The albums at the top of the pile
Ataxia – Out Of Step (Life & Death)
There are no rules drawn up about what makes a record sound like it’s born out of Detroit culture. Some records have it, and some don’t. You might argue it’s a certain toughness, but it’s not tough in the same way as club music from New York. You might say it’s rooted in the bump – that touch of groove that edges up the funkiness of the track. Perhaps it’s in the soul of the music – the harmonic interplay or the message of the vocals communicating the story of the city. Sometimes there’s a coolness in the delivery which feels intrinsic to the city, not desperate to please or seek approval, just expressing on its own terms. Either way, Ataxia have pulled together enough of these qualities to make an album which absolutely sounds like Detroit.
The duo of Rickers and Ted Krisko have been plugging away in various corners of the tech house scene for some 10 years, moving between European and US labels while notching up some key spots on the likes of Planet E and KMS as well as collaborating with fellow Motor City alumni Norm Talley and getting remixed by Terence Parker for a 2017 acid tweak-out on Nervous Records. They have an established approach of sorts, but after these scattershot singles Out Of Step feels like a more rounded approach to the house and techno album. It’s an album predominantly defined by dancefloor tracks – chunky six-minute workouts for DJs to get busy with – but there is a sense everything was created with the larger whole in mind.
Considering it as a complete listening experience, it harks back to the 90s kind of dance music artist albums, where each track felt distinct from the others. Given the decades of producers rolling out a batch of 10 tracks ploughing the same furrow, it’s satisfying to hear the gears shift from cut to cut as we trip through Out Of Step. It makes for the kind of album where you could grow attached to particular favourites, skipping the CD back and forth to catch your jams. If that sounds a little nostalgic in the era of streaming and playlists, then it reflects the overall vibe of the album, which holds true to certain tenets of Midwestern club music and blasts them with pride.
As such, opening track ‘Detroit Gospel’ makes sense as a pumped-up techno workout with giddy synth lines up top, while ‘Pine Island’ slips into a slower house shuffle with local legend Andres on hand. That’s two tracks in, and already Out Of Step sounds like quintessential 313 gear. ‘Language’ might well be one of the highlights of the album, teasing some ghettotech flexing on the 808 and playing around with some off-key vocal samples, keeping dancers on their toes by dipping into some deliciously disorienting bass drops in the mid-section that might well derail the jit. DJ Minx is also on hand to help Rickers and Krisko work up a sweat at the trackier end of the Detroit house spectrum on ‘Maxia’. As opening salvos go, Ataxia map out a thoroughly convincing direction for their album as a celebration of their hometown’s music culture.
The pressure maintains throughout, dipping into taut electro, piston-pumping machine soul, and even swerving to a little breakbeat play on ‘Feels Like’ with Mister Joshooa. It’s one of the moments on the album that passes by a little less memorably due to its stripped down, rolling nature, but as a building block amongst this gut-busting 12-track compendium, it’s no bad thing to have a little breather from the wilder tracks. In penning their love letter to Detroit, it’s clear Ataxia couldn’t stop the tracks flowing, and Out Of Step feels astoundingly full-bodied top to bottom. It’s not dressed up in any grand schemes – just delivered with a no-nonsense sincerity which chimes perfectly with the fine tradition laid down before them.
OW
Mike Paradinas is never someone you should feel comfortable expecting things from. The Planet Mu boss, better known to most under his production alias, μ-Ziq, has made it his business to confound and avoid anything like conformity throughout a stellar and storied, decade-spanning career, both as the guy who ultimately decides what one of the finest and most refined electronic music labels on the planet puts out, and as a boundary-breaking artist in his own right. The sweetly titled Hello is just the latest case to prove this UK studio-maestro remains consistent in his unpredictable genius.
Having used up all the hyperbole it’s probably worth pointing out that μ-Ziq, and the whole Mu sonic world, are heavily rooted in IDM and the rave culture of thinkers, but such vague and broad descriptions are never going to land any fingers on any real points. Nevertheless, this record is a wonderful example of what we mean. Opening with the piano and halftime drum & bass-led ‘Hello’, this is dance floor business but it has so much in there so far from those norms it has barely even seen them for years.
Elsewhere, ‘Magic Pony Ride, Pt.3’ represents μ-Ziq exploring the cosmos with a staccato, mid-tempo arrangement that marries thinking sounds of space and all that might hide there with complex, snare-capped drum patterns to offer an acid house-inspired 140 dream you don’t want to wake up from. ‘Modulating Angels’ again takes things on a new trip, owing much to the steely chopped and cut percussion of pared-back Squarepusher jungle, doing away with almost everything but the beats and some trickling keys and haunting synth lines, with ‘Iggy’s Song’ also taking a lead from similar sources of inspiration. One hand on the hardcore eight pack, another rooting through sound designs of grand masters.
MH
Nueen – Diagrams Of Thought (Balmat)
Previously spotted floating through the bucolic pastures of Quiet Time and Good Morning, Mallorca-born artist Nueen moves from the cosy climes of cassette labels to an appearance on Balmat. With the previous releases from Luke Sanger, Hoavi and Patricia Wolf, this Spanish label has proven to be an instant must-check for anyone concerned with ear-catching ambient electronics. Rather than hyper-patient drone material, the Balmat focus tends to be on shapely, organic melodic patterns and tender sound design experiments, which is something Nueen instantly adheres to as Diagrams Of Thought eases to life.
There’s no one mode on the record, which makes it more pleasing to listen to as each piece marks out its own space. ‘Lev’ noticeably draws on the kind of Rompler-plucked bass thunk you’d commonly associate with peppy deep house, but it also underpins sparkling FM bell tones and wobbly ghost pads beautifully. When more outwardly ambient moments appear, as on the drifting expanse of ‘Vig Ase’, they sound more memorable in contrast to other paths Nueen chooses to explore. Even these slow drifting pads can be punctuated by an unexpected, isolated bass drop, just to keep things interesting.
‘Veta’ can be considered a slight disruption as its crunchy electro beats and warm, fluid bass cut a path into the middle of the mix, but they don’t sound out of joint with the album’s overall clarity. Nueen sounds free in his exploration of different approaches on Diagrams, which like other Balmat releases comes across as though it was thoughfully compiled from a rich pool of ideas.
OW
Decius – Decius Vol1 (The Leaf Label)
If, as the Manic Street Preachers once proclaimed, “All rock ‘n’ roll is homosexual”, then it can only be even more true of house music. Its roots in the gay nightlife of Chicago, its influence from the mid-80s hi-NRG productions of Bobby Orlando and Man Parrish, its all-welcoming ethos, they have all remained a central part of the music’s DNA. These days, of course, that influence is usually implicit – if you know, you know, if you don’t then it doesn’t matter too much. Which makes the arrival of Decius Vol1, which wears its LGBT+ credentials very much on its sleeve, all the more welcome and refreshing.
Decius compromises of brothers and Trashmouth Records founders Liam and Luke May, Quinn Whalley (Paranoid London/Warmduscher) and Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi, and those already smitten by the Paranoid London acid house bug will be delighted by the likes of ‘U Instead Of Thought’ with its classic Chicago drum machine rolls, the frisky disco bassline to ‘I Get OV’ or ‘Look Like A Man’s vocal hysteria and throbbing sequencers. It’s this combination of very current dancefloor firepower and spectacular vocals which hark back to an era of abandon that devotees of Sylvester and Patrick Cowley will recognise immediately. A heady mix indeed, which is just how this lot like it.
BW
The idea of Plaid’s 11th album – released un-coincidentally on 11/11/22 – being a recreation of a gig booking played in outer space raises two questions in this rather cynical journalist’s mind. Firstly, what are they smoking? And secondly, where can we get hold of some?
It might be more believable to assume that all of the Plaid (and Ed Handley and Andy Turner’s stint with The Black Dog) output had been recorded in such a way – it’s all very much out of this world and always has been. But their style has shifted slowly over the years, away from the early beat juggling of ‘Angry Dolphin’ to an altogether more home listening proposition. What Feorm Falorx indicates, however, is that with that shift they’ve not only managed to maintain their distinctive trademark sound but also become more communicative and direct.
‘Cwtchr’, for example, boasts a tumbling, off kilter beat but it never throws the listener off the scent, while ‘Return to Return’ dallies with the hitherto unexplored areas of high frequency with what sound like plucked violin arpeggios, underpinning them with hip-hop beats and gloopy bass. ‘Modenet’ is even more approachable, with a touch of Mike Paradinas-style melancholy about it, and the ‘Wondergan’ is a joyous steel pan workout that’s way more fun than so-called ‘intelligent techno’ was supposed to be.
The concept of becoming more accessible, especially with age, is something usually associated with watering down or reduction of some sort. Plaid seem to have been able to achieve it here without diluting their legacy in the slightest, if anything making it stronger. Good on them. We only wish we could have made the original gig.
BW
When dealing with artists like Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews it’s difficult to focus on criticism and not descend into potted histories. Having spent years blurring lines between all manner of genres that just about fit in dark rooms late at night as Raime, a project that splices drum & bass with cinematic scores, adds punk and shoves the lot under blue-lit hues of jazz-grime, you can’t help but feel that harping on about that glory while discussing their latest project (of sorts) does the latter disservice. But then it feels rude not to clarify the pedigree we’re dealing with here.
Chin-stroking disciples will by now have left the room in disgust at the suggestion Moin is a new era. Paste is the second contiguous album under the name, but the duo were actually working with this moniker before Raime was a thing. Credibility hopefully retained, to some extent, this latest effort is perhaps the finest thing the two heads — and new compatriot Valentina Magaletti — have ever done. Elements of hip hop and experimental downbeat lift the garage rock foundations to unfathomable heights of samples, loops, words, plucks, melodies, darkness, light, subtle euphoria, and humour. Post-genre for those bored of post-genre.
MH
Andy Ash – All The Colours (Quintessentials)
Liverpool-based artist Andy Ash returns to Quintessentials with some of his most accomplished material to date, serving up varying shades of deep house wonderment on the ‘All The Colours’ LP. The DJ, producer and visual artist has kept up a prolific work rate of late, with his production prowess edging ever forward with each carefully crafted release. The new album was tantalisingly teased last month thanks to a splendid remix EP, and, sure enough, the finished article proves to be inspired throughout. The collection sees Andy collaborate with a selection of talented vocal artists, adding an extra dimension to his propulsive four/four soundscapes.
The LP launches with the rugged dancefloor drive of ‘The Sound’, where Eric Rico’s soul-drenched vocal simmers over deviant synths and fizzing drums. Next, the growling acid and Fingers-esque bass of ‘Life’ is a fist-pumping main room guarantee, while the deep house shuffle and Peach Boys-inspired top-line of ‘I’m Here’ provides one of many magnetic, heads-down moods. Rousing slap bass and cheerful crowd samples enliven the impossibly propulsive disco flex of ‘The Village’, before the bump resumes via the solid drums and undulating synth motifs of ‘Os Talking’.
The swung groove and dreamy keys of ‘Mad Affection’ make way for the introspective profundity of ‘Another’, before closing track ‘Letting Go’ blends dusty rhythms with melancholy chords for a poignant endpoint. Andy Ash proves himself among the very best of the UK’s house protagonists here, and, if it’s ho-ho is your game, ‘All The Colours’ is nothing short of a must-have album.
PC
Christina Vantzou – No 5 (Kranky)
As you might well surmise from the title, Christina Vantzou is returning to Kranky for her fifth solo album, although the US experimental artist has a much busier discography of works covering more than 10 years since she first emerged. In the past few years she’s been working regularly with John Also Bennett on the CV & JAB albums amongst many other ventures, but here she returns to her methods as a mighty re-arranger, pooling session recordings from a plethora of musicians and feeding them into her unique tapestries.
There’s a sense of closeness orbiting the music, whether through the synth passages of ‘Reclining Figures’ encircling your ears, or via the ASMR tickle of footsteps on foliage leading us into the fragmented swoon of ‘Red Eel Dream’. The shards of instrumentation and performance are cast asunder and yet they spring back to Vantzou’s lantern like dutiful moths as she navigates us through strange archipelagos of atmospheric sound. Despite the sense of space and travel, at all times every sonic incident feels within reach – intentional and graspable.
Sometimes the composition comes through more lucidly, as on ‘Kimona I’, and elsewhere the direction feels tangential. ‘Tongue Shaped Rock’ lilts and meanders. With each new turn throughout No 5, the intrigue deepens.
OW
Rachika Nayar – Heaven Comes Crashing (NNA Tapes)
To say Rachika Nayar’s music feels romantic wouldn’t quite be right. In so many ways, Rachika Nayar’s music is romance. A love affair for an age in which the organic and synthesised are rapidly becoming one, when we have long-since understood it’s possible to see something of ourselves, and each other, in the mechanical and algorithmic results of our own machinations. Warm humanity in a world where it’s easy to overlook the importance of actual living things.
Quite the attempt at poetic justice, really the record is best described as “beautiful”. Nayer’s previous efforts made it pretty clear her backstop is the guitar, but here that instrument appears almost unrecognisable. These mini-epics of synth, sounds that feel born under the yellow glows of street lights on winter walks home from clubs, times when we have opportunity to take everything in through wide-eyed observations impossible amid the frantic mayhem of days driven by the apparatus putting us at risk of forgetting ourselves. Climaxing with a title track that sends breaks crashing around your ears and finally unleashes guitars in an orgy of drum, drone, and riff, before tucking us up in the cosiness of gentile refrains. Truly something to hold close.
MH
When Soundway Records set about shedding light on the various hidden corners of the musical universe, they do it proper. The latest niche on the receiving end of Soundway loving is ‘80s Argentina’s electronic avant-garde, with all-manner of idiosyncratic curios carefully curated by Ric Piccolo and Ariel Harari. Italo disco, electro-funk, post-punk, tango, ambience, jazz-fusion, Afro-folk and techno-pop are all represented here, via a most generous 19 tracks split across three slabs of wax.
The compilation starts strongly thanks to the moody electronics of Carlos Cutaia’s ‘Operativo’ before gliding up and down the gears across a routinely enjoyable set. Ric Piccolo’s edit of ‘Dimensiones Ocultus’ from El Signo provides bags of electro-boogie enthusiasm, as does the Harari edit of Toby’s ‘Ain’t That Better’. The rising melodies and optimistic sensations of Mike Ribas’ ‘Secuencia Sin Consecuencias200’ do a fine job lifting the mood, while the blissed-out Balearica of ‘Reencuentros N° 2’ from Adalberto Cevasco proves a sumptuous sundown highlight.
Elsewhere, the upbeat groove and hyperactive vocals of Divina Gloria’s ‘Mediterranée Club’ is sure to get bodies moving, and the soul-flecked funk of ‘I Wanna Make You Mine’ from Delight is one of the many feel-good jams that permeate this wildly imaginative collection. There’s scarcely a dull moment throughout, and owning this album is sure to add much to even the most well-rounded of music collections.
PC
Loraine James – Building Something Beautiful For Me (Phantom Limb)
As the world continues to play catch up with the genius of Julius Eastman, projects such as this one will do wonders to help enshrine the late American composer’s name beyond the realms of classical music. Through a connection with Eastman’s brother Gerry, Phantom Limb have been able to commission Loraine James to create a bold yet sensitive response to Eastman’s work.
Building Something Beautiful For Me feels intimate beyond James’ prior albums for Hyperdub. While her beat-oriented work still operates with a certain internal logic that keeps it independent from broader stylistic trends, her ability to seemingly transcode her personality into her music comes through stronger in these more delicate pieces. It’s aligned more naturally then with the Whatever The Weather project which appeared on Ghostly earlier this year, but of course there’s a strong variable here in the form of Eastman’s compositions, sample source material and overall imposing presence.
From one gay Black artist to another across a generational and geographical divide, the resonance remains deep, but equally James doesn’t sound phased by the project and instead projects herself through it with grace. Eastman is unquestionably there in this work, but ultimately, it’s another development for Loraine James, one of the strongest voices in contemporary electronic music.
OW
This week’s reviewers: Ben Willmott, Jude Iago James, Martin Hewitt, Oliver Warwick, Patrizio Cavaliere.
The tunes at the top of our writers’ lists
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
D Knox – Meditation (Sonic Mind)
This 1996 original from Donnell Knox (D-Knox) is a curious case. Originally released on Jay Denham’s Black Nation Records, it now makes a triumphant return in the form of a remastered version by esteemed mastering engineer Tim Xavier. Now it’s been reissued on Knox’s own new label Sonic Mind, which pre-dates much of the musical landscape as we know it today.
On the cusp of pre-millennium digital enlightenment, this gem of US techno is as scratchy as scratchy electronic music can get. It’s the sonic expression of a time when the gear wasn’t so refined, and when the spokes of the machinery used to make this kind of music weren’t so well-oiled yet. Contrary to the static measure of most techno, many of the tracks on ‘Meditation’ contain all of the shuffle and swing endemic to UK garage – but this EP comes from a different tradition, with Knox known more to be connected to the techno heydays of Chicago and Detroit, not London.
The tracks here are arguably so distorted and clippy that they seem to burst out of the other end of techno and into a fresh realm of what we’d instinctively call hell. Paradoxically enough, though, Knox’s track titles don’t equate techno with the maddening overencroachment of industry, but rather, peace, calm and meditation. To Knox’s ears, the juddering squeaks and squawks of ‘Total Concentration’ are birdsong. The overloaded 909s and claps, which spit and spurt dryly and wryly, are nothing more than mantric repetitions for transcendental meditation. ‘Chanting’, in all its metallic lashings and piston-crushings, is yet again a natural rhythm of life. The calming aspect of even the most abrasive techno is what 1996 Knox stood for. This EP begs the question: who are we to necessarily question the inhumanity of the machine?
JIJ
SL Jung – Inland Delta (Seafoam Fiction)
It’s relatively early days for SL Jung, a producer operating in a seemingly singular fashion with a fresh, original twist on the premise of dubbed out house and techno. This latest 12” marks the second release on his Seafoam Fiction label following a 12” of the same name, and he’s continuing to expand on his ideas with a versatile palette and relatively open-ended possibilities for where the project might be heading. At times you can detect the impetus of classic US deep house informing the basslines, but elsewhere things take a more disjointed direction.
On lead track ‘A Cushioned Reminder’ it feels as though elements of Theo Parrish’s bugged out funk is powering the groove, given the rhythm section consists of nothing but a kick and a wonky bass played off grid. The top end of the track is an indulgent dive into dub, with aqueous synth impressions pulsing through ample echoes and reverbs – overall a simple ensemble, but delivered with a thoroughly natural flair which keeps you comfortably locked in for the duration.
‘Blue Freak’ takes the rhythmic fluidity even further, letting a loose swing set in and allowing the blunted melodies to trip over each other. The saying goes you can’t fake the funk, and Jung knows how to dislodge himself from the grid without derailing the track, maintaining that spaced-out dub patina so eloquently established on the first track. ‘Inland Delta’ shifts the focus a little by allowing some more pronounced synth shapes into the mix. From misty pads to steady pulsing chord stabs, the scene is set for a more linear trip into deep waters. Even the claps are ready on the two and the four to guide us. It’s undoubtedly the track DJs will feel more comfortable with as it gently arcs upwards, but it doesn’t do a disservice to the vibe Jung has built up over the prior two tracks – an immersive shimmer of dub-informed 4/4 with plenty of ingenuity in its bones.
OW
Nam’s – Chaos (Lux Rec Switzerland)
Nam’s (Naamal M’bae) is a Swiss artist operating in the modes of EBM, industrial and new wave, but the fusion of these parts culminates in much more than their sum. Lux Rec, meanwhile, are a group of sonic insurrectionists from the very same Scandi foundland; its founders Daniele Cosmo and Dominik Faber share the vision of redefining the roots of electronic dance music.
Starting a revisionist history of the roots of electronic dance music is a bold feat, especially when most if not all of it is oral history in the first place. But perhaps only art, not words, can set such a task in motion. Nam’s’s music is ecstatic and angry, with its militant reuse of cold and industrial EBM-style instrumentation (acid, tinny drum machines, crudely static structures) being redeployed to express very human and hot desires, such as ‘I Want You Dead’.
‘Kill!’ is similarly post-fascist, with its breakneck speed and megaphoned-in audio ‘warfare’ mocking the ridiculous military tendency of ultranationalist states to purge its ‘thems’. “Do you want to die?” goes its Big Brother-like announcement. ‘Chaos’ ensues, with counter-static beats and ominous vocal drones abounding – this is really a rather calming storm.
Finally, the star of the show, ‘Spiral Vision’, makes itself known on the B4. Here’s where everything blurs into one – while so much industrial music seems to want to separate drums and vocals, Nam’s does not hesitate here to blur them both into one strategically rich texture. Industry isn’t just robotic, after all. Industrial processes can and do blend well with human voices, human expression. At the same time, however, this blurring doesn’t come without its downside: the track is apocalyptic, and sounds like rapture, the four horsemen raining it down on us. Perhaps industrial humanity comes at a cost.
JIJ
Space Dimension Controller – Cro2ma (Hypercolour)
Space Dimension Controller has routinely impressed since emerging a little over a decade ago, with each release imbued with a healthy blend of originality, refinement, and, in most cases, dancefloor thrust. His music regularly finds room in the rosters of the dance underground’s most esteemed labels, with Dekmantel, Aus Music, Ninja Tune and Rush Hour among those to have championed his distinct sound. ‘Cro2ma’ follows on from the ‘Tiraquon Recordings Volume 1’ LP that arrived earlier in the year and marks his Hypercolour debut in fine style, serving three deep-but-accessible jams that are sure to win plenty of admirers. While some of his most memorable work has been rooted in synth-funk sensibilities — with ‘Synths & An 808’, ‘The Love Quadrant’ and his utterly timeless rework of Anthony Shakir’s ‘Detroit State Of Mind’ just a few examples of his genre-bending keyboard virtuosity — the latest EP is a touch starker in tone.
That’s not to say the music isn’t funky, which it most certainly is, but the loose and limber synth work takes on something of a grubbier tone, with the agile melodics arriving in the form of errant bass lines and the like. The EP opens with the fluid rhythms of the title track, with scattered drums and darting synth lines joined by thick bass over a sparse arrangement, jagged chords and mysterious pads meandering through the spacious gaps as the groove unfolds. ‘IG00158’ follows a similar trajectory, with glitchy rhythms driving off-world synths deep into the shadows, before closing track ‘Highborne’ sees out the EP, arriving as perhaps the most kinetically charged of the set. Here, jagged synth bass flits over a sparse drum track while brooding pads, alien synths and fizzing hats maintain the dynamic charge. Yet more classy work here from Jack Hamill, and while not as immediate as some of his previous work, each track is endowed with more than enough substance to intrigue and invigorate.
PC
The Streets – Brexit At Tiffany’s (Island)
One of the most enduring illusions of The Streets is that they’re not necessarily a band; as their fame has grown over time, it’s made itself clearer and clearer that The Streets is more or less the brainchild of one man, Mike Skinner – as is often the case with musical acts that masquerade as ‘bands’.As he’s released more and more music, the music itself seems to have grown sparser and sparser, hollower and thinner, skinnier and Skinner, mainly seeming to contain Skinner’s voice against a thin beat. This is as much the case with this latest single as it is with a Skinner side project, The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light, which debuted in the mid-to-late 2010s. This project dealt in nocturnal trap beats, wilfully bare production and lamenting lyrical themes, as if every comment Skinner passed on the world could be expressed in a lo-fi, boxy beatbite.
We don’t make this observation in a negative way. To the contrary, ‘Brexit At Tiffany’s’, like TDTSTBTL, is an ironic commentary on the hollowness of the reasoning behind popular verdicts such as Brexit (David Cameron’s ideologies, of course, have always been an easy target for mid-2010s rappers – Plan B was similar to Skinner in his deep skepticism of the “hug a hoodie” soundbite). The tracks here, to our ears, sound equally as ‘hollow’. For Skinner, the doomsday clock being ‘3 Minutes To Midnight’ isn’t sounded by grand, glorious choirs of angels beset by classical music, reckoning divine melodious judgement on leagues of sinners – it sounds more like a man tucked away under a duvet, or in a cafe, wittering bemusedly about the state of the world, while his phone blares from its speaker a haunted standardisation of UK garage. The title track is decidedly much more beautiful, with vocals from Jazz Morley backboning a lo-fi garage ‘epiphany’ shared between Skinner and his collaborators. A wisely-produced, ironic, white-flag-waving EP, which is nonetheless beautiful.
JIJ
Pinky Perzelle feat Eda Eren – No Games (Perzelle Recordings)
Pinky Perzelle’s magnetic debut ‘No Games’ has been a regular feature in the sets and playlists of the most knowing of Balearic jocks throughout the summer months. Now at last available on vinyl, the seductive soundscapes appear set to continue soothing listeners through the long, cold winter nights. Though the name Pinky Perzelle may be a new arrival in the record racks, the man behind the moniker is steeped in meta-disco heritage. The distinctive nom de plume was conjured by producer and multi-instrumentalist, Sonny Rooney — son of none other than cosmic OG, Gerry Rooney. Serving inspired edits and supremely cultured productions alongside Joel Martin as Velvet Season & The Hearts Of Gold, Gerry famously co-piloted some of the earliest productions of quasi-mythical DJ colossus, DJ Harvey.
Growing up surrounded by crates of esoteric records, instruments and gizmos left an indelible mark on Sonny, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that he opted to forge his own path in the kaleidoscopic world of music production. Armed with an enviable schooling from his father (as well as guitar lessons from his grandad), Pinky Perzelle took a patient approach to perfecting his sonic craft. Indeed, the process of recording ‘No Games’ began many years ago, and, though the bare bones of the track came together quickly, Sonny spent countless hours fine-tuning and refining the composition. The bulk of the beautifully constructed orchestration was performed and composed by Sonny himself, the evocative vocal gorgeously sung by British-Turkish singer, Eda Eren. The sumptuous original version is backed up by a neat radio edit as well as a club-primed ‘Electronic Mix’, demonstrating some serious production range from the talented newcomer. If that wasn’t enough, Rooney Senior shows support in the best possible way, pitching in with a mesmerising VS&HOG remix that completes the package in sublime style. A stunning release from beginning to end, we patiently await further musical delights from the one they call Pinky.
PC
Various Artists – Uprooted Vol 1 (Versatile)
Vidal Benjamin is the archetypal digger, building his entire musical persona around the mythology of obscure records found in flea markets, baiting trainspotters and blowing minds with his sets. In being given a series on Versatile to pursue a particular question, he’s struck upon a grand idea, to celebrate the fluidity of human habitation and identity through track selections from people with split locales in their DNA. Vladimir Ivkovic is a perfect first guest, being a Belgrade-born DJ with the closest of ties to the Salon Des Amateurs scene in Düsseldorf.
The A side of this record looks back to Belgrade and the work of Rex Ilusivii, a Serbian visionary who made some genuinely astounding music in relative obscurity in the 80s, and whose work has since been recognised and revived by labels like Versatile and Ivkovic’s own Offen Music. This untitled piece features Ilusivii alongside Goran Vejvoda and Milan Mladenovic, recorded at Goran Vejvoda’s home studio 1984 and featuring the kind of slow, simmering outernational funk that bled out of the edges of the post-punk era.
It slaps plenty tough enough for a modern DJ set, but it doesn’t hold back on the freakiness one iota. On the flip, we trip backwards a few years to 1981 in Düsseldorf, when Beate Bartel and Chrislo Haas were forming the sound which would manifest to great underground success as Liaisons Dangereuses. Lifted from one of the supremely rare CHBB tapes they distributed at the time, this transcendental beatdown hinges around a relentless broken kick drum pound, a sample of what sounds like throat singing and Bartel’s distorted shrieks. It’s devastating, immersive and entirely not of this world, like all the best techno-not-techno should sound.
OW
Capinera – Il Volo (Serie Pegaso)
The Periodica Records team never fail to evoke Neapolitan wonder with their warm and emotion-rich releases. Their latest project arrives in the form of the Serie Pegaso offshoot label — a project designed as an outlet for music composed and themed with their beloved Napoli home at its very core. The familiar production crew of Dario di Pace and Raffaele Arcella are joined here by Disco Segreta’s Gianpaolo Della Noce and revered local beatmaker Michele Cesare. Recording under the Capinera moniker — a name shared by a migratory bird that leaves colder climes to settle in the balmy embrace of Mount Vesuvius as well as a folkloric, cigarette-smuggling Neapolitan beauty — the team craft a pair of alluring cuts that are every bit as compelling as the best of the Periodica back-cat. Adriana Salomone provides the vocals on both jams, starting with the reggae-infused syncopation of A-side cut, ‘Il Volo’.
Here, funk-centred synths and soaring sax solo gorgeously combine over a head-nodding groove, the sultry vocal mystically summoning the near-mythical charm of an Ionian sunset. On the reverse, a disco-funk feel takes to the fore on the blissful serenade of ’Suonno’, with cheeky synth licks, gliding bass notes and feel-good chords playing out an enchanting mid-tempo groove from where the heartfelt vocal lead elegantly soars. Gorgeously musical and majestically produced, which is pretty much par for the course from these players.
PC
More house music history lessons from two bona fide masters of the craft here, as BBE once again charge DJ Spinna and Kai Alce with the task of unearthing seductive sounds from the movement’s formative years. After highlighting killer material from Ralph Rosario, Dreamer G, Cajmere, Chip E & K-Joy and Tyree Cooper, the sixth instalment of the series is once again steeped in heritage. ‘Notice Me’ features the sensual vocals of (Exposè singer) Sandeé riding over a robust rhythm composed by Robert Clivilles and co-produced with David ‘C+C Music Factory’ Cole.
Interestingly, Latina girl group Exposè have been on the receiving end of much renewed attention in recent years, not to mention the recent re-issue of original member Laurie Miller’s ‘Love Is A Natural Magical Thing’ last month, adding a little extra spice to this pair of 7” edits. ‘Part 1’ sees erotically charged vocals echo over throbbing bass and thick house drums, while the equally dubbed-out and fractionally tougher ‘Part 2’ introduces an alluring synth top-line to the sleazy, late-night mix. Certainly not the best-known of early house cuts, ‘Notice Me’ represents an inspired piece of digging from Spinna and Alce. The music here serves as a testament to the strong start made by house music’s pioneers, with much of the new music forged in the revivalist mould frankly pale in comparison.
PC
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick, Patrizio Cavaliere.
