The best new singles this week

The singles that matter

SINGLE OF THE WEEK

Meat Beat Manifesto & DHS – Man From Mantis (Love Love)

Here’s a pair up few would have expected, but 90s techno heads should very much appreciate. Meat Beat Manifesto have always operated according to their own mangled logic, but Jack Dangers’ project has more than earned its stripes over the years with landmark releases from ’87 onwards dealing in a potent fusion of breakbeats, bass, madcap sampling and rockist energy. They land somewhere between the great dance ‘bands’ of the 90s and punky squat party antagonists, but shot through with a deft flair which is all too often overlooked from these long-time legends.

Meanwhile Benjamin Stokes has a more modest but no less distinctive legacy, having minted the iconic ‘House Of God’ tune as DHS in 1990 and lurked around experimental techno fringes doing audio and visual work ever since. ‘House Of God’ is a special track because it embodies the freewheeling spirit of dance music in 1990, and its energy align perfectly with MBM’s own idiosyncrasies. Now the projects align on Love Love for a record which shows the vanilla breaks and jungle bods how much more can be said with well-worn tropes like diced-up drums, bubbly acid and freaky sound design.

‘Pandemic’ is instantly ear-catching, and the titular sample from The Wire should raise a smirk from anyone who made the connection when Covid kicked in. In the face of a torrent of lockdown ambient waft, this is about as fun as a product of 2020 is likely to get, all wild bursts of live drum breaks, nimble 303 and plenty of artful atmospheric plunges around the frequency range. When you dive into the head-spinning collage of ‘Aggressive Mantis Squad’ the overall effect is more like hip-hop as a vehicle for demonstrating virtuoso skills, with scratching and juggling replaced by razor-sharp sample editing.

The grooves are the real deal, the ideas abundant and the production second-to-none – Meat Beat Manifesto and DHS stay true to their respective legacies and offer up the kind of braindance which doesn’t naturally fit in anywhere, not even with other braindance. If you’re bold enough to let it fly in a party, you might just get a few people losing their proverbial shit.

OW

Zha – Two Shades Of Blue (NAAN)

At the helm of his own empire of labels and projects, Zha is a key figure in dubstep’s current state of play. Holding true to the genre’s original spirit of space and weight mixed with experimental intrigue, his White Peach, Naan and other platforms incubate a wealth of fresh approaches around the 140 zone, proving that a genre can comfortably proliferate once the media hype moves on elsewhere.

As well as releasing other people’s music, Zha’s own output is equally part of dubstep’s present mode. He doesn’t bombard the scene, dropping a new record every year or so, but that in itself is a worthwhile approach which makes each release something to truly take in when over-abundance is thinning the oxygen across all manner of genres. What’s important to consider about Zha’s music as with dubstep die-hards in general is the balance between genre adherence and innovation.

There’s no doubt tracks like ‘Two Shades Of Blue’ and ‘Voices’ have been made to keep the sound of legit dubstep alive. In a similar vein to other soundsystem music such as steppers or digi-dub, there are structural rules to follow, a sonic standard to reach. What counts is the accents and flourishes around the standard, and the flute-like hook on ‘Two Shades Of Blue’ is deadly and effective as a light and airy foil to the pointed punch of the rhythm section. It’s patient and poised, heading into weirder waters with the dusty sampled licks which come in the second half to aim squarely at true-skool dubstep’s introverted, heads-down tendencies.

‘Voices’ has a sharper attack in the call and response vocal hooks which define the track. These kinds of creative choices are less about flexing face-melting studio prowess to set the dance off, but rather zeroing in on source material which has a fire in its belly. The arrangements are straight up and unfussy, but you’ll know about either one of these tunes when they get run on a proper system. The swerving, droning bass that sneaks in late on ‘Voices’ is primed to loosen a few screws without making a big drama about it. After all, that’s exactly what proper dubstep is meant for.

OW

Magnum Opus & Ravetop – Fear In Our Veins (Soil)

If we were to offer you a slab of Colombian industrial, you might raise more than one eyebrow. But fear not, as while there’s no clandestine material to be found here, ‘Fear In Our Veins’ is the just the ticket to get your body pumping with a blast of dark energy.

This collaboration first released in 2021 between Colombian electronic producers Magnum Opus and Ravetop (Felipe Novoa and Juan Camilo respectively) is presented here via Spanish imprint Soil Records as part of a celebration of their fifth anniversary, with an additional remix on the B-side. So an aggressive, ominous thud accompanied by drum machine clashes is soon joined by a cacophony of alien-like whirs and quivers, the barely perceptible vocals underneath fighting for dear life.

This is truly a magic meeting of minds taking best of both, Ravetop’s punchy techno rhythms flavoured with Magnum Opus’ nuanced miasma of noise. Oh, and that B-side? A delicious remix by Northern Ireland’s Autumns (real name Christian Donaghey). Here he takes ‘Fear In Our Veins’, lightens the tone slightly, carving it into a percussive clubby number that would go down well in any a Berlin nightclub.

This is a re-release well worth your time, especially with that remix. Slab of Industrial Colombian anyone?
FM

Nonetheless – Atto EP (Neubau)

The consistent low-tempo creep of Neubau’s output remains an alluring draw with the power to surprise. The 4/4 death disco rhythmic structure is but a mere vessel for all kinds of fantasies, and each subsequent release on the label draws you further into their murky world. It would be easy for the approach to become a little schlocky, all ghoulish b-movie synth motifs and boxy drums designed to freak a dancefloor out, but there’s also an element of restraint and subtlety exercised on the productions which keeps Neubau interesting as much as you might surmise the vibe of a release before actually hearing it.

Nonetheless is a duo from close to the heart of the Viennese label, with Florian Bocksrucker in particular helping steer Neubau these days. It’s been five years since he and Felix Bergleiter teamed up to deliver a self-titled Nonetheless LP, but they creep back into earshot with a sound out of time, as though mere minutes had passed since the last transmission. The touchstones of synth-pop, EBM and minimal wave are clearly detectable as influences on the duo, but the intention driving the actual tracks feels unique and sincere. ‘Oboanova’ weaves through passages of suspended serenity and sinister surprise, taking the long route to a circular song structure but finding resolution when the time is right.

Dramatic soundtrack cut ‘Gore’ teases rhythmic intricacy before the slam of 80s toms and gated snares ratchets the beat down, while ‘Behind Walls’ lets the synths lead in densely layered configurations that reach from celestial bleeps down to bassy, acidic snarl. The detail is vivid and the form of each track is refreshing, taking the comforting familiarity of these warbling analogue sounds and applying them to new arrangements. The EP reaches a stunning crescendo with kosmische stalker ‘Sumber’.

Comforting familiarity also lies in the fact the record stays true to Neubau’s established sound, but that sound is itself defined by a certain original spark which makes their records so fun to explore.

OW

Geert – Obscure Origin (Sonntag)

It is sometimes overlooked that the Dutch have a rich history when it comes to electronic music. Whether it’s the minimalism of Machinefabriek, the techno stylings of Legowelt, or the tape music experimentalism of the late Dick Raaijmakers, the Netherlands is a melting pot when it comes to musical innovation.

Here Amsterdam-based producer and DJ Geert Ben, who goes mononymously as Geert, gives us ‘Obscure Origin’ a 12-inch of expansive deep techno with two tracks a-piece on each side. Hypnotic and meditative he makes music that, in his own words, “oscillates in-between dimensions”, which is quite the sales pitch. What is served-up here on both AM and PM sides is techno at its most atmospheric and transportive.

‘Through The Woods’ is like a ghostly trek across a desolate alien planet, metallic rhythms penetrating through howls and echoes that rise and fall. Then through the dimensional portal we jump into ‘Apparition’, the beat heavier and stronger and set against synthlines that swell into a quiver that’ll get your head nodding. It’s evocative stuff, and could soundtrack the front cover of a pulp 70s sci-fi novel just as well as the dancefloor any Amsterdam club.

On Side 2 we continue dimension-hopping and land into the title track, accompanied here with a remix by German producer Dycide. It’s a testament to Geert’s prowess as a musician that he can conjure such vivid worlds through club-ready electronics. ‘Obscure Origin’ pounds with techno burbles and squelches, thick synth stabs backed by ripples that ping-pong around the windy echoing ambience. And that remix? Dycide takes the rhythms and amplifies them, the sci-fi electronics taking a back seat while he adds a gentle nostalgic melody that fades in and out.

Whatever dimension Geert takes us to next is anyone’s guess, but for now I’ll more than settle with what’s been conjured on ‘Obscure Origin’. Deep techno this certainly is – and the very best kind.

FM

Civilistjävel! – Fyra platser (FELT)

From DIY tape release obscurity to a Low Company endorsement and on to a more pronounced arrival with an album on his own FELT label, Civilistjävel is a comforting reminder sometimes the strength of the sound can be enough for music to reach people in its own way. The low-key Swedish artist’s sound has caught on thanks to his subtle subversion of dub techno standards, just a little more gritty and grainy than the usual fare, but last year’s Järnätter LP saw him edge further into abstract and ambient realms while maintaining that quintessential Scandi pallour.

Clearly finding a comfortable tract with FELT as an outlet for his insular experiments, now he presents an EP which adds depth, variety and intrigue into the Civilistjävel sound world without disrupting the sense of frosty continuity. ‘Sebäng’ ‘Kolugn’ and ‘Valmsta’ could carry a record on their own. In very different ways, they display beautifully nuanced approaches to ambient electronica with dense layering, texture and mystery. They’re all melodically coherent, from the opening track’s glassy shimmers to the fulsome, orchestral daubs of synth that bleed out glacially on ‘Kolugn’. ‘Valmsta’ allows for slow, hazy chords lumbering over modest, submerged hiccups of rhythm that come on like knackered blues for rusting dive bars in a failed future.

But it’s ‘Louhivesi’ which will draw the most attention on Fyra platser, as Cucina Povera lends her distinctive Finnish vocal to a decayed but graceful backdrop. Reference has been made to trip hop but it feels a bit of a reductive stretch to qualify the track in those terms – Povera’s singing in particular has an ethereal, folky quality which feels wrought from the forest rather than the city, and Civilistjävel weaves string like impressions around the bewitching, micro-sample beat. It’s a majestic collaboration which feels logically attuned to a longer exploration – it’s not too much to hope an album might materialise in the future.

OW

Blawan – Dismantled Into Juice (XL)

It’s not easy for an artist to shake off the weight of expectation from any sizeable success, and Blawan has had more than a few ‘Albatross’ moments in his career. From hype-baiting garage-y debuts on Hessle to Fugee-sampling gutter-slammers, his flair as an artist has frequently led people to deem him one thing or another. If the most prevailing is his role as a mind-twisting techno titan, he’s done plenty to fuel that assumption, but his move to XL in 2021 has signalled what feels like a definitive move into that league of electronic artistes who transcend genre to become their own beast.

Dismantled Into Juice continues the theme of Blawan’s shock tactics, full of monstrously pointed design swerves that have more in common with electronica mavericks than club engineers. ‘Dismantled Into Juice’, which features a strong vocal from Monstera Black, opens with sloppy sound waves which give way to heavy steel clanging with overtones, as though the titular theme was happening in reverse.

It’s a visceral, modern sound which feels wholly of the moment we exist in. It’s a time when Monstera Black themselves feels conspicuously lacking in any kind of presence outside this EP and a cursory credit in the press release. An AI construct for Blawan’s own muse, or perhaps his own voice given a thorough work out in the signal chain? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but either way the results are confirmation Blawan is operating outside the laws of logic and delivering brilliance in the process.

OW

Tobias & Friends – Top Ten (Non Standard Productions)

In recent times Berlin techno luminary Tobias Freund has lifted the lid on his roots in industrial and oddball synth work from his youth in Frankfurt. Collections of early tracks from his bedroom studio explorations show he was already a gifted producer even when the process was more rooted in punk than professionalism – a teenage fan responding to the upsurge of input from post-punk and synth-pop and finding his own voice in the process.

Now Freund has joined the circle by taking his comparatively slick production prowess and applying it to some of his most formative influences from the late 70s and 80s. The track listing is achingly tasteful, opting for album deep cuts from bands like Ultravox, Wire and Bauhaus and often reaching for more melancholic moments rather than the obvious pleasure-seeking danceable cuts – the cover of Bauhaus’ ‘All We Ever Wanted’ being a fine case in point.

That said, the version of Devo’s ‘Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy’ remains as joyously infectious as the original and Freund clearly has fun programming his own interpretation of YMO’s sprightly proto-electro ‘Pure Jam’. Such exercises suggest this was a chance for an experienced artist to dig into the music that blew his mind at an early age and fathom how some of it was done. Playing around with the originals only in subtle ways through his choice of vocalists, TOP TEN is an immaculately crafted love letter to incredible, innovative music, but even if you didn’t know the originals it serves as a brilliant album of synth-pop crafted by someone who has the sound bedded into his DNA by this point. 

OW

Eddie C / Elado / Scruscru / S Timoshenko / Funkyjaws – Funkyjaws & Friends (Funkyjaws Music)

There’s an old piece of knowledge in the dance music world, much repeated by labels and distributors, that EPs with a spread of different artists should be avoided. The logic is that if each artist were good enough to have a 12″ of their own then they would.

If ever a collaborative 12″ came along and loudly blasted a great big hole in the side of that so called wisdowm, then this is it. Here we get four very different tracks, each good enough to grace its own release by all means – stick them together on one 12″ and you get the pleasant feeling that someone being rather spoilt has.

That said, if someone pointed a gun at our head and forced us to choose between them, we wouldn’t deliberate too long before choosing Eddie C’s ‘Do You Wanna Dance’, the EP’s opener, as our first choice. It’s an anashamed squelchy acid workout, with the kind of raw tweaking and drum machine brutality to it that graced the early plus 8 releases. That’s married to a subtle disco flavour running underneath that takes it out of the realms of retro recreation, balancing out the brutality with just a bit of glitterball glam.

Elado’s ‘25.4 Millimeters’ is more of warm up session tune, its slap bass and sub-120bpm beat, plus Arabic flavours, making the most original thing here, and a killer tune in the right environment. Scruscru & S Timoshenko’s ‘Ace ID?’ ups the ante and the bpm counter, adding scratching and a speedy shuffle to the house template. Funkyjaws’ own ‘In Your Ear With It’ starts out sounding like it could be a lost track from the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ soundtrack, before dropping into late Daft Punk-style filtered house glory, its luxurious strings proving to be the cherry on the cake.

Great stuff all round, and four tracks you’ll want to play at various parts of the evening – and it’ll only take one space in your box. Stuff the logic!

BW

Pianeti Sintetici – Esplora II (Hypnus)

Davide Perrone has been circling Hypnos for some time as one half of Primal Code. True to the Swedish label’s predominant mode, Perrone favours subtle, snaking strands of techno and his emergent Pianeti Sintetici project is primed to pursue this trajectory further. If you’re always thirsting for that subliminal stuff spooling out of labels like Spazio Disponibile, Mantis, amenthia and IDO, you’re going to be very satisfied with the sound of Esplora II.

There’s space for Perrone to play around with tempo, and as such ‘Satellite’ creeps into earshot on a lower pitch which allows the broken fragments of his rhythms to take prominence over the kick, resulting in a laconic kind of electronica aided and abetted by ghostly pads and atmospherics. ‘Reptile’ is similarly patient in its overall pace, but this just allows more space for lavishly modulated threads to intertwine through the mangroves of Perrone’s sound design.

It’s only ‘Orbita’ that feels more innately betrothed to techno structure, so those who prefer the steady speed of 126 should bear that in mind when heading for this EP. But sonically, the whole record chimes with this current moment in deep techno, and likewise other artists such as Konduku are happily freeing themselves to slide up and down the pitch fader. The important thing is the sound, and no one can argue with the quality of Pianeti Sintetici.

OW

Jayson Wynters – Solitude (Pulp)

It’s been clear from the start Jayson Wynters’ machine language is verbose enough to talk in all kinds of dialects. His approach very much gives the sense of someone communicating through the studio in the same way as the Detroit pioneers, and he’s applied that approach to more broken fare as well as the high-pressure techno of more recent drops on Delsin and EON. Now he’s appearing on Spanish label Pulp with a release which takes a swerve towards a less-explored side of his sound.

It’s logical that anyone handy with drum machines and synths would have an affinity for boogie and electro funk, but still it’s a pleasant surprise to hear Wynters reaching for the luscious proto-house of ‘Solitude’, the boxy TR-626 beatdown and deft digi slap bass of ‘Corns Funk’ and sundown seduction of ‘Night Drive’. Wynters is making no bones about his inspirations here, but he’s also making pure pleasure music without a whiff of irony. Whether it’s a new avenue or simply revealing a long held love, he makes the style his own in every honey-coated DX7 chord, every punchy Moog b-line. Jarren and Mogwaa’s remixes stay true to the smooth grooves too, ensuring you’ve got plenty of sun-ready gear packed onto one slick 12”.

OW

Intergalactic Gary – Industrials Models (Viewlexx)

The sun may be shining right now, but in the Hague’s electro scene it’s forever night. Intergalactic Gary isn’t a one-note necromancer, having established himself as a profoundly gifted and deep-shelved DJ versed in the language of acid, disco, Italo, techno, electro and all things gnarly. But in a rare appearance as a producer, he’s turned up to Viewlexx with some positively dark side offerings which absolutely speak to the long-standing tradition of nihilistic machine punk from the Netherlands.

‘Industrial Models’ isn’t brutal or unrelenting in that boring jackhammer techno way. It’s blasted with zaps and pings of analogue synthesis, as though Gary was warding off space invaders from chomping their way through the mixing desk. But in the bloated pound of the low end and the absolute avoidance of melodic breivty, it’s certainly nasty in all the best ways. 

Even when you get something more ‘musical’ on ‘The ELKA Experiment’, the chord is bloated and distorted, while ‘Remodel’s pad is forlorn like an empty dock at dawn. ‘Elements and Space’ offers an actual departure into pure synth arrangement to close the EP out, taking a BOC-like approach to tape-troubled ambience and keeping more than enough creepiness around the edges of the sound to make sure you leave the record feeling suitably unnerved.

OW

This week’s reviewers: Oli Warwick, Finlay Milligan, Ben Willmott.