Search dance music

Review: Originally released in 1996, Aphex Twin's fifth album in as many years meant business from the very moment the wild and whimsical opener "4" scribbled it way through the speakers. With jaunty jams such as "Cornish Acid" and "Fingerbib" running amok mid-set, Richard D James Album acted as a fine mission statement to expect the unexpected and never anticipate formula or form. And it still carries that very same message today. Essential.

Review: The second part of Omar S' You For Letting Me Be Myself album in vinyl form sees another 8 tracks across four sides of wax; aside from the '80s inflected sounds of the album's title track, the 303 workout of "Ready My Black Asz" finds itself with the dubbed out loops of "Messier Sixty Eight". As a bonus for those who already have the album, this part contains two vinyl exclusive tracks; the soothing deepness of "She's Sah Hero Nik" and the delayed organ weirdness of "Broken Bamalance Horn" - both more than worth the price of admission alone.

Review: First surfacing on Clone Jack For Daze back in 2011, Berlin-based Murphy Jax has taken a nomadic approach to distributing his raw and eminently danceable brand of Chicago House, gracing labels as diverse as Turbo, Hype Ltd, Exploited and perhaps most interestingly Lux Rec. His Lost Soundtracks Main Themes EP for the Swiss label dabbled in cinematic concepts and proved Jax was capable of more than straight up club tools. A debut album for the Chiwax label in the shape of Teleport: Echo City continues the producer's interest in conceptual themes, detailing the story of a "pre-apocalyptic generation of robots on a planet of machines" but don't be too worried as musically it sticks close to the styles Jax has explored previously. So expect Chicago House, Classic Deep House, Movie Theme style cuts and raw Acid workouts.

Review: Announced with the most cryptic of statements and accompanied by a thousand online think pieces, the long awaited Ghettoville from Actress is finally here! Much like previous long players from the Werkdiscs boss, Ghettoville is not an album your brain will digest in one sitting, especially since it packs in sixteen tracks across the three slabs of vinyl. Described as "the bleached out and black tinted conclusion of the Actress image," Ghettoville draws on all the familiar Actress signifiers with the ghostly remnants of hip hop, Detroit techno and Chicago house scattered across the album. On immediate listen there are a few standout tracks, the ragged Motor City soul of "Gaze" and the brilliant finale "Rule" but we'll let you discover the rest for yourselves.

Review: Hospital Productions is a non-stop operation and following this year's long-players from Alessandro Cortini, Ninos Du Brasil and Ron Morelli, Vatican Shadow's latest swoop is this ambient album produced with Function. The seven-track LP was recorded between Berlin and New York, and it's described as best suited for after-hours home listening, but whether you really want to listen to this after a big night is up to you. Indeed "A Year Has Passed" and "A Year Has Gone By" are downbeat and melancholic, whereas other tracks lean more towards industrial ambient, similar to fellow Hospital artist Lussuria's work. "The Nemesis Flower" is a darker highlight while "Red Opium" and "Bejewelled Body" is where the house and techno beats lie.

Review: Earlier this year Minimal Wave offshoot provided one of this year's most visceral dancefloor weapons in Kino-I, the debut from Doug Lee's new An-I project. Taking inspiration from techno, jack, industrial and punk, An-I successfully drew a line under some of the Berlin-based artist's previous disco-flavoured endeavours. And then some! If you like the Kino-I 12" you will love the new triplet of An-I productions housed on this appropriately titled Gutz 12". The title track alone should come with a health warning; such is the furious onslaught of machine funk it contains, whilst the unnerving "Rut" is the most schizophrenic production you will hear this year. Best of all id closing track "Save Us" sounds like a cross between in Aeternam Vale and Silent Servant. Pressed on a rather thick and dashing slab of magenta orange vinyl!

Review: The rise of Ilian Tape has been piloted by Dario and Marco Zenker with a steady assurance, so it makes perfect sense for the brothers to helm the first long player project from the Munich label. Immersion is a vibrant, atmospheric stroll through their various influences and inspirations with plenty to admire amongst the ten tracks. There is the bustling, leftfield breakbeat techno of "TSV WB" and pounding "High Club" (a no-nonsense dancefloor assault blessed with occasional eyes-closed chords), as well as sublime tech-jazz of "Cornel 21" and pitched-down junglisms of "Innef Runs". Interestingly, there are also a number of crusty, distorted ambient interludes, with "Erbquake" sounding particularly potent.

Review: Geir Jensson's debut album under the now familiar Biosphere alias, Microgravity, has long been considered something of a classic of the early '90s ambient boom. First released in 1991, it offered an icy but suitably atmospheric mix of chilly ambience, British-style "intelligent techno" and crystalline IDM. To celebrate 25 years since it was recorded (it was released a year later, in 1991), Geir Jensson has re-mastered it and, with the help of a successful crowd-funding campaign, pressed it onto a double CD minus the cross-fades and sound effects featured on the original pressing. Happily, Microgravity has lost none of its allure.

Review: There's a delightfully celebratory feel about this debut volume of Cititrax Tracks, a new 12" series from Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax. As beautifully presented as we've come to expect, Tracks Volume 1 boasts a quartet of dancefloor-ready smashers from a blend of new faces and label stalwarts. Amato (aka The Hacker) kicks things off with the glistening EBM funk of "Physique" - all restless synth refrains and pounding bottom end - before LIES affiliate Tsuzing go all dark, psychedelic and twisted on the thrillingly intense, acid-flecked "King of System". An-I go all DAF (with a touch of Front 242) on the fuzzy and dystopian stomper "Mutter", before Cititrax regulars Broken English Club delivers a storming chunk of industrial-tinged analogue funk ("Glass"). Bravo!

Review: It's been a delight to see Oliver Ho's Broken English Club project develop artistically over recent times, with some fine records for Jealous God and Veronica Vasicka's Cititrax label along the way. Suburban Hunting sees Ho deliver his debut Broken English Club album, featuring some 11 tracks of primitive electronics and cinematic pseudo techno cuts. Tunes like "Vacant", "Derelict", or "Scum" all share a loose techno framework, but the real aesthetic is much vaster than that, verging on remnants of post-punk, industrial and all that goodness and hybrid class that came out of the late 1980's. It's another fine addition to the sublime Cititrax discography, and we recommended it just as much as the previous numbers.

Review: James Clements continues his explorations into the depths of the grey zone as ASC with The Farthest Reaches double pack on Auxiliary. Samurai Music's Presha has excitedly called these four tracks "a definitive musical statement from one of the most important electronic musicians of our era," and who are we to argue with him? Making full usage of the format and available space, this is ASC in exploratory mode across a quartet of deep ten minute plus productions that have it all; sound design, atmosphere, groove, bass weight. To simply call these epic is selling The Farthest Reaches short!

Review: Cititrax's first Tracks 12" sampler did a good job in showcasing material from some of the Brooklyn-based label's favourite contemporary producers. This follow-up, arriving only a few short months after the first, aims to do the same. Returning for his second appearance, Tsuzing kicks things off with the razor-sharp shuffle of "Nonlinear War", whose intoxicating electronics and wild synth lines recall Brown Album-era Orbital, before London-based L/F/D/M takes a trip into bleak techno territory with the acid-laden "Mouth Holes". Flip for Silent Servant's deliciously grandiose, muscular electro-disco workout "The Touch", and the clanking industrial percussion, EBM attitude and humming electro beats of Maelstrom's "Lithium".

Review: Originally released in 1994, Biosphere's second album Patashnik, as we would later find out, was only the beginning. Geir Jenssen's Biosphere project has since become a name that rolls off the tongue alongside Brian Eno when talk of ambient comes to the table, and the use of vocals in tracks like "Phantasm" and "Startoucher" are as memory jogging as Marshall Jefferson's "Mushrooms". The music here provides a snapshot of Biosphere's sound before he committed a decade's worth of albums to UK label Touch. For a '90s take on things, you could day "SETI Project" has aged better than "Mestigoth", while the nebulous to deep classical tones and bluey-hues of productions like "Decryption", "Patashnik" and "Mir" remain timeless.

Review: Michel Amato aka Amato is a French producer more widely known as The Hacker. Alongside Miss Kittin, Amato has been a cornerstone of the European house, techno, and electro scene, dropping singles and album like bombs. Having contributed to a previous split 12" on Cititrax, Amato returns to Minimal Wave's sister label with a wondrous homage to industrial, EBM and electro in Le Desordre De La Nuit. The difference between The Hacker and Amato? The sounds of The Hacker are more constrained than this particular whirlpool of pseudo electro and gargling quasi techno. Whatever you want to call it, these four slammers are all made for the dark room dance, each one nastier than the other and all of them audibly produced by an artist with plenty of experience and effectiveness know-how.

Review: Up next on DJ Kicks' acclaimed mix series is Numbers doyen and Glaswegian iconJackmaster. In his own words, the 24-track mix sees the charismatic Scot 'delivering an honest journey, unearthing a serious passion for the obscure boundaries of house and techno.' This double LP lifts out eight of the tracks most other DJs will want to get their mitts on, and joins the dots between his hometown of Glasgow with Denis Sulta's festival destroying bass driven epic "MSNJ", then NYC; with Eli Escobar's gutsy EBM-flavoured 'Tension (vinyl mix)". Berlin's status as a dance music mecca is referenced with Dutch transplant Anno Stamm's dark house stomper "A Night Out With Therese" and the legend himself Ricardo Villalobos, with his minimal techno classic from 1996 "Logohitz". DJ Kicks throw in a CD of the mix too!

Review: During the late 1990s, Japanese producer Yuji Takanouchi produced a trio of sublime EPs, most of which went largely overlooked at the time. He surprisingly returned to action a few years ago with a handful of similarly dreamy, loved-up productions, prompting R&S offshoot Apollo Records - who famously released his peerless ambient house 12", Southern Paradise, in 1997 - to put together this superb compilation. The genius of his productions, whether dancefloor leaning or more horizontal in ethos, always lay in the hazy colourfulness of his synthesizer melodies and life-affirming chord progressions. It's those traits, coupled with his firm grasp of deep house and intelligent techno aesthetics, which shine through on Brand New Day. "Pacific Jazz", "Nite" and "Ocean In Heaven", in particular, are stunning.

Review: These days, we're all familiar with Jan Jelinek's trademark brand of dusty, dubbed-out, jazz-sampling downtempo explorations. That wasn't the case when Loop Finding Jazz Records, his acclaimed debut album, first appeared back in 2001. It has since become an in-demand item, making this reissue more than handy. It remains a fine album; a blazed shuffle through a sonic world where dub techno, ambient, minimal house, jazz and downtempo grooves and seductive vinyl crackle merge into one intoxicating hybrid sound. It's not showy and over-the-top, but rather becalmed and subtly seductive. In other words, it's still a brilliant album and if you don't own already own a copy, you should add this to your cart sharpish.

Review: Japanese producer Kuniyuki Takahashi's Newwave project is a new interpretation of his musical roots. He was majorly influenced by SPK, Test Dept, D.A.F and various industrial and EBM acts. Then he formed an industrial music band with his brother in the late 80's called DRP. After 25 years, his new release is a unique mixture of his deep and emotional house sound with the aforementioned influences and now presenting the second volume once again on Mule Musiq. Takahashi is a stalwart of the label, having put out close a dozen LP and several EPs on the label over the years. From the broken beat and arpeggios of "Blue Neon" to the neon-lit '80s night deep house of "Newwave Project #11" there's an odd collection of grooves on here from a unique perspective.

Review: The DDS label, short for Distort Decay Sustain, has given artists like Demdike Stare a platform on which to express themselves through over the years, but it was really Equiknoxx's LP from 2016, Bird Sound Power, which opened their doors to a whole new category of listener. In fact, it was that LP, with all its stunning, dub-wise experimentation, which has led to Mark Ernestus being called up for a pair of remixes. As you probably know, this is a rare case, so this 12" is sort of a special piece - "Congo Get Slap" is given the pure Ernestus rundown, with a charging, minimalistic percussion being swallowed whole by the raucous dub stabs caving in from all angles; the remix of "Flagged Up" is a much slower, more brooding affair in the same vein as the mythical cuts residing on imprints like Basic Channel and Chain Reaction - nothing but deep, meditative dub flexing for the mind. BIG!

Review: Finnish producer Aleksi Perala brings his brand of melodic, high-concept techno to Nina Kraviz's Trip label for the first time. As usual, the ten tracks here were created using Perala's now infamous "Colundi Sequence" - a micro-tuning method that's now almost better known than the former Rephlex man's music. There's naturally much to admire throughout, from restless club tracks blessed with rainbow-rich waves of melody, to strange, acid-fired wig-outs, low-slung, bass-heavy jack-tracks and glistening fusions of club-ready IDM and ultra-violet ambient. As a producer, Perala possesses a rare skill: the ability to create melodious, experimentally minded electronic music that works on club dancefloors. It's this that makes Paradox such an impressive release.

Review: Last year, someone set up an online petition calling for Warp to re-release The Other People Place's brilliant Lifestyles Of The Laptop Cafe album on wax. Happily, Warp has responded to the strength of feeling from electronica fans - most of whom bristled at the high online prices for second hand copies - and re-pressed it. Drexciya man James Stinson's 2001 solo set remains a timeless electronic classic; a perfectly pitched and immaculately produced fusion of downtempo electro rhythms, spacey electronics and twinkling synthesizer melodies. In fact, you'll struggle to find a better electro album full stop, making this reissue an essential purchase for anyone not lucky enough to own an original copy.

Review: BOOM! Our favourites, Cititrax, roll the third editions of Tracks out onto our shelves, and the results are unsurprisingly strong on this excellent various artists comp. It's a mixed bag of skills, as per usual, and the sounds are those of a new NYC, fuelled by a new sort of post-industrial sensibility. Amato Y Mariana open with the tight beats and groove of "Queires Bailar", followed closely by the ominous compositions of the EBM-flavoured "Montgat" from The Sixteen Steps. On the flip, His Dirty Secrets bleeps out some morphed acid on "Structures", and "Another Stranger" from Further Reductions churns out a slow, mild-mannered house experiment with its roots clearly planted in the coldest of waves. Sick.

Review: Italian producer Enrico Sangiuliano may have been serving up dark and intoxicating techno twelves for the best part of a decade, but never before has he turned his hand to the full-length format. Biomorph is not just any old debut album, either, but rather a concept album described by Drumcode as "a journey of evolution". In practice, that means an album that ebbs and flows throughout, opening with a dash of spacey ambient, before charging off on a trip marked out by pulsating techno rhythms (crafted from both straight 4/4 beats and breakbeats), spiraling electronic motifs, booming, elongated basslines, experimental electronic interludes and more future big room techno anthems than the contents of Adam Beyer's USB stick. In other words, if you love Drumcode's particular brand of bombastic techno, you'll love Biomorph.

Review: Fans of mechanical techno-not-techno sounds will be all over Minimal Wave's latest transmission from 80s French underground heroes In Aeternam Vale. Having reissued several essential lost works from the outfit last year, most notably the proto-Sandwell sound of "Highway Dark Veins", Veronica Vasicka delivers another two tracks from the vault. Stylistically mirroring that previous two track release the title track is an equally brilliant synth-techno beast which could easily pass for a Function track today, while B-side "Calling Somewhere" sounds like a cold wave version of proto-halfstep. Needless to say, the fact that these tracks are 22 years old literally left us speechless.

Review: We are honored to release 'A Boy Alone', a double LP set from Manchester electronic music pioneer Eric Random. Best known for his early recordings for New Hormones and Les Disques du Crepuscule and collaborations with Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks), Cabaret Voltaire and Nico. As an original member of The Tiller Boys with Shelley, Random injected a healthy dose of Krautrock into the dour Manchester post-punk scene in 1978/79 before going solo the following year. Random's first 7" "Subliminal"/"23 Skidoo" was released in 1981 via Les Disques du Crepuscule and explored ominous sonic surrounds. That same year also saw the release of a second 7" single on New Hormones, "Dow Chemical Company"/ "Skin Deep". Both tracks offered bubbling, rhythmic sound patterns, and were the first to feature other musicians that would become know as The Bedlamites. Consisting of Lynn Walton on vocals, Ian Runacres and Andy Diagram of Dislocation Dance, and bassist Wayne Worm, aka Wayne Sedgeman. Their debut 12" single "Subliminal Seduction"/"Bedlam-a-Go-Go" was released in 1982 through Plurex, mixing arid funk textures and sparse melodies. That same year the group contributed proto chill-out track "6.55" to Plurex compilation 'Hours' and the highly filmic track "In Cassette Conference" to the Touch cassette package 'Feature Mist'. In 1983, Random spent several months in the Himalayas with a group of musicians from the Kulu Valley and studied non-Western instruments such as tabla. On returning to Manchester, Random convened a new group of Belamites including Walton, Sedgeman and drummer Graham Dowdall aka Dids of Ludus. They released the 12" single "Mad As Mankind"/"Dream Web Of Maya" in 1984 on Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision, embracing electronic, industrial and dub styles. In 1985 they contributed the soothing "Pure Power" to Food Records' "Imminent Episode One" compilation. Our reissue also includes 4 unreleased bonus tracks from Eric's archives recorded between 1981-1984. The whole set adds up to 115 minutes of sinister, somnambulant Random music. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. Each copy is housed in a gatefold jacket designed by Eloise Leigh featuring a spread of ephemera, photos with liner notes by James Nice of LTM.

Review: Having set aside their musical differences following a period of reflection, the Hartnoll brothers return with their tenth studio album. The break seems to have done them some good, because "Monsters Exist" contains some material that's every bit as beguiling and impressive as their most celebrated work. Certainly, there are hints of classic Orbital in the spellbinding electronics and enveloping gloominess of "Buried Deep Within", the intergalactic ambient symphony of "There Will Come a Time" (listen out for a guest spoken word vocal by rave's favourite scientist, Professor Brian Cox), and the title track's rapidly expanding paranoia. There are a few dancefloor-centric blasts from the past, too ("Hoo Hoo Ha Ha" and the festival-friendly bounce of "PHUK"), suggesting that the veteran twosome could be ready for a late-career revival.

Review: Sometime Trilogy Tapes and Zodiac 44 artist Buttechno (real name Pavel Milyakov) arrives on Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax with his fourth album-length excursion. It could well be his best to date too, as we can confirm it has very few flaws, but plenty of atmospheric, ear catching fare to enjoy. He begins with the fuzzy, metallic mid-tempo techno creepiness of "March Cherskogo", before proceeding to flit between smooth horror-techno ("Back 2 The E"), melodious and spacey electro ("Elektroshirka", the foreboding "AXF"), mind-altering intergalactic chug ("Slow Durk") and sparse, crackling industrial techno (L.I.E.S-ish closer "808 Exec Dirty").

Review: Minimal Wave present a reissue of Yoshifumi Niinuma's 1980 self-titled debut album, having already released his Automaticism and Plastic Love EP's previously. Produced in his Tokyo living room, Niinuma built his own synthesizers and speakers from scratch to create these 'intense proto-techno soundscapes.' A zeitgeist of early pioneering electronics, it runs the gamut from minimal synth ("A Worm"/"Automatic Type"), noisy industrial beats such as on "Temprament" or early electro sounds as heard on "Quick Starttype".

Review: Efficient Space's latest essential release sees Andras and Instant Peterson take a trawl through the darker, lesser-visited corners of Australian electronic music. According to the label, the pair lifted material from "local 12" singles, CD-Rs and the archives of community radio station 3RRR FM". Highlights come thick and fast throughout, from the acid-flecked, "Nude Photo" style Detroit fun of FSOM's "Resist The Beat" and chiming, trumpet-laden bliss of Ian Eccles-Smith's "The Slaughtering Eye", to the jaunty, mid-90s New York style bounce of Blimp's "Yellowgold" and the ultra-deep ambient techno pulse of Tetrphnm's "Track 11". Check, too, the enveloping dreaminess of Screensaver's drifting ambient closer, and the jazzy dancefloor depth of Inner Harmomy's "Da Lub Club".