After delivering its XLR8R Pick’d debut EP earlier this year, Bubblin’ Up duo Graze—the collaborative project of Adam Marshall and XI—has announced it will release its first full-length, Edges, before the year is out. Like the two Graze records preceeding the pair’s forthcoming LP, Edges will see a release via Marshall’s own New Kanada imprint, dropping on December 3 after an initial 12″ single from the album appears in mid-November. In a brief email exchange with Resident Advisor, Marshall describes the forthcoming full-length as “quite a natural progression from the last EP… It’s still aimed at the club floor, but the tracks are a bit more aggressively raw and bittersweet.” Before December 3 rolls around, the artwork and tracklist for Graze’s Edges are included below.
East London producer Palace (a.k.a. Sam Walker) is coming off a recent remix of EVM128’s “Make Me Feel” with his own Dreamscape EP, out on October 21 via Hot Haus (preview the whole thing here). The EP’s sturdy, unadorned a-side, “About You,” announces itself with sultry female coos that lead into a bedrock of bass, rigid house percussion, and glossy, intermeshing pads. The track also arrives with a hyper-edited promo video for the upcoming EP, a scintillating VHS throwback to rave culture which features audio clips from Palace’s latest work and can be seen after the jump.
Fast-rising UK producers Leon Vynehall and Christian Piers (a.k.a. A1 Bassline) will come together for the second time as Laszlo Dancehall on the LZD II EP, forthcoming via George FitzGerald’s ManMakeMusic imprint. Before the pair’s new, three-track effort sees a vinyl release on October 23 (and a full digital release on November 11), the EP can now be streamed in full exclusively on XLR8R. LZD II serves as the follow-up to Laszlo Dancehall’s hotly tipped debut, and finds Vynehall and Piers delivering another impressive collection of slightly off-kilter, jazz-flecked house tunes. Below, the three fresh productions can be heard in their entirety, and our recent B2B conversation with the two artists about collaboration and the state of Brighton’s current dance music scene can be read here.
Berlin-based house producer Doc Daneeka has announced that he’ll soon release a new 12″ via the Numbers label, sharing a preview of a-side track “Walk On In.” The tune features Leeds-based artist Ratcatcher, who works with Doc Daneeka to produce a soulful house tune full of looping vocal wiggles, vintage synths tones, and crackling dancefloor beats. The two-track 12″ is scheduled to drop on November 4, but until then, a sizable clip from “Walk On In” is available to stream below.
A1. Doc Daneeka – Walk On In (feat. Ratcatcher) B1. Doc Daneeka – Trife Pt. II
Ahead of the upcoming Check Yo’ Ponytail 2 party this Friday, LA-based DJ/producer Salva has shared a brand-new mixtape featuring a handful of collaborators. The 15-track Heartbreak Mix sees Salva cutting up and re-arranging new and unreleased tracks from the likes of partystarters IAMSU, Sage The Gemini, and HBK Gang, who will also perform at The Echoplex on October 18. Before then, the full mixtape can be streamed and downloaded below, where its track list can also be found.
1. Sage The Gemini ft. Iamsu – Gas Pedal (Salva Remix) 2. HBK Gang – Quit Cattin 3. Rossi ft. Iamsu – Like This (Salva’s Gijibae Edit) 4. Iamsu – 100 Grand (Salva’s Ballin’ Edit) 5. Iamsu ft. P-Lo & Sage The Gemini – Return of the Mac 6. Nick Catchdubs ft. Iamsu & Jay Ant – Bizness 7. HBK Gang – Gettin It (Salva’s Paranoid Edit) 8. Sage The Gemini – Swerve 9. P-Lo – Going To Work (Hood Mix) 10. Loverance ft. Iamsu – Up! (Salva’s TWRK Edit) 11. Roach Gigz ft. Iamsu – It’s Lit (Salva & Hook Doin’ It Edit) 12. Sage The Gemini – Don’t You 13. Sage The Gemini – Red Nose 14. August Alsina ft. Iamsu & Problem – Numb 15. 100s – 1999
Night Slugs is preparing to drop its next LP, the second full-length by Canadian producer Egyptrixx (a.k.a. David Psutka). Having moved past the kind of submerged synth gesticulations heard on Psutka’s debut album, Bible Eyes, A/B til Infinity seems to deal with a more organic form of techno, something which the new video for its intro track compellingly illustrates. The brief piece—created by Berlin-based visual artist A.N.F.—pairs Egytrixx’s industrial sounds with oozing steel and conjugating minerals and ores, and breathes physical life into the machine-born music through the molten animations. Night Slugs will release the fluctuating soundscapes of A/B til Infinity on November 26, but the video for “Ax//s” can be seen before then, below.
Calm + Collect is a new label/collaborative project helmed by XLR8R advice columnist Nick Hook along with a small crew of music and media specialists. The imprint’s first release comes from Color Film, a duo fromed by production veterans Daryl Palumbo and Richard Penzone, whose “Until You Turn Blue” will serve as the title track of a four-song EP which also features remixes from Doc Daneeka, Michna, and Anenon—whose dense rework is featured here. While the original “Until You Turn Blue” is a heavily ’80s-influenced slice of uptempo pop, Anenon takes the track in a much more subdued direction, wrapping echoes of Color Film’s production with engrossing layers of spacey synths and floating textures. The complete Until You Turn Blue EP will serve as the inaugural release from the Calm + Collect label on October 22.
Back in February of this year, Nashville-based singer/producer Jamie Lidell (pictured above) released a self-titled LP via Warp, and is just now following it up with a remix EP centered around lead single “Big Love.” That record is out today, and to celebrate the occasion, the label has shared a stream of Berlin-based producer Machinedrum‘s drum-heavy version of the soulful tune. With loads of jacking beats, bulbous low end, and prickly atmospherics, the artist born Travis Stewart transforms Lidell’s funky single into a rolling and rumbling dancefloor tune. “Big Love (Machinedrum Remix)” can be heard in full below.
All week long, XLR8R is presenting its annual focus on Labels We Love. Click here to check out the rest of the series.
Running Back is often hailed as a DJs’ label, but that notion sells the long-running German imprint short. Founded in 2002, the label has built an impressive catalog over the past decade, and has incredibly done so without relying upon a core crew of artists. Embracing a different model, Running Back has become a place where top-flight producers—including Todd Terje, Theo Parrish, Move D, Redshape, Tensnake, Mark E, and numerous others—deliver one-off efforts, many of which have proven to be standouts in those artists’ discographies. Given Running Back’s excellent track record, it’s not much of a surprise that the imprint has once again been included in our Labels We Love coverage, but this year, we wanted to dig a little deeper, which is why we’ve asked label head Gerd Janson—who’s a stellar DJ in his own right—to participate in a special edition of our Hi-Five series. Per our request, he’s taken a look back at the Running Back catalog and selected five releases that were particularly memorable in the label’s history.
Second Life “Inner Love (Give It Up)” (RB001)
As it is kind of torturing to talk about the music on your own label, I might as well start with, yep, the first one. Done in two-oh-oh-two, it’s quite a bold exercise in US-styled garage house. Oh, sweet youth! The flip might have aged better with a dub version that actually takes some inspiration from the Jamaican technique and the Smallville-soundsystem-approved Black Keys Rework. Deep house then, I guess?
Mark E “Deja Vu” b/w “Beat Down” (RB005)
Four records and four years later, this first non-edit-debut by Birmingham’s Mark E—who I met through a mutual friend—also marked the label’s extension from music done by people living around the corner to music done by people who should be living around the corner. A slow one though—as is the tempo of the record.
Radio Slave Sex Trax EP (RB012)
2008 was all about planet tech-house. This one by the sample scientist Matt Edwards (a.k.a. Radio Slave) reminded us that the Duke had done it all already and way before. Hence RS and RB took a bow. Furthermore, it’s always given me a chill to see that poor woman without a bra making the rounds on a turntable.
Acoustic High-End Research Running Back Presents Strada Professional Sound Effects (RBEFX1)
Its original platter presented to me by me’s Kristian at Plastic People (shortly after, the record was lost when his record bag was stolen), I was left flabbergasted by “Acid Child.” So I made a logical, innocent attempt to buy the record from its source, which ended up offering a license for Running Back to reissue it. 180g and liner notes by Danny Wang later, everyone interested was able to “learn the happiness of deejaying with vinyl.”
Todd Terje/Son Of Sam Digital Dubplates (RB10-inch)
The first split release and 10-inch release, this one had two previously digital-only tracks. “Snooze 4 Love,” Todd Terje’s mellow counterpart to “Ragysh,” comes as its ambient emo-sister, while the British ’84 electro fantasy of Son of Sam gets a kind-of-disco update by its own creator. Weird, but wonderful.
All week long, XLR8R is presenting its annual focus on Labels We Love. Click here to check out the rest of the series.
Although many labels have had an impact on the sound of 2013, there aren’t many imprints that have been more influential than PAN. Though the Berlin-based label has been releasing music since 2008, within the past year or two, its dark and unique blend of techno, industrial, noise, and various experimental sounds has solidified into a sort of template, albeit one that’s still incredibly difficult to define in any sort of concrete fashion. As with many of the best labels, it’s hard to describe exactly what a PAN record sounds like, but there’s undoubtedly a connective thread that holds all of its releases together. In hopes of examining that thread a little more closely, we’ve enlisted label founder Bill Kouligas to put together an exclusive mix consisting of nothing but PAN material, and have elected to debut it as part of our Labels We Love coverage.
Surveying the entire PAN catalog in the context of a single podcast would effectively be an impossible task, but Kouligas has nonetheless put together an accurate portrait of the label’s many sonic facets. Though the mix alternates between segments of dark, dubby grooves and raw, static-laden noise, it’s still a coherent statement, and one that demonstrates how established notions of genre are continually melting away within the current electronic landscape. Without question, there plenty of difficult and challenging moments, but the sounds—and, perhaps more importantly, the ways in which those sounds have been juxtaposed—are so compelling that both experimental diehards and dancefloor denizens will find something to latch on to. Furthermore, Kouligas has slipped in a handful of unreleased tunes, which seem to indicate that PAN’s current hot streak isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon.
