Since 2011, DJ/producer Damon Palermo has been making sun-kissed, disco-referencing house jams as Magic Touch, but has only just finished his debut LP, an eight-track record set to appear next month via 100% Silk. Called Palermo House Gang, the album sees Magic Touch delving into a celebratory zone of dancefloor-ready music, largely focusing on collaborative tracks with the likes of Octo Octa, Ash Williams, and Newbody, among others. The LP’s accompanying press release describes it as “excursions into funky new wave club mixes, freestyle R&B, mesh-top house, freeform hardware workouts, and decadent disco.” Palermo House Gang is due for release on February 25; until then, a stream of the upbeat “You” cut with Octo Octa and Newbody can be heard below, where the tracklist is also available.
1. I Need The Magic (feat. Sorcerer and Sarah Bates) 2. You (feat. Newbody and Octo Octa) 3. Passion 4. Shine Baby Shine (feat. The Horses) 5. It’s Love (feat. Ash Williams) 6. House Of Intuition (feat. Octo Octa) 7. It’s Love (Ash Williams Party Mix) 8. Calabria (feat. Benny Badge)
Released via Mad Decent‘s Jeffries label, Blaqstarr‘s new The Blaq-Files EP collects four unreleased productions from the Bmore underground veteran and offers them up for free download. First produced by Blaqstarr between 2002-2006 (to most, Bmore club’s salad days), the EP’s tracks have undergone a new round of mixing and mastering, rendering them “super-crisp and loud, doing justice to four classic tracks that were previously only available as low-quality MP3s.”
The Blaq-Files EP can be streamed and downloaded for free using the player below, underneath which one can also check out bonus cut “Gangsta.”
French label Cascade is set to release Cotton Claw‘s debut EP Dusted on February 24, featuring six original productions and remixes from the likes of Slugabed, Kelpe, and Julien Mier, whose take on “Crooked” is featured here. The fast-paced and choppy remix is rife with bubbly synths and echoes a notably different aesthetic from Cotton Claw’s version of the song. Packing his track with an array of eclectic sounds, Julien Mier somehow maintains an uncluttered mix throughout his production, establishing an atmosphere that is incredibly vibrant and colorful.
The Young Turks label has always had its toe dipped in the pool of club music with releases from garage-referencing artists like Jamie xx and SBTRKT, but now, with the launching of its Whities imprint, the label seems to be diving in to dancefloor-ready sounds headfirst. As FACT reports, the new endeavor will be run by Boiler Room programmer Nik Tasker, who appears to be building the imprint to mirror the blank and unsolicited aesthetic of white labels and testpressings. Whities’ debut record will come from London/Milano-based duo Terron, and will be limited to a 300-edition vinyl release when it drops on February 27. Until then, the a-side cut form that 12″ can be streamed in full below.
Set to drop on Tuesday via Ninja Tune, Ghettoville—the fourth full-length record from uncompromising UK producer and Werkdiscs label boss Actress—is now availaible to hear in full. Described in its accompanying press release as the “bleached-out and black-tinted conclusion of the Actress image,” the 16-track LP continues to find the enigmatic talent using the dancefloor only as a blurry reference point for his continually cerebral excursions into electronic music.
Actress’ Ghettoville album can now be heard in its entirety, courtesy of NPR. Additionally, the man’s exclusive, 60-plus-minute XLR8R podcast (delivered earlier this week) can be streamed and downloaded for free here.
Last week, XLR8Rannounced that Parisian label Sound Pellegrino was readying the release of SND.PE Vol. 02: Crossover Series, a compilation of collaborations by artists like Ikonikia and Crystal, Helix and Hrdvsion, Feadz and Orgasmic, and Matthias Zimmermann and SCNTST, among others. Now, ahead of the record’s release next week, a joint production from Night Slugs boss L-Vis 1990 (pictured above) and Barcelona-based producer Sinjin Hawke is available to stream in full.
Having heard the pair’s jackhammering “Flash Alert” tune towards the end of last year, “The Pit” already has a reputation to live up to. It opens with a chiming ambient ease, eventually landing firmly in the outskirts of grime territory as sanitized, machine-gun drum patterns accent the melodic synth embellishments. Before the full SND.PE Vol. 02: Crossover Series LP is made available on January 27, L-Vis 1990 & Sinjin Hawke’s “The Pit” can be heard in its entirety below. (via Mixmag)
Hessle Audio cohort Pearson Sound will once again leave the confines of the label he runs with Ben UFO and Pangaea for his next release, a two-track 7″ which will be issued by the DJ/producer’s own eponymous imprint. According to Juno Plus, the forthcoming Raindrops record is set to drop on January 31 as both vinyl and digital packages, each featuring two cuts of uncharacteristically delicate, beatless music from the typically hard-edged artist born David Kennedy. Previews of each track can be heard below, and pre-orders can be made here.
The annual NAMM conference is officially underway, and as expected, a host of new synthesizers, drum machines, controllers, programs, and more have been officially (and some still unofficially) introduced to the world. The latest This Week in Music Tech checks in on the most important developments that have so far gone down in the gear world’s busiest weekend.
Moog has unveiled its Sub37 “paraphonic analog synthesizer,” and Sonicstate provided a comprehensive look at the new synth’s prototype.
Moog also has been showing off a new theremin, the Theremini, “a re-imagination of one of the oldest electronic musical instruments in history, and Bob Moog’s first love.” Full specs can be perused here.
M-Audio introduced the Trigger Finger Pro, an updated version of its classic workhorse controller, the Trigger Finger, which brings with it an abundance of updates, including a built-in step sequencer. More info can be found here.
After a long wait, Bitwig Studio has set a date for the software’s first full release. The Ableton-like program, which combines “traditional arrangement sequencing with modern, performance-oriented clip launching workflows,” will officially be available on March 26 with a price tag of $399/€299. Details on the forthcoming program’s features can be found here.
Swedish gear manufacturer Nord introduced the Lead A1 synth just before NAMM. Billed as a new keyboard which utilizes Nord’s “best-ever analog modeling” technology, the full specifications of the new synth can be found here.
Boutique gear designer Elektron has unveiled Analog Rytm, the company’s forthcoming “eight-voice drum computer” which boasts 12 velocity- and pressure-sensitive pads and a “world-class” Elektron step sequencer amongst its features. Create Digital Music has gathered the full details for the new unit here.
French instrument and software company Arturia has introduced a new pad controller and step sequencer called Beatstep. The compact MIDI controller also includes CV outputs and iPad compatibility. The full specifications can be read up on here.
Small start-up Sonarworks launched its microphone/software package, which aims to help bedroom producers calibrate their speaker systems and “tune” their room for the most accurate sound given their individual set-up. The Sonarworks package is out now for a street price of $463/€339.
Korg will be bringing back its classic MS-20 analog synth in its full size, but here’s the catch—synth nerds have to build it themselves. The MS-20 DIY kit is set to be available by March for a street price around $1399.99. More info on the limited run of kits can be found here.
The sound of New York producer FaltyDL (a.k.a. Andrew Lustman) has always been difficult to pin down. Over the course of the past few years, his sonic choices have come from a place of free-wheeling and good-natured appropriation; though his initial output was colored by IDM and he’s often lumped in with the increasingly hard-to-define world of bass music, he uses his background as a filter to explore the far-flung and disparate corners of the dance music spectrum. Yet through it all, his personality has always come through in his melodic leanings. Lustman’s music is often connected by his preference for enveloping, sometimes noodling, synthesizer playing. Last year, he released Hardcourage, an LP that created an accessible and stable point of entry that played down the more aggressive side of his output. However, nothing stays the same in Lustman’s world for very long, and in the case of his latest 12″, “Danger” b/w “King Brute (feat. Shanghai Den),” he’s back at the task of reinventing himself.
This might not be so apparent at first. “Danger” returns to the sound of Hardcourage, with an opening that recalls the womb-like embrace of “Uncea.” But the comparisons stop there. It’s much more stripped down and minimal. The melodic riffing is toned down, and for the rest of the track’s three-and-a-half minutes, FaltyDL gets aggressive, with a rhythmic move towards the anxious hyperactivity of breakbeat house and jungle. In the case of someone so chameleon-like, sometimes not every experiment works. However, Lustman pulls it off here, and that’s mostly due to the simplicity of the track, which seems tuned for a certain kind of dancefloor efficiency. It’s short, sweet, and its references hit in all the right places.
As good as “Danger” is, it’s eclipsed by Lustman’s collaboration with Shanghai Den on the b-side. “King Brute” is an aptly titled techno loop, and one that takes a reductionist approach to dance music. It’s a dirty, lo-fi rhythm track, which plays hypnotically like a locked groove—tension and dynamics come only via delay and filter twisting. Compared to the a-side, and much of Lustman’s recent work as FaltyDL, it feels fresh and concise (which is partially due to its two-and-a-half-minute runtime). More importantly, it offers a real break with his prior output and a further incorporation of the mechanical edge of techno. It’s a new direction, and hopefully one he pursues further.
The forthcoming EP from Beaka is described in its press release as “an exercise in coaxing out the multilateral efficacy of UK bass,” and though it does not come packaged in the artist’s upcoming self-titled record, “Entry Unknown” still has no problem fitting in with that description. The five-plus-minute bonus tune revolves around a set of tough sonic elements—an industrial-sized bassline and machine-shop percussion hits among them—while blue-streaked chords and dusty textures are occasionally allowed to float to the top. Here, Baeka walks a fine line, successfully balancing hefty sonic impact with a welcome lining of musicality; something we imagine the UK producer equally offers on his Beaka EP (artwork above), set to drop via Infinite Machine on February 3.
