London duo Dusk + Blackdown have revealed plans to return to their own Keysound label with a new EP next month. Entitled Back 2 Go FWD>>, the record will serve as the pair’s first official release since 2012’s Dasaflex LP will offer three new Dusk + Blackdown productions, along with a new solo workout from Blackdown. In addition, a Blackdown remix of Epoch’s “The Steppenwolf” will be included on the record, while Horsepower has been brought in to remix “Wicked Vibez” (a track which originally appeared on Dasaflex) and Facta has been enlisted to take on “Drenched,” a cut pulled from Dusk + Blackdown’s first Keysound 12″.
“For a while there, Dusk and I felt pretty musically isolated—trying to find this dark rolling path out of the trajectory of UK funky,” Blackdown explains in a press release, adding “The Back 2 Go FWD>> EP is our contribution back to the underground unity, vision, and creativity we’ve found ourselves surrounded by in the last two years or so.” Dusk + Blackdown’s latest effort is slated to land on October 20; in the meantime, its artwork and tracklist have been included below.
Originally appearing on Neneh Cherry‘s Four Tet-produced Blank Project LP (released via Smalltown Supersound earlier this year), “Spit Three Times” has been handed over to Lee Bannon for a remix treatment. As one would expect from the former XLR8R podcast contributor (who has an EP of his own on the way), the rework finds Bannon taking Cherry’s track deep beneath layers of icy chords and cavernous textures, allowing the seasoned vocalist’s lyrics only to seep through the few small cracks left in his murky reconstruction.
Berlin-based producers Baron Castle and Lando (formerly Lando Kal, pictured above) have announced the launch of a joint label venture, Myth, with Lando set to deliver its inaugural 12″ next month. The forthcoming I Can See It in You EP arrives as Lando’s first offering of 2014, following previous releases for Hotflush and Rush Hour, and reportedly finds him settling more definitively into the Detroit-inspired techno camp, with Amsterdam-based duo Will & Ink stepping up to remix the record’s b-side cut “Purple Home.”
I Can See It in You is due out in both vinyl and digital formats on October 20, and further releases from both of the Myth label founders are planned for 2015. In the meantime, the imprint’s debut 12″ can be previewed below, where we’ve also posted the EP’s full tracklist.
A1. I Can See It in You A2. Altered Maze B1. Purple Home B2. Purple Home (Will & Ink Remix)
New Forms‘ line-ups are clearly chosen by heads. The 2014 edition of the Vancouver festival, which kicked off last Thursday and continued through the weekend, included an embarrassment of rare and unique acts, several of whom were making their first trips to Canada. Even when headliner Madlib was forced to cancel at the last minute, the festival team was admirably able to find a swift and suitable replacement in the form of Dam-Funk. From representatives of cult Norwegian label Sex Tags Mania to Chicago footwork producer DJ Earl, the festival covered a lot of corners of the current electronic landscape. A large portion of attendees seemed to be locals, but a few did stream in from farther afield. Most of the events took place inside Science World, a museum with a giant dome on top (the dome, with an Omnimax theater inside, is where the audio/visual events were held), which sat in a particularly glittering part of Vancouver. The festival didn’t seem too over-the-top debauched, but people were definitely remarking on the strangeness of a children’s museum being transformed into a makeshift club environment. Irrespective of that, we witnessed a number of impressive performances during our time at New Forms, and have cataloged a few of the weekend’s most memorable moments.
Young Braised
Copeland and Young Braised offered divergent existential scenarios.
Copeland may want to escape the trappings of her old duo Hype Williams, and she may well have for newer fans—her solo material (in the live setting, especially) is patently different; less populist, much of it is sparse, cutting dub that moves with a broken lurch. On stage, she’s also seemed determined to remove herself from her former act’s theatricality, and this was certainly the case on Thursday night at New Forms. When she did let pop aspects shine through, as on “Advice,” which feels like an existential crisis, or a looping, processed interlude speaking “because you’re worth it,” she was uncomfortably upfront, her personal enervation a palpable contrast to imposingly powerful, skeletal backdrops. The overt theatricality may have dissipated—there was no 10-minute “just blaze” loop—but Hype Williams’ spectre still looms large. Maybe it’s akin to when a comedy actor starts appearing in serious dramas, but as with the solo material of her former partner Dean Blunt, it’s hard not to think of Copeland as tortured since the split.
Young Braised, who also performed on Thursday (in collaboration with his fiancé Soledad Muñoz), was possibly the opposite. Rhyming between two screens, with his image projected onto them (he eventually emerged between them to face the crowd), and with images of his face flashing on televisions scattered throughout the venue, the Vancouver MC’s show was essentially choreographed performance art. To say nothing of the quality of his rhymes (as with someone like Yung Lean, this seems beside the point), Braised kind of feels like someone who just decided to rap on a whim, his onstage persona a confident self-actualization perpetuated by a supportive local scene. (People in Vancouver love him.) “I’m learning so much about art,” a computer with his text-to-speech intoned at one point, before shouting out his parents.
Lnrdcroy
Cloudface
Lnrdcroy and Cloudface made for a perfect combination.
Local producers Lnrdcroy and Cloudface opened Friday night with back-to-back performances emblematic of the supremely chilled current sound of Vancouver. The former began with soothing drones and abstract, bassy ambience before moving into a few more uptempo hits from his excellent debut album, Much Less Normal. This laid the groundwork for Cloudface to present a masterful set, during which he flexed control of both his machines and the dancefloor. Those familiar with the producer’s palette didn’t hear any massive shifts, but his live set, which was already very good to begin with, has improved immensely. He’s continued to hone his woozy sound—his tracks have a deeper shuffle now—and when he took things into spacier territory, he proved to be just as adept.
Helena Hauff
Helena Hauff is a surgeon and Hieroglyphic Being surprisingly pulled out an iPad.
On Friday night, we overheard two people unrelatedly describe Helena Hauff‘s set as “surgical,” as in she punished the crowd with surgical precision. Backed by dim red lighting that accentuated her music’s somewhat seedy vibe, The Golden Pudel resident’s assault started lightheartedly enough, but she quickly got down to business with a sparse, aggressive, and focused selection of acid house, electro, techno, and assorted crusty tracks that had bodies in full workout mode. It’s crazy to think about the regularity with which she plays this stuff, and how smooth she is without sacrificing any intensity.
On the same floor a bit later, Hieroglyphic Being delivered a similarly aggressive set, and garnered a similar response. His was appropriately more psychedelic though, pairing EBM, industrial, house, and some very crazy rhythm tracks, and featured a selection of gear highlighted by, perhaps oddly for a producer who has been so notably lo-fi for so long, an iPad.
Hieroglyphic Being
Arca worked the body.
Arca‘s collaboration with DJ Total Freedom and videographer Jesse Kanda, which took place in the Omnimax domed theater on Saturday evening, was stunning. The visuals explored kinetic bodies—some 3-D modeled, some in hi-def, others in grainy lo-def—including an obese couple in a swimming pool, a line of exuberant dancers flanked by morose-looking security guards, and a woman gyrating in a G-string spliced with a tropical beachside drive. The music, which was something between a live and DJ set (like many of New Forms’ performances, actually), incorporated parts of rap hits—Nicki Minaj was touched on, for instance—with a range of abstract but totally corporeal patterns, one a blast of distorted bass that literally shook the theater. Working together, the three artists managed to engage the body during a seated performance, which was a nice preparation for the night to come. They were followed by Oneohtrix Point Never (who mostly drew from last year’s R Plus Seven) and videographer Nate Boyce, but the show felt a little disorganized in comparison. Nevertheless, Boyce’s eerie rooms and oblique sculptures were extremely impressive.
DJ Earl
Dresvn stole the show on a very good night.
The highlight of Saturday night, and perhaps the entire festival, was Dresvn, the combination of Dynamo Dreesen and SVN. After sneaking in a test run in between both members’ respective DJ sets, their live performance took place on a host of strange and obscure gear, with tape spools running the entire time. Phaser hypnosis set in pretty quickly, and the two playfully shifted through several shades of their low-slung, tightly wound, minimal sound. Basically, and one assumes this is because of their idiosyncratic gear, Dresvn sounded great, opulent, and full of cushion and nuance. It was a dream to dance to. Up on the second floor later that night, Scratcha DVA‘s first 15 minutes or so were beatless, purple ambience. He was followed by Chicago’s DJ Earl, who offered a high-intensity selection of footwork and compatible styles, and given that people were begging for more at the end, it’s safe to say that his set was thoroughly successful.
DJ Sotofett & DJ Fett Burger closed things out on a high note.
The brothers who run Sex Tags Mania went in for seven or so hours on Sunday afternoon and evening, dropping all kind of genres inside Creekside Park, a sunny spot on the water, with the skyline and mountains in the background. A notable highlight was one African woodwind track that pretty visibly made everyone in the vicinity shut up, but they also played jazz and breaks and, of course, a lot of eccentric house. It was on point, the best festival finale one could hope for.
Science World and Creekside Park
‘Wallpapers’
Some final thoughts.
It may seem obvious, but on the whole, there is no way that this year’s New Forms was anything but a complete success. A couple of slightly negative points: door searches were a little invasive, and most artists did not have visual accompaniment (the visual series Wallpapers could have probably been playing in the rooms, rather than in the hall). The sound was generally nice, though artists like Cloudface and Dresvn sounded particularly good, thanks to the quality of their machines. Crowds were a very reasonable size, people were friendly, and Vancouver legitimately feels like it’s in the midst of a renaissance. People constantly seem to be founding festivals similar to New Forms, but it stands out as surely one of the best in North America, if not the world. Hopefully it remains as casually futuristic as it was in 2014.
The rise of Pional (a.k.a. Miguel Barros) has been a gradual one over the past few years, but 2014 feels like the year in which the Madrid producer has properly stepped into the spotlight. He’s long been associated with John Talabot and his Hivern Discs label, and though Barros has been issuing solo work since 2010, including efforts for both Hivern and Permanent Vacation, he was for a long time best known as the “other guy” in Talabot’s live show and the man behind the poppy vocal hook on “Destiny.” That began to change in late 2013, when Barros signed on with Young Turks to issue the Invisible/Amenaza EP. Combined with an increased presence on the DJ circuit as a solo artist, the record garnered Pional plenty of new attention, and his latest effort, an official release of the hotly tipped “It’s All Over” (one of the star tracks from Talabot’s stellar DJ-Kicks mix album), is arguably even bigger. As such, we felt the time was right to ask Barros to put together an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast series.
As one might expect, Pional’s penchant for drawn-out melodies and loosely Balearic sounds makes Talabot an obvious comparison, but Barros’ work has always been marked with a subtly poppier flair. That holds true here, as his mix is largely a collection of melody-driven, slow-burning house, but several tracks include catchy synth riffs and vocal passages. It’s tempting to call it “indie,” but it’s more that Pional is simply an artist who’s balancing his passion for the dancefloor with his love of a good pop song. It’s a tricky balancing act to pull off, but at least for now, he’s walking the line very effectively.
01 Andrea Sartori ”Gran Prix (Bonus Beats)” (Slow Motion) 02 Miss Kittin “What to Wear (SPN Instrumental Remix)” (W2W) 03 JT ”Somewhere Close” 04 Pional ”It’s All Over (Pional’s Fosc Version)” (Hivern Discs) 05 Deadboy “Return” (Numbers) 06 Jesse Bru “Under the Night (Exercise One Remix)” (We Have Friends) 07 Floating Points ”Sparkling Controversy” (Eglo) 08 Pional ”Rhyalovee” 09 Boreal “Canopy Target” (Forbidden Planet) 10 Genius of Time “Juno Jam” (Running Back) 11 The Knife ”Silent Shout (Shaken-Up Version)” (Rabid) 12 Neinzer ”Ecclesiastical” (Yumé) 13 Real Lies “North Circular” (Marathon Artists) 14 Ess O Ess ”Re-Enter (Man Power Remix)” (Ene) 15 Unknown “Unknown”
Much like the artwork for its upcoming Solid EP, Claude‘s productions are deceivingly clean and simple. The result of a partnership between French beatmakers Fulgeance and Darius Broobecker, Claude takes a rather direct route to combining bits of classic disco and house with the sonic weight of UK bass—all of which comes wrapped together with an undeniably French touch. “In Love,” the closing effort from the pair’s upcoming debut EP, fits finely chiseled slices of soul between sharp and efficient drum programming, resulting in a track that smacks and pops while also maintaing a cool air about it. Available to grab for free below, “In Love” will be joined by six other original productions from Claude when the duo’s Solid EP lands on October 6 via Musique Large.
Illum Sphere has been tapped to mix the 78th edition of the Fabriclive series. The Mancunian DJ and producer born Ryan Hunn is noted for previous releases on Tectonic and Martyn’s 3024 label—not to mention his debut full-length for Ninja Tune—and has honed his skills as a diverse selector through the night he co-founded, Hoya:Hoya, which recently began staging takeovers at the London club. “I decided to stick to more electronic-based music, from new wave, dub, techno, acid, etc.” Hunn is quoted as saying of his selection process. “In terms of range I think the oldest thing is probably late ’70s and the newest thing came out this year.” Resident Advisor reports that the RBMA grad will launch Fabriclive 78 at a party on November 7 alongside JTC, Krystal Klear, and Eclair Fifi, while the mix is set for official release on November 11; its full tracklist is on view below.
01. E.M.A.K. – Sein Und Schein 02. Soul Syndicate – Now You’re Gone (Version) 03. Tapes – Dungeness 04. Powell – Fizz 05. Carl Meeks – Danger (Version) 06. (Interlude) E.M.A.K. – Sein Und Schein 07. Musumeci – Harry Batasuna 08. Streetwalker – Ooze 09. Grauzone – Film 2 (33 RPM) 10. Das Ding – H.S.T.A. 11. NGLY – Speechless Tape 12. Osborne – Bout Ready To Jak (TNT’s Acid Mix) 13. Charles Manier – Who Raised These People 14. Legowelt – On The Tiger Train 15. Kassem Mosse – B3 (Workshop 19) 16. Demdike Stare – Repository Of Light 17. James T. Cotton – Oochie Coo 18. E-Dancer – Pump The Move (Kenny Larkin Mix) 19. 2AM/FM – Desolate Cities 20. Propaganda – Thought Part 1 21. Actress – Gershwin 22. Illum Sphere – Bullet 23. Vazz – Cast Reflections 24. Nine Circles – What’s There Left
Mark E has announced a forthcoming debut on Bristolian label Futureboogie, and shared a stream of the record’s title track in the process. Over nearly a decade spent as a DJ and producer, the Birmingham veteran has logged appearances on labels such as Running Back and his own Merc imprint, most recently delivering his second full-length for Ghostly’s Spectral Sound imprint. His upcoming Activity EP is due out on vinyl on October 27, with a digital release set to follow on November 10. Until then, the record’s Detroit-leaning lead cut can be heard in full below, where we’ve also posted a full tracklist. Chugging at a “house music pace but with plenty of techno swagger,” the minimal beat of “Activity” comes doused in a “pacey acid bassline riff that’s constantly morphing and transposing,” layered synths, and soaring pads.
For its upcoming 50th release, Gerd Janson’s Running Back imprint has tapped masked German producer and label fixture Redshape. The forthcoming Leaves EP will offer four versions of its title track which promises to find Redshape “back on the monolithic techno tip” delivering “the sort of warehouse rave signal that exceeds the sole purpose of a tool.” As Resident Advisor reports, Janson’s Running Back label has technically exceeded 50 releases already, but due to special catalog numbers being assigned to a handful of past records, the Leaves EP will boast the official “RB050” catalog number.
Set to drop on October 20, the artwork and tracklist for Redshape’s latest effort (which follows his Bonus Beatz EP for the label, released earlier this year) can be viewed below.
In anticipation of its upcoming Amsterdam Dance Event showcase, Ninja Tune has shared a new remix of Martyn‘s “Like That” from Seven Davis Jr (pictured above). Originally appearing on Martyn’s The Air Between Words album for the label earlier this year—a record the producer himself walked us through Track by Track—”Like That” is shaped into a funkier affair in Seven Davis Jr’s hands, imbued with low-scraping swing and new layers of glowing chords.
The resulting rework can be streamed below where we’ve also included the flier for Ninja Tune’s upcoming ADE showcase, which is set to feature the likes of Actress, Martyn, Moiré, and Seven Davis Jr, among others.
