This week at Juno
DJ Guy and Blueprint collections, a Floorplan LP, long-awaited Powder 12″ and a Different Fountains 7″ to new music from Moon B, Tzusing, Golf Channel, Emotional Response and Early Sounds.
DJ Guy – Structures & Rhythms 94-99 (Organic Analogue)
Given his emergence in the past few years has been so intrinsically linked to earlier material produced in the ‘90s, it’s only right that a release of this stature befalls the Welsh secret weapon, DJ Guy. Where his previous outings on All Caps and NORD have focused on crusty tape-ripped techno, the 4/4 material on the 12” of this release for Organic Analogue actually comes from the post-2000 era, and sounds just as delightful on the ears. Meanwhile, we also get a window into the junglist leanings of the Cardiff-based producer on the enclosed cassette tape, with a swathe of crucial, experimental jams from his earlier years. It’s universally brilliant stuff, both daring for its time and still resolutely fresh in the new millennium. With an interview booklet included and some on-point artwork, it’s a beautifully realised package that pays fitting tribute to a talent that could have been so easily overlooked.
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Brain Machine – Peaks (Emotional Response)
The component parts of Brain Machine have their fingers in many bohemian musical pies, from disco bubblers Vactrol Park to Spectral Empire, all of which come with an assurance of quality from the labels and like-minded heads they rub shoulders with. Thus far they have surfaced on THISISNOTANEXIT and Titan’s Halo before stepping over to Emotional Response a couple of years back for a remix EP. Now the trio return to the Emotional empire with their third album, and the powerful looming ambience of their sound is stronger and more strung out than ever. There are some stunning rhythmic moments to be enjoyed as well, such as the tense and tunnelling “To The Stars” with its motorik thrum, but equally the tinkling lilt of “Mercury Ripples” and the outright delicacy of “Crystal Cloud” show just how elegant and accomplished a group they have become.
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Moon B – Anything (World Aurale)
It’s been a wee while since we had some fresh dopeness from the Moon B camp sidle up to our sidewalk, but fortunately Wes Gray is back with more of that late night boogie-drenched sleaze funk. This time he’s on World Aurale, his own label launched from his LA base in order to get this release into your personal space, taking a break from regular cruises on Peoples Potential and other such esteemed outlets. The style is as impeccable as ever, with low slung Moog basslines punching out the groove while the top end shimmers with nocturnal delights from woozy chords to sassy leads. The real charm in Gray’s music is how romantic and mysterious he manages to make the well-worn boogie formula, sticking to his guns and yet managing to make it engaging every time.
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Pellegrino – Periplo (Early Sounds)
Having helped establish the Early Sounds collective and contribute to some initial releases for the group, Pellegrino S. Snichelotto now steps up with his solo debut, and what a debut it is. Continuing the ever more groovy development of his peers in Mystic Jungle Tribe et al, Pellegrino lays down rich, expressive tracks of jazz funk that point to a wealth of musical talent. The drums rumble with dexterity, the keys skip and dance and the guitar licks pirouette over the groove with delight, all feeding into a potent brew of classically informed burners that sound as though they could have easily been birthed in a decade long past. This is no throwback record mind, but rather an honest and beautifully crafted collection of psych-out soul jams played by someone that knows how to do it properly.
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Cherry Garcia – High Priest EP (Golf Channel)
Golf Channel are always a label you can count on to deliver the goods when it comes to distinct disco-derived jams from learned practitioners. Jon Tye and Ruf Dug are two such cats, both well respected on their own terms but already established in their Cherry Garcia guise thanks to an outing on the Channel last year. There’s a fair bit of range on this EP, from the uptempo disco sass of “I Am The Circle” to the fuzzy distortion and drama of “Kill Your Speed”, while on the B-side things get really interesting with the woozy slow-mo meets hi-octane duality of “Alma De Fago”. “Mystic Mountain” is our highlight, a true B2 gem swathed in delay and feedback that plies a tropical trade revealing the best both artists have to offer.
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This, we predict, is going to be the record that gives Tokyo-based Powder the recognition she and her supporting labels have been gunning for. Surfacing last year on Sling & Samo’s Born Free label with the Spray EP, she emerged with a truly tropical deep house sound with drums and basslines to boot. A five-track EP on ESP Institute later helped tell the story of a producer stuck in a 9-5 job who then burns the midnight oil to make music before doing it all over again. This Afrorgan 12” is clearly some of the results from those sessions. Across three tracks Powder flirts with pummelling techno elements in “Fridhemsplan” while there’s fun chic indie sounds to be found on “Random Ladder With 40″. The ‘classic’ Powder tune though is the undeniably good vibes of “Afrorgan”.
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Floorplan – Victorious (M-Plant)
With an album title like Victorious you can’t help but feel: the King is back – introducing his daughter Lyric as a collaborator in the process. But has it really been three years? In 2013 Robert Hood’s Floorplan alias did huge things with the Paradise LP, opening up his style to a whole new audience, with the wailing vocals of Aretha Franklin on “Never Grow Old” a fan’s favourite. Prepare yourselves, then, for some new hi-tech soul, with the staccato organ stabs and sultry spoken word of “The Heavens & The Earth” the perfect kind of techno for a Sunday, while ghetto house is fused with rave on “Mmm Hmm Hmm”. Quality old school Floorplan appealing to the heads is found on “Ha Ya” and Hood heats up the disco, Funky Souls style, in album closer “Sun In The Sky”. Victorious certainly lives up to its name in being able to court a new generation of listeners while keeping hold of that ‘90s spirit, hallowed be thy name.
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Different Fountains / Horse MacGyver – Godrich (Different Fountains)
Taking a break from their Organism run of 12”s, Different Fountains supplies a 7” inch to an impressive but modest 2016 catalogue. Intrigue remains in the inclusion of one Horse MacGyver, a bizzaro alias of Tim Dwyer whose MS Paint and VHS aesthetic shares a similar space to what Torn Hawk was doing on early releases for Not Not Fun and his own Valcrond Video. The Horse turns in a space western soundtrack of dusty, lo-fi arpeggios and phasing drums which sounds like a degraded off cut from Palm Highway Chase’s 2013 Spectrum Spools LP, Escape From New York. Meanwhile Different Fountains on the flip keep their outlandish house sound intact, with woozy background voices and a shuffling rhythm locking into a groove that sways like a lost zombie stumbling down a suburban street at night.
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Various – Structures & Solutions: 1996-2016 (Blueprint)
Two seriously big box sets of techno came in this week, Infrastructure New York’s Infrastructure Facticity LP being one, however our attentions are leaned toward this whopping four-disc 20 year anniversary compilation by Blueprint. Every related artist you could want finds a place here, old school and new, with producers like Tessela, Lakker, Blawan and Rommek making up the new vanguard while legends like Steve Bicknell, Luke Slater, Makaton, Regis and Oliver Ho are all accounted for too. Label honcho James Ruskin appears twice, first under his own name with the sharp grooves on “6teenth” that appropriately shares F-side properties with Tessela’s ‘90s throwback “Rub”, but it’s Ruskin’s compilation opener with Karl O’Connor under the OVR name that really sets the tone. Mass techno compilations can feel a little overwhelming, just ask Ostgut Ton, but Blueprint’s Structures & Solutions: 1996-2016 is something you’ll want to discover for real, and listen to over and over again.
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Tzusing – A Name Out Of Place PT. III (L.I.E.S.)
Having recently relocated to Taipei, it seems Tzusing will always have a home on L.I.E.S. First appearing on Ron Morelli’s label in 2014 with A Name Out Of Place PT. I EP, he’s since cultivated his abrasive form of electronics across two more records resulting in a series, which if packaged together, would have made a stand out album. If A Name Out Of Place was released as a stand alone LP then perhaps our attentions wouldn’t have been so hot on hearing deadly wasp track from this 12”, “Face Of Electric”, with bombastic break beats to blow the house down. Tzusing’s gluttony for acid is fully realised on “Emotional Eater” which keeps the sound of 303s fresh in among haunting snippets of vocal detunings and ‘90s techno atmospheres, while “R” sounds like an early Tessela cut beaten up by the industrial punch of Ron Morelli.
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