“What you’ve got is a whole… miserable subculture“. Spoken by an anonymous voice, these words are the only ones uttered in the entirety of Lee Gamble’s KOCH. Given the London-based producer’s penchant for revisiting the past, the statement could easily be interpreted as ironic – maybe the clip has been plucked from archival footage in the ’90s, maybe from a news segment extolling the dangers of jungle music.
Josh Hall speaks with Luke Younger, whose visceral work as Helm has marked him out as a notable voice within experimental circles. However, the ensuing discussion suggests the London-based musician is veering off in interesting new directions.
Werkdiscs, PAN, Umor Rex, Golf Channel, Avian and Shipwrec were responsible for some of the most impressive looking records in August.
The Bug, Moire, Omar S, a killer Mood Hut anthem and more feature among the week’s best releases.
Listen to a track from the conceptual artist’s new album constructed of computer virus-infected 808 beats.
We head off to Hamburg as one half of Black Sites takes us through 60 minutes of sonics proper.
The UK experimental producer’s next LP will be a double album to be released on PAN.
“If people ask what I play, I usually just say ‘hard club’ or something made up,” Berlin-based producer James Whipple explained to Dubspot earlier this year. It’s an appropriate response for someone who is a resident at Berlin club night Janus, whose central driving force seems to be – in the words of its co-founder Dan DeNorch – “searching for a sound that doesn’t exist”. Together with like-minded Janus residents Lotic and Kablam, Whipple is one of a few intriguing artists currently forcing club music into a place where R&B, Jersey club, hip hop, grime and techno are all deconstructed and re-synthesised into strange new forms, either as part of the deployment of recognisable tracks in alongside experimental sounds in DJ sets, or as deconstructed elements in original productions. Even the much-maligned hardstyle is of interest to Whipple, who has admitted to being inspired by the melodies of the genre.
Records from Mood Hut, PAN, Software, Diagonal and Houndstooth all feature in May’s selection.
There has been no shortage of good things said about Sheffield’s Beneath since he first bowled into earshot back in 2012 on his own No Symbols imprint. The hand-stamped aesthetic of those initial releases spelt out a techno backbone to his style, but the music itself spoke yet further of deference to dubstep and its spawn, and the overall lineage of bass-driven subgenres. As such, it wasn’t surprising to see labels like Keysound and Tectonic snapping him up for releases, both imprints being bastions for forward thinking low-end productions as well as having a penchant for the darker dancefloor outlook. Beneath’s music is nothing if not eerie, but now he makes the move to PAN and it sees an interesting new facet emerging in his sound, which is perhaps not surprising given the wildcard nature of Bill Kouligas’ stable.
Listen to a track from the Berlin artist’s forthcoming Scythians EP on PAN.
New material from Bass Clef, Beneath, Black Sites amongst the next few months releases from PAN.
A new EP from Luke Younger marks the first release of 2014 from PAN.
“Relax, it’s only a crisis.” So ends the ‘artist statement’ that accompanies Heatsick’s Re-Engineering.
The last two years have birthed an endless morass of articles bemoaning contemporary music’s perceived inability to grapple with the tectonic shifts that have been wrought on the culture. The world is collapsing around us, the chorus goes, so where is music’s response? These arguments, such as they are, are written exclusively by people who have already lost touch with that culture. They are the preserve of people who bemoan the loss of the acoustic protest song tradition, people for whom arch-liberal Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute is some totemic proof that artists’ engagement with politics is something that can be entirely historicised; something that was, but is no longer; something that occurs exclusively in the realm of vocal music. The argument is so daft as to be barely worthy of a response but, if you were looking for one, you could do very much worse than reach for Re-Engineering.
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The amount of new music currently being released is verging on the unquantifiable; in any given week there is on average around 150 new twelve inches classed as deep house alone. As if it wasn’t hard enough to keep up with all this music, new labels have continued to pop up throughout 2013, with some presuming all it takes to successfully cloak themselves in authenticity is an increasing reliance on well-worn terminology and a sizeable PR budget.
That’s obviously not the case, but if not that, then what are the criteria for a record label to stand out in this well populated climate? A label with a strong sense of curation, a distinct aesthetic and conviction in the music they release tends to be key, all of which breed expectation in those that follow the label, and which encourages the artists involved with the label to dig deeper into their creative processes. The people behind the labels listed below certainly fall under this category, and regular readers of Juno Plus should find the ten inclusions make for perfect sense. As well as reflecting the overall enthusiasm for techno, house and more experimental flavours that have felt so prevalent in the underground this year, these ten labels came with a strong work ethic and a genuinely passionate view of music which has made it a pleasure to show them our support.
The experimental label will fit in long players from the returning artists before the year is out.
“Re-Engineering” finds the Berlin-based producer operating at a slower and all the more hypnotic pace.
