Phil Todd’s long-running project aligns with the label for To Make A Fool Ask, And You Are The First.
Records from DJ Earl, Ossia, CO/R, Motion Graphics, Versatile all made the grade this month.
The enigmatic Blackest Ever Black project will release a seven-track LP called Wreck His Days.
Kiran Sande’s label will put out a live recording of the trio’s performance at the now closed Berlin venue NK.
The reissue trail is picked up once more as Flora Pitrolo highlights the work of Blackest Ever Black, Superior Viaduct, Dark Entries, WéMè’ and more.
The stripped back styles of the Bristol producer are next on the Blackest Ever Black subsidiary.
The long-awaited second album from Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews will arrive on Blackest Ever Black in June.
The F Ingers and Tarcar member goes solo with a new 7″ on Blackest Ever Black ahead of a debut album.
Dalhous pair Marc Dall and Alex Ander have been quite the fascinating outfit ever since that The Night of the Burning EP released as Young Hunting in 2011, whose horror-soaked difficult dance contributed so aptly to the aura around Blackest Ever Black as the label sewed the seeds of its mystique. Their sophisticated and uncategorisable electronics seem to hinge on an odd and very alluring combination of aesthetics: abstract yet narrative, theatrical yet introverted, they’re goths but they’re minimalists, they’re punks and they’re aristocrats. Closer in vein to their Lost, Discarded or Simply Forgotten demos heard recently on tap, Composite Moods Collection Vol.1 inaugurates a new series and confirms Dalhous as sonic investigators of the complexities of the self.
When Blackest Ever Black reissued the limited Secret Boyfriend cassette This Is Always Where You’ve Lived back in 2013, it spread the work of Carrboro, North Carolina native Ryan Martin to a much larger audience beyond his vast yet sporadic cassette releases. In conversation with Jane ‘Pharmakon’ Chardiet a couple of years ago, Martin confessed that he usually just dubs his own tapes, and “very sheepishly gives music to people.. but it feels hard to put that sort of attention behind your own project”. His notorious low key label, Hot Releases, is that modern rarity; the epitome of underground music in the digital age. Primarily mail order on limited run formats by similar lo-fi, 4 track indie acts, its nonchalant attitude towards self-promotion and public image is reflected by a rarely maintained social media presence; their Tumblr page hasn’t recorded an update in over a year.
A new series of conceptual recordings from the Edinburgh act for Blackest Ever Black will commence with House Number 44.
A new album from the prolific North Carolina-based artist called Memory Care Unit will arrive in January.
The latest UNTHANK from Firecracker, plus records from Blackest Ever Black, Dark Entries, Nous Disques, Crazylegs and more feature this month.
Stop Suffering, the first release from Carmella Lobo since Tropic of Cancer’s 2013 debut album, Restless Idylls, completes the transformation from grungy, primitive techno to ethereal intimacy. It’s all the more easy to trace that progress thanks to Blackest Ever Black re-issuing some of the band’s first tracks to appear on Karl O’Connor’s Downwards label at the same time as this new material. The music on The Dull Age 12″ covers the period when Lobo’s former partner, Juan ‘Silent Servant’ Mendez, was still involved in the project and his involvement was clearly audible. Restless Idylls saw Lobo stripping the Tropic of Cancer sound of most of its techno vestiges, while Stop Suffering goes a few steps farther to remove the last remaining elements.
The prolific Bristol producer lines up the second release on Blackest Ever Black’s A14 sub-label.
A debut long player from the Australian artist called Tarquin Magnet is due next month on the Berlin label.
Aside from Karl O’Connor, it’s hard to think of another techno artist who has remained relevant for the past twenty years. As Mainbait so clearly demonstrates, the key to the Downwards and more recently Blackest Ever Black artist’s longevity has been his ability to apply the same sense of sonic adventure that prevailed in his club techno releases to more experimental tropes.