Niklas Rehme-Schlüter returns to the Emotional Response fold with his latest album next month.
It’s a great time to be part of a synth-led group. There is, in electronic music, a prevalence for artists to be lone wolves, betrothed to the inner sanctum of their studios and generally better off working on their own, but since the upwards trend of hardware kicked back in with gusto it’s easier to envisage that classic band dynamic in the sexy blinking lights of sequencers and matted knots of quarter-inch jack cables. In terms of collaborative live performance, a bunch of screen-glare victims ignoring each other while jockeying laptops on stage just never seemed that convincing, no matter how worthy the process and sonic performance may have been.
A further retrospective of The Durian Brothers called Ausgewahlte Durian Stucke will arrive in September.
Emotional Response will release a new album from Juan Trippe and Guido Zen’s mythic act called Peaks in April.
In the nu-Balearic/nu-disco scene, few records are quite as coveted as the Laughing Light of Plenty’s eponymous 2010 debut full-length. Recorded in 2007 in Los Angeles and New York by Rub & Tug Man Thomas Bullock and Eddie ‘Secret Circuit’ Ruscha, the album was originally slated for release in 2008 on cult label, Whatever We Want Records. Of course, for reasons still not wholly explained, that release never materialized, and it eventually surfaced two years later – in absurdly limited quantities – in Japan.
The German artist talks Harmonious Thelonious, The Durian Brothers, non-standard rhythms and Düsseldorf’s music scene with Oli Warwick.
The lost album from The Laughing Light Of Plenty will arrive soon ahead of a typically wide-ranging array of projects from Stuart Leath’s label.
It’s not easy to keep up with the ebb and flow of Stuart Leath’s Emotional Empire. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to call it an empire even if it has only been in operation for a few years, but between Emotional Rescue, Response, Relish and [Emotional] Especial, already a staggering mountain of releases and reissues sits awaiting the intrepid digger. The latest arm of Leath’s endeavours involves the Schleißen series, which is dedicated to abstract drone and ambient pieces from a diverse range of artists stretched across four installments.
Harmonious Thelonious, Colin Potter, Alessio Natalizia and more will feature on the forthcoming series of split ambient and drone releases.
More material from the archives of Eddie Ruscha features on the forthcoming Cosmic Vibrations collection.
Releases from Firecracker Recordings, Ghostly Intl, Emotional Response and Desire feature in this month’s selections.
Italian-in-London Alessio Natalizia has already proven himself to be something of a master when it comes to creating evocative, off-kilter music that joins the dots between fuzzy analogue electronica, krautrock, dreamy ambience and droning, industrial-influenced abstract sonics. He’s perhaps best known for making up half of Kompakt regulars Walls, whose dreamy, shoegaze-influenced voyages into sound benefit greatly from his ear for layered guitar textures, pastoral sounds and hypnotic, pulsating rhythms.
Matt Anniss speaks to self-professed record nerd Stuart Leath, the man behind a trio of labels that champion music from the margins.
Human Capabilities collects previously issued digital material and unreleased tracks from Alessio Natalizia’s solo project.
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The UK labels team up to start a new imprint devoted to unearthing “the best and weirdest” music from around the globe, beginning with a reissue of a record from the Mexican musician.
As the sound of gently lapping waves and morning birdsong gives way to a solo, bleary-eyed, delay-laden guitar – fuzzy but blissful, lo-fi but borderline Balearic – on “Domino”, the full potential of Musiccargo’s self-styled “adult kraut” sound becomes clear. While students of Neu!, Can and the like, the Dusseldorf duo’s particular take on krautrock comes with more than a healthy dollop of kosmische. This is motorik for those who prefer ambling through autumnal fields to dancing in damp, inner-city basements.
The Düsseldorf duo have been coaxed into making new music with Harmonie due late next month.
Luke Wyatt’s musical ascent hasn’t exactly been meteoric, but he’s certainly risen to prominence fairly quickly. Initially known as a visual artist – primarily for his work on Peoples Potential Unlimited brilliant PPU Video Party DVDs, but also for the likes of I:Cube and Mock & Toof – he’s spent the last 18 months impressing with a sludgy, atmospheric and often emotion-rich musical experiments. So far, he’s released two albums; the decidedly out-there collection of experimental off-cuts, Fragments So Far, and March’s 10 For Edge Tek, described by this reviewer at the time as a cross between “a latter day Steve Reich with drum machines and effects units”, and “early ‘80s industrial noise”. Add to this Tarifa, an EP for the L.I.E.S white label series that has become one of the hyped imprint’s most sought-after releases. This is due in no small part to the title track, a krautrock-influenced fusion of bubbling, slo-mo drums and glistening, ethereal guitars. For this writer, it remains one of L.I.E.S most thrilling and rewarding releases.