying for position as sturdy bass solidifies the groove.
On the flip, we find a pair of all-new compositions, starting with the hallucinatory haze of ‘Universal Sucker’, where opioid vocals drift over space-age effects and brooding bass before breezy synth arpeggios rise in to lift the mood. Finally, the oddball grind of ‘Moon Metal’ closes a thoroughly enjoyable set, with unrelenting drums powering new wave bass through wave upon wave of paranoid sweeps and unnerving noise. Imaginative work across the board, each track brims with character and is sure to appeal to lovers of the off-kilter.
PC
R Zac – Spiral Tribe 2 (Sound Metaphors)
The R-Zac trilogy hails from 1996, and shows off the best that the travelling rave crew and soundsystem Spiral Tribe had to offer. Now remastered for only the neediest of needles – those willing to keep the Spiral spinning – this 12”, volume two in the series, has everything you’ll need on the front of retro hardcore, rave and free tekno.
Despite our indulgence in describing their music in terms of a set of styles, Spiral Tribe themselves were shy of pegging their sound into a single genre niche. We think that’s more than fair enough, because even though their sound worked officially for the tekno community that could be found at various field raves and squats, there was always an extra dimension to their music that bucked various trends and tropes. We suppose it goes with the territory of getting creative with where you throw your shindigs, not to mention there being plenty of acid to go around.
The opener ‘Demon’, for example, cycles through four seemingly unrelated sections, with different instrumentation underpinning each one (like a hardcore techno version of Dave Charlesworth’s breakbeat medley-style ‘Energizer’ series). Arpy acid zones and offbeat claps are peppered throughout one movement; another hears a lowered tempo and all manner of flanged and phased effects. ‘Monotone’ makes for a peaceful ‘ambient gabber’ detour, while ‘Y’ is the enigmatic B-star, blending scratchy arp ostinatos with an overdriven, suffocating mix.
JIJ
Cumbia Moderna De Soldedad – Crees Que Soy Sexy (Mushroom Pillow)
Optimo don JD Twitch continues his cumbia love affair on his latest edit-centred release, joining Jonny Rock to retouch Cumbia Moderna De Soledad’s ‘Crees Que Soy Sexy’. Those with a grasp of Spanish may quickly garner the origins of the music from the title, but a quick listen at the familiar lead line quickly gives the game away for anyone uninitiated in the fundamentals of the language. Originally released by the Columbian outfit in 1979, the groove-heavy track covers Rod Stewart’s erotically charged ‘If You Think I’m Sexy’, more than doing it justice as exotic horns play out the iconic synth lead over lively Latin percussion. JD Twitch adds dancefloor thrust to the rhythm, reforming the track over a driving kick as the rousing vocal and striking horn cascade over a hypnotic groove.
Over on the other side, scalp master general Jonny Rock pitches it a little spacier, with roomy drums meditatively rolling as the dubbed-up vocal and seductive lead echo into the cosmos. Marrying irresistible rhythm with the cheekiest of melodies, both tracks work brilliantly, — with the A-side likely to do main room damage while the bubbling B-side takes care of heads-down spaces.
PC
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Patrizio Cavaliere, Oli Warwick.