The best new singles this week
Our writers serve up their ultimate selections
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
2lanes – Sid Ranger Redux (Psychic Relief)
It’s only been relatively recently that 2lanes has cropped up on our radar, slipping out wares on high-grade Detroit label Portage Garage Sounds and taking part in the excellent Overtone Series record from last year. While he displays a certain toughness readily associated with house and techno from the Motor City, 2lanes has a weirdo instinct which pushes his music into idiosyncratic territory. This new release for Psychic Relief – the second on the 2023-fresh label – confirms this impression across four adventurous cuts which would easily make their mark in a set without disturbing the flow.
It’s clear from the tightly compressed, broken pressure of ‘Sid Ranger Redux’ 2lanes is here to incite maximum energy, but it’s the atmospheric layering behind the drums which really lifts the track. There’s a spiritual, pastoral quality to the sound which taps into dance music’s primal magnetism, making this much more than straight-up gnarly machine music. Similarly, ‘Silk Over Rust (Texture Mix)’ has plenty of tracky focus in its beat, but beyond that there are fluttering flute licks and sparkling pings which bring a light, playful element to the sound.
‘Treacle’ heads towards slower chug territory with a dexterous beatdown loaded with low end charm, while the pad sounds come on like wailing wraiths wreaked from mangled circuitry. Zooming in on a certain punk-schooled spirit inherent in his overall approach, ‘Rabbit’s Foot’ weaves some strangled guitar tones into the mix and makes the jump seamless from the sonics that came before.
If you value bold personality in your 4/4, 2lanes has got you covered. Every tune crackles with urgency and a thirst for the unusual, while the grooves themselves are tooled up to the nines, physical as you could ever want it with more than enough psychic manipulation for your unsuspecting grey matter.
OW
Karenn – Everything Is Curly (Voam)
When they’re not busy launching themselves into futurist metal projects Blawan and Pariah also like to make techno together. Their Persher project from last year, which emerged on Thrill Jockey in a squall of deathly vocals and freakily processed guitar crunch, actually helped join some dots with the weird DNA that feeds into their solo and collaborative club sounds. Blawan’s especially been stretching his legs away from de rigeur techno with Boschian releases on XL, and at this point the shared Voam label seems a comfortable playground for them to do what the hell they like. That’s a great environment for inventive artists to be in, fully in control of their output and able to indulge their idiosyncrasies.
The consistent oddball in-joke thread of their release titles speaks volumes for the weird mind-meld they exhibit, from 2019’s Grapefruit Regret to 2020’s Music Sounds Better With Shoe, and now after a three-year gap Karenn return with Everything Is Curly. When you consider the early days of their slammers on She Works The Long Nights, there’s a prominent emphasis on fun which comes springing out of ‘Feeling Horizontal’ with its uncredited vocal sample about “wasting time.” It’s a little kitsch and catchy as hell, sure to wrinkle a few snobby noses in the dance but echoing the same instinct for a hit as the likes of ‘Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage’.
‘Happy Birthday’ finds its own hook in a distorted flute sort of sound, although it’s just as likely wrangled from somewhere deep in the reeds of their considerable modular rigs. What’s more noticeable here is the sonic make-up of the track – for all the globular sound design in the meltdown, there’s a raw, slightly tinny quality to the drums which feels more indebted to rock music than 909-oriented techno. In the end, fitting the prescribed idea of ‘techno’ seems way down the list of priorities for the pair.
There’s rowdy, wonky techno fireworks to knock you sideways on ‘From Hunk To Husk’ and a veritable swamp to get submerged in via ‘When Lutes Were A Thing’, by which point every cross-eyed swerve and lopsided hook sounds like a logical development. For all the flamboyance and surrealism, though, Karenn never let a track derail into pure novelty. They’ve got the chops to paint striking shapes in vivid colours, and they gleefully bait the pitfalls into gimmicks and goofball sonics even as they ably side-step them.
OW
Bottin – Artifact 19 (Artifact)
When physical music media are treated as “artifacts” – relics made to preserve and document ideas – we’re always interested. Dutch dance music pushers Artifact do just as much, and over the course of 18 releases so far before this one, have succeeded in carving out their own niche in reliquary weirdo disco, combining it with Medieval imagery while pushing the work of fellow Dutch legionaries including Cristalli Liquid and Love Supreme. Often, these are aliases of the same artist, Guglielmo Bottin.
Now comes the unearthing of the 19th “artifact” by Bottin’s regular label alias: simply, Bottin. Owing to its otherworldly sound, we allege it to have been found in a casket in a remote ruin somewhere deep in one of the few Dutch wildernesses that still exist today. Jokes aside, this is a uniquely alien Italo disco release, though its extraterrestriality isn’t immediately clear. The underlying acid line on the opener ‘Dulce De Luna’ could easily be missed if one hasn’t yet fashioned a well-enough ear for low-lying frequencies such bass; everything else in the track is suitably Italo, with fanfaring brasses and a repetitiously sultry vocal line grabbing attention on the top end.
Unfortunately for genre conservatives, any overt predicability ends at this point. There’s no turning back. ‘Volver Al Campo’ (“return to the country”) eschews the usual jubilance of disco for a more sepia-toned Latin jaunt, more disco-esque than pure disco, with sampled male choruses giving off the feel of traversing a great brown plain on horseback, not gyrating under a glitzy mirrorball. ‘Caballero Obscuro’ uses great whip-cracks for snares, as Italian film samples are worked into the beats with incredible, hooting deftness. Finally comes ‘Alta Energia’, the as-yet unsung Italo disco tune to end all other Italo disco tunes. There’s a certain quality to this track that renders it as ghostly as it is energetic. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the reversy sounds and phasers, which whack out the tune into a ghostly netherworld, which is, again, irregular for disco. We can only hope the sonic movements of Bottin continue to beguile and mystify as well as they already have.
JIJ
Cultivating electro with smarts and swagger since the 90s, Finland’s Mesak is the kind of artist to keep your interest piqued. As is abundantly clear on this release for Nsyde, his music isn’t quite as self-consciously quirky and knotty as outright braindance, but it’s somewhere in the same sphere. The layering on ‘Katosi’ is dense and dynamic, with the kind of duelling arps which eventually coalesce into one synth sound and modulating filter sweeps which push and pull myriad elements in and out of your perception with satisfying fluidity. It’s akin to be taken for a fast ride, leaning into the corners hard bull ultimately feeling at ease thanks to a lack of anyone else on the roads.
‘Narina’ is the moodier contrast to ‘Katosi’s sprightly joy, powered by acidic throb buried way down low and dusty drums, but even here Mesak can’t keep from threading in some dazzling top lines cast in shimmering silver. ‘Post Sweat’ has a slightly more fractured, rhythmically intriguing structure which makes for a refreshing change in the field of machine funk. There is a strong sense of classic drum machines and synths in the sound palette of the whole record, but with the sequencing as much as the sound design, Mesak excels at eking vast swathes of personality out of his tools.
Poborsk is also invited on board for a remix. The French artist also known as Bill Vortex goes in hard on his version, dialling in all kinds of slippery freakiness and pushing the track well over the edge into electronica territory, albeit not at the expense of the beat. The splashy, over-egged delays are a particular delight, if you appreciate dislocated sonics teetering on the edge of collapse.
OW
Scream And Dance – In Rhythm (Lantern Rec)
If you appreciate compilations of cult labels from discerning heads, there’s a chance you will have stumbled across Scream And Dance before. They were a one-single wonder from Bristol’s early post-punk scene who recorded just four tracks on their 1982 release for local label Recreational Records. Over the years, the lead track ‘In Rhythm’ has become something of a diggers choice, with the likes of DJ Marcelle, Bill Brewster, Cherry Red and Sleep D all giving it an airing in various mixes or compilations. It’s not hard to understand why – it’s an enchanting track with a delicate rhythmic roll and a dual vocal turn from Ruth George Jones and Amanda Stewart which echoes the likes of Maximum Joy’s Janine Rainforth and Vivien Goldman, like a distant cousin of the latter’s ‘Launderette’.
‘In Rhythm’ is a brilliant lead track on its own, but ‘Giacometti’ is a perfect foil on the B side with its spiky angles, furious drum roll and chanting-shrieking vocal peaks. It’s non-linear and fierce, showing off the best of the Bristol post-punk movement, and the ‘Wicked Mix’ of the track taps into a cohesive, motorik thrust which anticipates techno cultures to come. ‘In Pink and Black’ loosens up the flow without losing the flair, leaving you frankly gasping at the idea Scream And Dance never did any more records after this. It’s a bittersweet taste for anyone who savours the flavour of this particular time and place in music history.
OW
Demi Riquisimo – Proto Call (Life & Death)
Semi-Delicious founder Demi Riquisimo manages to channel a whole plethora of dance genres across the two tracks here and yet makes them sit down together as if it were at the most natural thing in the world. A-side track ‘Proto Call’ has an innocent, Italo vibe, with Balearic trimmings as well as a progressive house style chug, all set to a very 80s Chicago-style drum machine groove. It’s simple but joyful and you insticitvely know it’ll go down a storm on pretty much any floor.
‘Talk To Frank’, meanwhile, as well as putting a smile on the face of any raver old enough to the government’s drug advisory campaign of the same name, has a touch of Lil Louis’ saucy shuffle, a dash of Carl Craig in Paperclip People mode and a wriggling acid line that the whole thing convenes around, and again, comes with a bouncing enthusiasm and confidence that will sweep people onto, rather than off, their feet. Recommended.
BW
Nico Lahs – Easy Loving You (Quintessentials)
Italian producer Nico Lahs has been on a superlative run of late, turning out the kind of grooves that cut right through decades of generic deep house and land squarely in your solar plexus. In a similar fashion to dub and soundsystem music, at this point in time deep house isn’t necessarily about innovation, but about getting the recipe right. No one needs another deep-by-numbers set of sample pack loops pasted onto a record, but when the sound is done right, it still has the power to move you physically and emotionally.
Quintessentials is a bastion for this attitude, staying true to a sound and maintaining a quality threshold, and once the cosy chords lay down on the rugged thump of ‘Keep On Groovin’, everything is exactly where it should be. The drums are a big part of the appeal, slightly red-lined and squashed down to give a satisfying crunch – a signal chain even more apparent when the beat opens up and starts skipping hard on ‘Freakin’.
There’s plenty of melodic beauty to inject the feeling into the music, especially on soaring sweetener ‘Come Get Me’, but the keys and synth lines come as a direct foil to tough kicks and sizzling hats. Lahs knows exactly what he’s aiming for on the record, and while it might well be a familiar sound, he absolutely nails it.
OW
Cinthie – Musique For Discotheques (Heist Recordings)
The only title more fitting for this EP would be Four Pure House Heaters by Cinthie and a Remix. The Berlin-based record store hustler, label owner, esteemed club DJ, and on-point producer lines up a quartet of suitably seasonal belters, offering nothing but balmy evening-into-nighttime punch, jack and drive, throwing just enough euphoria into the mix to keep things feeling rave-y without losing the overriding feeling of refined sophistication. These are tunes to revitalise and rejuvenate the day after the night before, building into round two.
Bonafide party starters, the mood is set from the off with the vocal-loop-led ‘Won’t U Take Me’, a tune that bounces on a wave of piano hook, warm synth line, high and snare-topped kick drums, its tangible energy barely recedes for the six minute duration. Just as suitably christened, ‘Piano Heaven’ seems to pick up where the last left off, upping the punchiness and switching stomp for more driving bass, creating a sense of progress from the opener in the same way you’d hope to hear within any decent club or festival set. Classic keys create a truly timeless sound, subtle filter work applied to provide forward momentum while string stabs add a sense of occasion about the piece.
Supported with its own, unarguably solid St. David remix — which punts for a more heads down interpretation, using those keys as a rhythmic rather than melodic device, it pushes ever forward. As such ‘Masterplan’, which sends the BPM count soaring towards the 140 range, represents a generous bonus, standing out on its own as an homage to footwork as oppose to house per se, 808s ricocheting off the walls of the party described in the delightfully fun spoken word rhymes riding atop the pared back arrangement.
MH
Jenifa Mayanja – Chances (Hardmatter)
It’s been a minute since we last heard from Jenifa Mayanja, surely one of the strongest voices in contemporary deep house across any global scene you care to mention. Having carved out a sphere for herself through the Bu-Mako label and operating with a prolific consistency some 10 years ago, she tends now to be a more sporadic artist gifting us otherworldly jams in unlikely places. There’s no obvious reason for this, although her Bandcamp hints at a period of development and artistic self-reflection, but in the era of over-saturation an artist who takes their time and only releases when it counts is actually welcome.
Whatever the context in her creative journey, Mayanja sounds as strong as ever on this release for emergent UK label Hardmatter, offering the kind of ascendant deep house which reminds how much space for expression the genre possesses in the right hands. There’s a springy energy to ‘A Feeling’ spelt out in the delicate patter of percussion and nimble bassline, with an organ chord lead which fills the rest of the frequency range with understated giddiness. The ingredients are unfussy, but the resulting feeling is invigorating in a way that so many deep house artists fail to reach. Special mention goes to the straining string line which creeps into the midsection, edging mystery and nuance into the emotional make up of the track.
‘Second Time’s The Charm’ gets a little knottier in the drums and plays around with more melodic layering, creating an elegant web of shifting phrases that move with intention through the narrative of the track. ‘Leaning Into It’ simmers down with a serene warm-up pace which leaves plenty of space for Mayanja to let the chords and leads snake into varying configurations, always shaped with a sophistication which belies her years of experience in this field.
If there was one criticism of the record, it’s that the keys and synth voices feel a touch too similar from track to track, but equally that places the emphasis on the melodic composition, and Mayanja is an artist who speaks with eloquence through her chosen tools. Ultimately, that’s more important than specifics of production.
OW
This week’s reviewers: Oli Warwick, Jude Iago James, Martin Hewitt, Ben Willmott.