Ilian Tape Germany Vinyl & CDs

Review: Over the last few years, Dario and Marco Zenker's excellent Ilian Tape has given us some of the purest and most bold-faced techno around. The label has built up a solid reputation as being all about the music, minus the hype, and Italy's Andrea has been there at the forefront of their growth. The Turin-based producer returns to the moody imprint with his third EP for the label, led by the thumping, hypnotic swings of "Outlines" - containing possibly the best kick drums we've heard since Head High - and the break-ridden journey that is "Rainbow", on the A-side. The flip sees "Machine" enter a no nonsense mode, where a fast percussive groove locks tightly within a sea of intergalactic pads, and dubby, broken pastures on "Choral". All in all, this is a fine selection of wild, dare-to-be-different dancefloor tracks that span many styles and influences. Tip!

Review: Ilian Tape staple Andrea returns to the imprint, marking a big one for the Munich-based operation with a massive album by Skee Mask also this week. As always, UK and rave influences are abundant throughout the talented producer's work and this one is no exception. This EP is called Sktch and features the cavernous, glacial and downright knackered dub techno of 'Sarec', followed by the sinister subterranean breaks of Auxl and the meditative deep dubstep frequencies of 'Kjones' which sees him delve deeper into off kilter territory.

Review: DJ Plant Texture is Donato Basile, a diverse producer from Bari. He returns to Munich-based Ilian Tape to follow up 2017's The Bongoman Archive with four slamming cuts on his latest EP. Whether it's pummelling, bass-driven ruckus of 'MPC Jam 1' (Breaks mix) or the off-kilter slam of MPC Jam 2' (Saturator mix) on the A side, to the proper, peak time heads-down stomp of 'MPC Jam 3' (Exp Forever mix). Finally, the early '90s zeitgeist of 'Ciao Ragazze Jungle Style' goes out all guns blazing. On the MPC Thangs EP, this talented Italian producer is at his most fearsome yet.

Review: Ilian Tape have tapped up Jichael Mackson here for a double album of expressive and forward thinking electronic sounds. The atmosphere generally futuristic and intriguing, with tracks like 'Shangri La' riding on gentle breakbeats amongst air pads, 'Banana Jazz (Quartett)' is a high speed and live sounding jazz-breakbeat workout, 'A Jichalicious Something' is dubby and IDM inflected lushness and 'Good Morning Sunshine' is an interplanetary trip with distant cosmic pads and organic piano chords soothing mind, body and soul.

Review: Since he started producing music, Berlin-based American sound artist Jake Muir has been obsessed with sampling. His 2018 album "Lady's Mantle" was based on manipulated chunks of vintage Californian surf rock, and its follow-up, 2020's midnight symphony "The Hum Of Your Veiled Voice" was sourced from a wide variety of old records, and inspired by the work of experimental turntablists like Marina Rosenfeld, Janek Schaefer and Philip Jeck. On "Mana", Muir looks back to a misunderstood musical movement. Around 1995, a group of New York producers and DJs - including DJ Olive, DJ Spooky and Spectre - pioneered a genre-dissolving sound by unifying hip-hop techniques with ideas pulled from dub, jungle, ambient music and industrial noise. Badged "illbient", it was a short-lived genre that felt like a high-minded psychedelic cousin of the UK's trip-hop. Muir uses illbient as the springboard for "Mana", utilizing a selection of samples to inform his frothy drones and foreboding atmospheres. He ushers the material into 2021 by diverting it through his own contemporary worldview, attempting to recreate the hyperreal fantasy histories of Japanese RPGs (think "Dark Souls" and "Final Fantasy") and nod to sensual, tactile soundscapes of European industrial labels Staalplaat and Soleilmoon. The result is a magickal, sensory journey that's as physical as it is representational.

Review: Rich Jones is the man behind Operator and he's been making increasingly potent waves with his own label Gnosis Records as well as outings on Singular Records. This outing on Munich's Ilian Tape is a great example of his sound: 'Mall To Beach '80' is vamping chords and hammering hits over hunched up drums, 'Deliberate' cuts more loose but is still a brilliantly loopy workout and 'Wanderer' brings thrilling, high-speed tech that skates on daddy drums and is wired up with electricity. 'Sector Seven' shuts down with more airy and floating rhythms. Sublime.

Review: Those renegades at Ilian Tape are back once again with another forward-thinking album of fresh and potent techno, this time from Packed Rich. His long player "depicts the journey of an individual traveling through a field of energy that connects different locations in space," we're told, and along the way, it warps space and time to leave you spellbound. Punchy broken beat drum programming, hyper-real synth lines and cosmic colours all bring this record to life. It's a psychedelic mix that sometimes sounds like an MPC jam amongst the stars, at others like you're in freefall through the cosmos and sometimes laid back, stoned as can be gazing off into the heavens. Lush.

Review: Munich based producer Bryan Mueller aka Skee Mask presents his latest album titled Pool, via local imprint Ilian Tape which follows up his LP Compro which came out three years ago. There's an extensive collection of sonic experiments on offer on this one, such as opening cut 'Nvivo' which goes down an IDM route, to the glassy eyed rave euphoria of 'LFO', the intelligent drum and bass reductions of 'Rio Dub' and UK influenced steppers like 'Crossection'.

Review: Skee Mask, who only recently was found out to be called Bryan Muller, comes through with his second LP to date, making a wonderful follow-up to 2016's Shred. Compro is, ironically, comprised of a much more explorative palette of sounds, with many corners of the album veering off into otherworldly ambient, often through a striking new-age sensibility. The most impressive element of this album is its flow and evolution across its 12 tracks, sounding a lot more like one single-minded thought rather than a collection of disparate dance-not-dance tunes. The quality of the recording is noticeable, too, with tracks like "Rev8617" or "Via Sub Mids" sounding professional, both in vision and style. Through an intricate collage of breaks, samples, polyphonies, and subtle electronic manipulations, Skee Mask has truly mastered his own art, and is giving a new direction to the wider 'UK rave' sound. BIG.

Review: Ilian Tape mainstay Stoney returns with 'Maha', another impossibly stylish blend of deep techno and the Munich label's trademark breakbeats. 'Hazy Grove' opens with a lurching rhythm built from slick loops and fizzing pads that keep you in a constant sense of motion then 'Dirge' gets more restless with fizzing lines and gurgling loops panning about the mix. 'Fatal Flora' is a more linear deep techno roller packed with deft little details and 'Assegai' shuts down with a high speed and punchy rhythm, warped synths and rubbery bassline brilliance.

Review: The ever-excellent Ilian Tape label regular Stenny's 'Onda' comes as a limited one-time pressing "square wave homage" on 180g vinyl and as ever with this artist both tracks are devastatingly heavy and perfect for ultimate dance floor destruction. The title track takes up the A-side and is a crisp and snappy breakbeat underpinned by vast plunging bass notes and detailed with subtle electric fizzes and fills that are all-conquering. 'Quadra' is no less direct with its mix of physical low ends and microscopic details all warping mind and body in equal measure. Do not sleep on this one.

Review: The rise of Ilian Tape has been piloted by Dario and Marco Zenker with a steady assurance, so it makes perfect sense for the brothers to helm the first long player project from the Munich label. Immersion is a vibrant, atmospheric stroll through their various influences and inspirations with plenty to admire amongst the ten tracks. There is the bustling, leftfield breakbeat techno of "TSV WB" and pounding "High Club" (a no-nonsense dancefloor assault blessed with occasional eyes-closed chords), as well as sublime tech-jazz of "Cornel 21" and pitched-down junglisms of "Innef Runs". Interestingly, there are also a number of crusty, distorted ambient interludes, with "Erbquake" sounding particularly potent.

Review: There's an undeniably far-out feel to the Zenker Brothers' second album, Cosmic Transmission, which adds further layers of trippy textures, hallucinatory sounds and smoky intensity to the aural blueprint first explored on their 2015 debut full-length Immersion. There's much to admire throughout, from the mind-bending ambient weirdness of opener 'When Nothing is Safe', and the slipped dub haze of 'Whose In Control', to the drug-addled IDM of 'Natural Connection', and the polyrhythmic techno trip of 'Divided Society'. Most striking of all is the trio of tracks that close the album, all of which are powered forwards not by heavy techno beats (or even their usual crunchy, off-kilter breakbeats) but rather a series of ear-catching, fuzz-soaked synthesizer arpeggio lines.

Review: It's the label heads themselves, Zenker Brothers, who step up for Ilan Tape's 65th EP. As ever they lead from the front with four fierce cuts of inventive, fresh and rhythmic techno that is masterfully arranged and hugely complex but never at the expense of dance floor clout. The opener 'Two Paths' is a physical and prickly blend of tightly programmed kicks and scraping percussion with howling synth winds. 'Power Supply' then rides on a funky drum line with aqueous pads, 'Workhorse' is a big room banger with panel-beaten lops and synths riding over the top and 'Hold On' shuts down with surges of warm, futuristic chords and glitchy filters.

Review: Dario Zenker is back on his own brilliant Ilian Tape with four of the exotic sort of tunes that define its output. They are functional and muscular but never lacking in character with 'Wuando' kicking off with sparkling arps over hurried, punchy and dusty house kicks sweeping you up. 'Simple Days' is a broken beat loop with prickly percussive patterns and filtered synths dropped in throughout to bring the energy. There is more warehouse darkness and late night menace to the tense rhythm and frosty texture of 'Vitalizer' while 'The Edit' shuts down with percussive perfection.

Review: Marco Zenker is back on his own mighty - and it always has to be referred to as mighty - Ilian Tape label out of Munich. As you would expect from the man who has defined this label so well, he brings heavy but soulful drum patterns to '909D' with its fizzing hi-hats and restless energy sure to sweep you up. 'RC24' then has skittish snares skating over a broken beat while smeared chords infuse it with warmth and 'Mango Tango' then gets prickly with clicky beats and bass. 'Process Dub' shuts down with more sheet metal sounds wrapping and wafting between tight drums and backed by a nice diffuse synth glow.