The superbly titled Voracious Culturilizer Disco Mix heralds the arrival of M.A.D.T.E.O. Records.
Is it the fundamental nature of its complete brokenness, and disconnection from a navigable, scalable, trenchant grid of reference, that has kept Madteo’s music so hermetically sealed? The stoned mumble, curled papers, deft looseness of touch all seem so tangible and recognisable at this point that hearing a new record seems like slipping back into an old fever dream; the shapes different and the same. Often it’s the character of the weirdness rather than the weirdness itself that seems most familiar, and along with the consistency in terms of that ‘oddball’ approach there’s an out-of-time, out-of-progression quality to the music.
Louise Ernandez
The pair have collaborated once more for the latest video from Paris label Latency Recordings.
While aging is often portrayed through the rose-tinted lens of group trips to Cuba, cushy retirement funds and finally getting away from the anxiety-attack provoking stress of the workplace, there’s a lot of terror in growing old. Michael Haneke’s 2012 film Amour touched on the helplessness and powerlessness that accompanies the onset of dementia and Alzheimers, and new studies come out constantly linking depression, substance abuse and suicidal feelings to aging in isolation. It’s even on Drake’s mind, as he raps “My mother is 66 and her favorite line to hit me with is / “who the f**k wants to be 70 and alone?” on 2013’s Nothing Was The Same.
The Parisian label will issue the Raveyard Shifts EP late next month.
Records from Andy Stott, Madteo, Neana, Helena Hauff and more were among the best this week.
Fit Sound sub-label Est. 83′ will issue a vinyl edition of The Italian’s excellent The Trilogy Tapes cassette next month.
Spanish producer Pettre has got something of an impressive track record when it comes to creating evocative, emotion-rich electronic music. As one half of sometime Hivern Discs and Mathematics duo Aster, he’s delivered a string of fine 12” singles that join the dots between shape-shifting, immersive ambience, vintage electronics, weary deep house and glistening dancefloor Balearica. Now he’s decided to strike out on his own by setting up his own label, Modern Obscure Music, and adopting a new pseudonym, Pedro Vian. Crucially, he’s also got a couple of similarly inspired producers to weigh in with remixes. With Madteo and Hieroglyphic Being (AKA one-of-a-kind analogue abuser Jamal Moss) on board, fireworks are all but guaranteed. As a result, Dancing Hindus is not defined by Pettre’s deliciously sleepy, ethereal original tracks – however fine they may be – but rather by two contrasting reworks that are little less than stunning. This is not to say that Pettre’s tracks are not impressive; in fact, the two cuts on offer would be strong enough to carry the EP on their own.
The fifteen minute remix is taken from the debut release on Modern Obscure Music, the new label from one half of Hivern Discs act Aster.
KWC 92, some excellent remixes of Bee Mask, and the return of Madteo provided some of this week’s highlights.
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Insider marks NYC-based deconstructionist Madteo’s return to Morphine, following 2008’s Memoria and last year’s Hieroglyphic Being rework of “Freak Inspector”. Insider is also Madteo’s most abstracted work to date, but the signposts for this EP can be seen all over his previous releases. The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t kick that flickers through Insider can be heard on so much of 2012’s Noi No; the fuggy exhalations that form the atmospheric bed of the record were one of the signal qualities of Hinge Finger’s “Bugler Gold Pt 1”. Even in “Bangin On The Ceiling”, one of a number of collaborations with Sensational, the same sense of urban derealisation can be instantly pinpointed. Perhaps the clearest comparison, though, is with Madteo’s contribution to Workshop 11, which twists 4/4 to shattering point, subsuming the kick in bandages of quivering synths that seem stimulated only by their own internal logic.
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Hear the sinister, stripped back techno of “The Hiding Hand Principle” in full.
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Tomas More debuts on Parisian label Get The Curse next month with an EP featuring two Madteo remixes – stream the results here.
With a pedigree in constructing dusty, loose-limbed house tracks with a hip-hop sensibility for labels like Meakusma, Morphine and Workshop, Madteo has always stood out as having a unique style, but even by his standards, Noi No is a singular collection of tracks. Although it would be tempting to put it alongside the raft of muggy, fragmented, sketch-like releases producers that have surfaced in the past few years – those from Actress, Lukid, 1991, even Hype Williams spring to mind – this wouldn’t feel right. While these producers (and many like them) seem to veer stylistically across single releases, Madteo hones in on one sound in Noi No and sticks to it. “Rut-A-Round” sets the tone with its droning bass and fizzy chords; deeply disjointed and unpredictable, the interplay between these elements happens seemingly at random, while vocals, birdsong, and fragments of melody remain tantalisingly out of range. These kind of textures are repeated throughout; “Ratskeller” puts you in a trance-like state with its gelatinous three chords, a soporific track painted in broad strokes of muddy browns that puts you in the mindstate of being drunk, lonely, confused – or all three at once.
Naming the lead track of your EP “No Fun” seems like it’s setting the listener up for a disappointment, especially in a dance music landscape where self-congratulating droney minutia and sad sack futurebass™ have laid claim to their share of the market. Fortunately, Nocturnes boss JR Seaton (now operating under the Call Super alias without former partner Matt Waites, whose other commitments couldn’t sustain the project) is likely having a little self reflexive chuckle here, as his No Episode EP on Throne of Blood taps into a consciousness-bending contingent of stomping, urgent techno that can animate bodies in just about every position except a yawning one.
The lexicon “less is more” is exploited with excellent results on this forthcoming Madteo remix of Call Super.
Queens-dwelling Italian Madteo has unveiled the make up of his second album, Noi No, which is set for release on long standing Finnish label Sähkö Recordings in December.
Madteo and DJ Sotofett will be performing in London soon at the inaugural Reel-to-Real night, and we have a pair of tickets to give away.
