Deniro “As Simple As That”

As we mentioned in our recent recap of the annual Amsterdam Dance Event, the Dutch capital clearly has no shortage of music fans that will eat up anything served to them on an EDM platter, but that’s not to say the city’s vital underground is lacking in individuality. One such example is Tape, a label run by three friends with a hankering for doing things their own way. They’ve so far kept their focus on local producers, and each release comes packaged with silkscreened artwork created by their in-house designers. “As Simple As That,” a new track by label co-founder Reynier Hooft, who records analog-fueled tracks under the name Deniro, combines a vintage drum-machine beat with a clean, quick-running arpeggio. Italo-influenced strings hover overhead before a second acid-lite melody pokes through, demonstrating Hooft’s clear predilection for classic timbres. “As Simple As That” is a refreshing take on home production, as well as a reminder that sometimes it’s best to ignore current trends and focus on your own unique inspirations.

As Simple As That

Noah Pred Third Culture

Having moved in his youth from the Bay Area to the isolated remoteness of Canada’s West Coast and later spending time in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto before relocating to Berlin in 2011, Thoughtless Music boss Noah Pred is no stranger to packing up and forging a new path in an unfamiliar place. It’s no secret that many of Canada’s brightest electronic talents tend to head to Europe when their career reaches a tipping point, and Pred is no different. Four years have passed since Pred’s last full-length, Blind Alignments, but his latest LP, Third Culture, is more of a refinement of his style than a total reinvention.

Though his collaborations with New York’s Marc Deon (“Devil’s Quadrant,” “Your Signal”) and his work with Toronto’s Rosina (“Circles & Circles,” “All Alone,”) do find Pred stretching out his production approach, they do so without compromising the identity he has been carefully crafting over the past decade. Third Culture is a precise, nuanced effort, and Pred strips down every sound for maximum impact. Throughout the album, he balances pulsing techno basslines, restrained rhythms, and muscle-memory tech-house grooves, making sure that each element, whether it’s a processed vocal sample, a crisp synth line, or a meticulously crafted loop, is delivered with focus and purpose. “Questions,” which features a thought-provoking monologue from label cohort Deepchild, drives the trajectory of the album’s first half and is one of the LP’s standout tracks. “Phantom in a Jar” is built on a chopped-up, repetitive vocal sample and a low-slung bassline. Deon’s slow-burning vocals on “Devil’s Quadrant” simmer down before reaching for an emotional boiling point. “Ghostbusser” offers up a beatless counterpoint that is bathed in analog washes; the track also provides some texture and space within the arch of the album.

With vocals and collaborations on almost half the tracks, Third Culture could have easily become unfocused, but Pred ties enough threads together to maintain a cohesive feel. Moreover, the music is well arranged and includes both the hesitant build-ups and lean layering of sounds that have been a staple in his past output. Pred’s time in Berlin has obviously opened him up to new ways of looking at his music and motivated him to work with other artists, but it hasn’t definitively changed who he is in the studio.

Seablaze “Pastel Spells”

We don’t know much about Chicago’s “fantasy-inspired artist/producer/recluse” Seablaze, but that just makes sorting through the artist’s sonic ephemera that much more fun. There’s clearly a playful seapunk influence shining through “Pastel Spells,” a new track set for release via Moscow’s Hyperboloid later this month, but defining the song by a dubious “internet subgenre” seems reductionist. Contrary to the song’s title, Seablaze clearly dreams in neon, though he also demonstrates an understanding of the intricacies of rhythm, as the hi-hats in his production pointedly bounce back and forth between swung and straight time. The arrangement’s frenetic bounce is suddenly broken when the tune opens up to a meadow of digital harp strums, and the listener can finally hear that the melody—when freed of its MIDI baggage—holds a fair amount of beauty in its rainbow-colored arc.

Pastel Spells

Pional Invisible/Amenaza

The name of Madrid-based producer Pional (a.k.a. Miguel Barros) is probably recognizable to even some casual listeners of house music, as his association with the critically acclaimed John Talabot has tangentially thrust him into the spotlight. However, while Pional has recorded and toured with Talabot, his own output has thus far been limited to a smattering of limited-edition 12″ releases. That is set to change with Invisible/Amenaza, a four-track EP for the UK-based Young Turks label that finds Pional laying his wistful, pop vocals over amenable, disco-informed beats.

The EP kicks off with the title track, which makes smart use of a DFA-lite groove and a funky keyboard rhythm that recalls the warm vibes of classic Chicago house. Pional displays a rare confidence in his falsetto-favoring vocals, placing them front and center in the mix and not burying them under heavy coats of reverb. The track’s measured, linear build is reminiscent of Talabot’s and Pional’s “Blinded” remix of The xx’s “Chained,” as it gathers momentum in a similar fashion, morphing into a juggernaut of forward motion that seems impossible to slow down. Both “A New Dawn” and “The Shy” utilize elegant melodicism and prototypical dance signifiers, but don’t give much away in terms of where Pional’s true interests lie. “Invisible/Amenaza (Extended Dub 12″ Version),” however, a track that closes out the vinyl version of the EP, is a haunting, Krautrock-leaning take on the title track that finds Pional embellishing with a range of sweeping echoes and eerie, reverb-drenched details that hint at a sense of paranoia and urgency lurking under the surface. While the preceding tracks of Invisble/Amenaza prove Pional’s melodic strengths, the final song shows that he’s got the potential to explore much darker moods.

Red Bull Music Academy Announces 2014 Session; Enrollment Opens in January

The ceaseless team of editors, curators, event organizers, and various multi-taskers at Red Bull Music Academy only just finished the most recent session of its intensive music school back in May (which we were lucky enough to take an inside look at), but with the New York edition almost six months behind them, RBMA has now announced the early details of its 2014 session. In October of next year, Tokyo will host the next iteration of Red Bull Music Academy, with all applications from hopeful entrants being accepted from January 15 through May 18. In the meantime, more of RBMA’s thoughts on moving to the Japanese capital can be read here.

Azari & III Releases New EP via Get Physical; Hear It Now

After releasing its Body Language Vol. 13mix album for Get Physical earlier this fall, the Canadian house revivalists of Azari & III have just released a new EP called Lost Express. The group’s first offering of new music arrives over two years after the release of its self-titled debut LP, and sees producers Dinamo Azari and Alixander III continuing to explore the eddies of dance music history, as Lost Express moves them away from the soulful-leanings of Chicago house and nu-disco to adapting the harsher sounds of acid and techno. The five-track EP features three original track and two remixes by techno innovator Robert Hood and Get Physical affiliate Tiger Stripes—all of which can be streamed in full below.

MANIK “718”

In anticipation of his set this Saturday for the fast-approaching Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival, NYC-based DJ/producer MANIK has dropped off “718,” a sleek house number presumably named after the area code which incorporates the New York boroughs of the Bronx, Queens, and—that’s right—Brooklyn. With “718,” MANIK delivers a characteristically polished tune which rolls and bounces in equal volumes, fixing a number of precise percussion patterns around bulbous bass tones and an inviting series of floating chords. More information on MANIK’s upcoming BEMF set alongside The Magician, Paul Raffaele, and Vin Sol this weekend can be found here.

718

Metro Area’s Darshan Jesrani to Inaugurate New Label with 12″

Longtime New York house producer and half of veteran duo Metro Area, Darshan Jesrani has announced that he’ll soon launch his own label with a brand-new 12″. Jesrani’s Startree label appears to be intended primarily for releasing his own music, though an occasional record from outside sources hasn’t been excluded. The first release will be a two-track 12″ under the label head’s Fuun City moniker, featuring a “Disco” and a “Dub” mix of the “All-Night People” single. Said to be musically situated in “that liminal area of late-’70s dance music which existed between shitty, bluesy rock, new wave, and disco,” Jesrani’s inaugural record for Startree will drop on December 2.

Download an EBM-Themed Mix from Marcel Dettmann

Longtime Berghain resident and Berlin techno stalwart Marcel Dettman has turned in a new, hour-long mix for free download. Appearing as part of German magazine Groove‘s podcast series, the 13-track set is intended as an homage to the genre of Electric Body Music (or simply EBM), moving well outside Dettman’s techno-rooted sound and incoporating tracks from Kraftwerk, The Cure, HTRK, and others into a 60-mintue set intended more as a listening experience than something which reflects the veteran DJ’s dancefloor abilities. Dettman’s full mix for Groove can be streamed below (where the accompanying tracklist is also included) and downloaded via the magazine, here, where a very brief interview (in German) can also be found. For those in search of more techno- and house-rooted sounds from Dettman, his XLR8Rpodcast from earlier this year is, of course, still available to download.

01 Chris Carter – Interloop
02 Ultravox – Visions In Blue
03 Deaf Center – Lamp Mien
04 Kraftwerk – Sexobjekt
05 Psyche – The Saint Become A Lush
06 Klinik – Nautilus
07 The Cure – All Cats Are Grey
08 Eric Zann – Threshold
09 HTRK – Eat Yr Heart
10 Monotone – Teil 3
11 Siouxsie & The Banshees – Red Light
12 League Of Nations – Systematic Eyes
13 Iron Curtain – The Burning

Stream L.I.E.S. Boss Ron Morelli’s Debut Album

Back when it was announced in September, L.I.E.S. label head Ron Morelli’s debut LP, Spit, was described as ranging from “house and industrial tape experiments to saturated, metallic beat tracks,” and now, we can hear exactly what that means, as a full stream of the record has been made available ahead of its November 11 release date. Fitting for its release on Dominic Fenrow’s industrial-informed Hospital Productions, Spit‘s eight tracks explore the depths of a gritty EBM aesthetic through tightly wound metronomic beats and tape-recorded of mechanics. Morelli’s Spit LP can be streamed in full via Pitchfork Advance.

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