A cavalcade of the finest long playing delights as delicately sifted by Juno Daily’s dedicated scholars of sound
Rivet’s label returns with some early ’80s primitive electronics from the Austrian musician.
The ever-evolving Rivet hands in his Kess Kill Manifesto for his edition to our podcast series.
Colombian artist Cute Heels helms the debut release – we quiz Rivet about what to expect from the label.
Keeping it Swedish as ever, Rivet makes just his second appearance of the year on this single for the Swedish Electronic Liberation Front imprint, following on from a strong first release for the label that featured fellow Scandinavian dirt-mongers Fishermen. With every release Rivet seems to reveal yet more sides to his multifarious sound while maintaining a dense and hard-hitting aesthetic. Increasingly (as was hinted at on his Bear Bile 12” for Kontra-Musik) he seems to be heading into a corner of techno more in line with early electronica than po-faced floor-focus, and it makes him all the more thrilling to listen to.
The conceptual label looks to Rivet for their second release with a three-track 12″ which can be previewed below.
The Swedish techno onslaught continues unabated as Kontra Musik dig up another slab of essential peak-time fodder from Rivet to blow away the fogginess of a new year. The emergence of Mika Hallbäck has been a measured one, with just a handful of appearances on Skudge, Kontra and Naked Index since 2011 suggesting an artist taking time to issue out just the right material, rather than the tidal onslaught that can befall some emergent musicians in these times. There is a sense listening to Hallbäck’s music that care has been taken to pick the most distinctive tracks, to work as much character into each element, to mould a sound that pricks the ears and delights the mind.
The Swedish producer will provide the first Kontra-Musik transmission of 2014 with the forthcoming Bear Bile EP.
Swedish producer Rivet follows a long line of anonymous producers into the contemporary techno arena, but as his second record for the the Skudge Presents label shows, there’s a lot more going on underneath the (now discarded) mask than faceless linear tracks. The Rivet material that has most in common with Driftwood is his reshape of Tyler Friedman’s “A Night in the Woods” on Kontra Musik last year. In that instance, he turned the original track into a seemingly never-ending stream of consciousness expression, adding, subtracting and re-introducing a myriad of musical elements, some easy to identify others murkier and less pronounced.
Skudge Records are offering a freebie in the shape of of Rivet’s ‘Analogue Freemix’ of his recently release “Sundry” – download inside.
This release had the potential to become the essence of underground techno in 2012, with a masked producer releasing a record on a label set by another shadowy duo. The reality however, is markedly different, with Rivet delivering a veritably playful release. “Sundry” starts life sounding like a Frozen Border/Horizontal Ground jam, its sheets of metallic rhythms suggesting austerity is on the way. That’s not how it pans out though, and sun-kissed, mournful chords insinuate themselves into the supple groove, coming across like the middle ground between Phil Mison’s deep house and Detroit’s introspection.
Canadian techno talent Rivet is the latest name to arise on the increasingly impressive Skudge Presents label with the forthcoming 12″ Grifter.
Rivet is yet another masked techno producer, but on record he has far more to say than his anonymous peers. Amid The Roar, his first release on Ulf Eriksson’s excellent Kontra label, sees him flirting with classic techno influences but also and more crucially, mapping out some new ideas. A dark, resonating bass that recalls Kevin Saunderson’s Resse project is the central element on “Metrist”. The key difference though is whereas the Saunderson project was oppressive and ominous, the bass on “Metrist” is jaunty, merging with insistent stabs and rasping percussion to create a lithe, DJ-friendly track.
For the past two years or so Kowton has been one of the producers at the forefront of the gradual movement of Bristol’s bass scene into the exploration of house. His stripped back productions are often fairly devoid of melody, but “Dirty Little Bomb” occupies a particularly murky zone that pushes the extremes of his template further still.
The track’s modest 108bpm speed is slower than anything Kowton has produced before; in taking it down to this level he provides the bass tones with considerable breathing room, with the LFO modulation that provides the track’s main hook adding a nice bit of lift to what may otherwise become a trudge. But it’s the distorted, bit-crushed hi-hats and snares which give the track its real textural focus, with their abrasive wire-wool tones providing enough shock to prevent the comparatively cushioned surrounds of the track, along with its samples that evoke dusty hypnagogic memories of black and white films, from becoming lethargic. It’s an effect that’s difficult to achieve at this speed, but Kowton manages it admirably.
The real masterstroke on this release however is the remix from techno producer Rivet, whose recent singles on Naked Index have impressed with their industrial take on warehouse techno and bass. Rivet’s remix manages to straddle the divide between these two genres with confidence similar to Untold’s recent “Little Things Like That” on Clone’s Basement Series. At 128bpm it’s incredible that he has managed to extract any of the original’s essence, but despite their relatively different approaches, Kowton and Rivet both share an excellent understanding of negative space; by isolating the shattered-glass percussion and breathy vocals, and recomposing them alongside Berghain sized synth stabs and a warbling bass drop, Rivet creates an absolute monster of a track which is utterly deranged, yet somehow retains the more introspective, darker corners of the original.
Scott Wilson
