The Sound of Belgium is a comprehensive new documentary which takes a detailed look at “the rich but untold story of Belgian dance music, from the grand dance halls with Decap organs and the golden days of Popcorn onto the dark and cold Electronic Body Music and New Beat to Belgian house and techno.” As an accompaniment to the documentary, an equally comprehensive soundtrack will be released, covering 60 tracks worth of Belgium’s under-represented dance music culture. Arriving via La Musique Fait La Force on November 25, the four-disc series is said to serve as “a sonic journey through four decades of the wonderful and weird music that has soundtracked the nocturnal adventures” of the Belgians. Before the compilation sees its official release, The Sound of Belgium film will make its way to London for its first UK screenings and a number of coinciding events—including an in-store screening at Phonica Records with free Belgian beer next Tuesday. More information on the film’s UK screenings and events can be found here; a trailer for the film and its soundtrack’s tracklist are included below.
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CD1 1. Trans Volta – Disco Computer 2. Carol & Snowy Red – Breakdown 3. Pas De Deux – Cardiocleptomanie 4. The Neon Judgement – Tv Treated 5. Front 242 – Headhunter 6. Carlos Perón – Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted 7. Logo – Businessmen 8. The Caravan – Somewhere In Arabia 9. C Cat Trance – Shake The Mind 10. Max Berlin – Elle Et Moi 11. Au Pairs – Sex Without Stress 12. A Thunder Orchestra – Diabolical Gesture 13. Public Relations – Public Relations 14. White House White – Ouverture 15. L&O – Even Now 16. Klaus Schulze – Signs Of Dawn
CD2 1. Hno3 – Doughnut Dollies 2. Fred Brown – Roman Days 3. Fatal Error – Fatal Error 4. Erotic Dissidents – Move Your Ass And Feel The Beat 5. Neon – Voices 6. In-D – Virgin In-D Sky’s 7. Jc Project – Andromedia 8. 101 – Saigon Nightmare 9. Zsa Zsa Laboum – Something Scary 10. Rhythm Device – Acid Rock 11. 2 Body’s – Body Drill 12. Confetti’s – The Sound Of C 13. Liaisons D – Future Fjp 14. Petra & Co – Just Let Go (Dub) 15. Neon – Don’t Mess With This Beat (Instrumental) 16. Linea Alba – Chill-O-Matic
CD3 1. Lords Of Acid – I Sit On Acid (Live American Tour Version) 2. T 99 – Anasthasia 3. Praga Khan – Rave Alarm 4. Phantasia – Violet Skies 5. Neon – Waves 6. Modular Expansion – Cubes 7. Second Chance – In Paradise 8. Joey Beltram – Energy Flash 9. Set Up System – Factory 10. Outlander – The Vamp 11. Le Mystere – Opus 303 12. Age Of Love – The Age Of Love (New Age Mix) 13. Lhasa – The Attic 14. The Mackenzie – Higher In The Sky 15. Digital Excitation – Pure Pleasure (Rave Mix) 16. World Party Ii – Forget It
CD4 1. 2 Flying Stones – Maybe Tomorrow (After Outside Mix) 2. Innertales – Odyssee 3. Golden Girls – Kinetic (Frank De Wulf Remix) 4. Cj Bolland – Camargue 5. Insider – Destiny 6. Strong Heads – Frequency Response Test 7. Spokesman – Acid Creak (Pierre’s Reconstruction Mix) 8. Zolex – Time Modulator 9. Cherrymoon Trax – The House Of House 10. Jones & Stephenson – The First Rebirth 11. Emmanuel Top – Acid Phase 12. Push – Universal Nation
Long-running DFA associate Shit Robot might not be the most prolific artist on the New York label’s roster, but the Irish DJ/producer born Marcus Lambkin has always exhibited an impeccable level of quality control with his work. Following the recent release of his Reggie Watts-featuring single “We Got a Love,” Lambkin has resurfaced with a brand-new mix. Appearing as a podcast for Dummy, Shit Robot’s “The Jack Shit Mix” is clearly aimed at the dancefloor. The DJ described his hour-long set as “something to get you a bit amped before going out,” before explaining that “it’s basically a lot of the stuff I’m playing out at the moment.” The high-energy mix doesn’t come with a tracklist, but can nevertheless be streamed and downloaded below.
Rising Cardiff duo Bodhi is a few days away from delivering its Imprefection EP via Australian label Future Classic, and has elected to let loose a remix of the title track from Hypercolour affilaite James Welsh. Where Bodhi’s original tune—which was featured in a Press Play roundup a few weeks back—favors rounded sounds and deep sonic manuevers, Welsh’s version gives “Imperfection” a bit more of a jacking pulse, letting the song’s chords float freely in the background before laying into an acid-tweaked synth lead. Both takes on the track will be included on Bodhi’s Imperfection EP when it drops on October 7.
The unstoppable artist known as Four Tet (a.k.a. Kieran Hebden) has been keeping his new music close leading up to the release of his latest LP, Beautiful Rewind, having shared only two of the album’s 11 tracks. But now, with pre-orders available in select retailers and a wide release scheduled for October 15, we can finally hear that highly anticipated full-length in its entirety. The 40-minute stream of Beautiful Rewind appeared on Hebden’s SoundCloud earlier today, and is now embedded below for everyone’s listening pleasure.
It’s rare to see Spanish singer/producer Pional mentioned without seeing the name of fellow Barcelona artist John Talabot hovering nearby, but that is likely to change with the announcement of his new EP for Young Turks. Entitled Invisible / Amenaza—which translates as “Invisible Threat”—the four-track release finds Pional injecting his kind of pristine and lively soundscapes with a newfound sense of paranoia and tension. The first taste of his latest productions is an extended dub version of the title track, which finds Pional stretching a bouncy, disco-inflected groove and washed-out vocal over the stereo field, as it grows darker and darker across its seven minutes. The Invisible / Amenaza EP will be released on November 4 on vinyl and digital formats, but before then, its tracklist and a stream of “Invisible / Amenaza (Extended Dub 12″ Version)” can be found below.
1. Invisible / Amenaza 2. A New Dawn 3. The Shy 4. Invisible / Amenaza (Extended Dub 12″ Version)
XLR8R always makes an effort to cover music that we think is new and exciting, but certain acts have proven themselves to be especially adept at breaking the mold. The Innovators mix series, presented by Cigna, is designed to spotlight one-of-a-kind artists that we think are particularly innovative and unique. The first producer we’ve chosen is none other than Todd Edwards, the Jersey native whose upbeat garage rhythms and pioneering use of pitch-shifted vocals made him a legend in the UK club scene and a highly influential figure, both at home and abroad. Even Daft Punk took notice, enlisting Edwards to co-produce and sing on “Face to Face” from the pair’s 2001 Discovery album. Now residing in Los Angeles, Edwards continues to turn out feelgood house and garage tunes of his own, and was again tapped by Daft Punk to work on this year’s Random Access Memories. For his Innovators mix, Edwards has put together an hour-long DJ session that not only includes several of his unreleased productions, but also provides a snapshot of where he’s currently at musically.
01 Todd Edwards “Detroit” (unreleased) 02 Rudimental “Waiting All Night (Todd Edwards Vocal Mix)” (unreleased) 03 Fryars “Cool Like Me (Todd Edwards Dub)” (unreleased) 04 Luxury “J.A.W.S.” (Method) 05 Mutya Keisha Siobhan “Flatline (MJ Cole Remix)” (Columbia) 06 Basement Jaxx “What a Difference Your Love Makes (TCTS Remix)” (37 Adventures) 07 Todd Edwards “Back to Chicago” (unreleased) 08 MBVT “Hoxton (Bambarra & Kiri Remix)” 09 Jeremy Sylvester “Amigo” (Urban Dubz) 10 DJ D “I Can Make It” (unreleased) 11 Lucas Rezende “Brasilidade (Delgado Remix)” (294) 12 T. Williams “Three Letters” (PMR) 13 TS7 “Charles Martel (Original Mix)” (3Beat) 14 Velcro “Let It Go” (unreleased) 15 Robert Lux “It’s All Love” (unreleased) 16 Cell Broco “Little Bit in Love” (Big Dada) 17 Spiritchaser “As We Fall” (Guess) 18 LHH “The Feeling” (LHH Music) 19 Dusky “Rise for Love” (Aus) 20 Wilkinson “Afterglow (DEvolution Remix)” (Virgin)
It’s darkness that comes most naturally to Camella Lobo—from a musical standpoint, at least. Her bleak, enigmatic sounds as Tropic of Cancer are quite a contrast to the cheerful, candid person who spoke with XLR8R over the phone, accompanied by an audibly mewing cat. The LA-based musician says she’s had a lifelong fascination with the dark side of Hollywood history, and the associated idea that “the brighter the light, the darker the shadow.” It’s a passion that has been brought to bear on her project’s first full-length, Restless Idylls, a mix of dreamy, gothic melody and moody ambience with an undertow that’s hard not to get swept up in.
Tropic of Cancer began in 2007 as a casual recording collaboration between Lobo and her husband Juan Mendez, who records as Silent Servant and has also been a part of shadowy, widely respected techno collective Sandwell District. Their first release together was the 2009 10-inch “The Dull Age” b/w “Victims” on Downwards, which offered a pair of hazy, slow-burning, Suicide-esque tracks with Lobo’s distant, gravely intoned vocals coloring between the blackened lines. The pair’s early releases for Downwards (which have been collected on a CD compilation called The End of All Things) have a ticking and enticing paranoia to them, and present a fascinating point of comparison versus Lobo’s current work, in which her voice is much more present, even as the lyrics remain inscrutable. Some of these older tracks were creepily rumbling and techno-influenced, while “Awake,” on the other hand, was a lo-fi, quietly beautiful track reminiscent of a more subdued The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Lobo and Mendez went on to release a single, “Be Brave,” via Downwards and a 12-inch EP, The Sorrow of Two Blooms, via Blackest Ever Black, and also played a number of live sets (including a West Coast stint opening for HTRK) before Mendez eventually decided to leave the band in late 2011. As Lobo explains, Tropic of Cancer was getting asked to play a lot of shows and was becoming too much of a time commitment alongside his existing projects. Plus, their musical working dynamic wasn’t ideal. “We just had distinctly different views on how things should sound,” she explains. They also felt a bit of disjunction in the live setting, as she recollects with a laugh: “[Juan’s] live performance style is much more ‘improv’—he’ll freak out and do stuff, while I’m a lot more structured. I’m not so good at improvising and doing things on the spot… he would be like, ‘Just do something!’ and I was like, ‘No… I want to know exactly what I’m doing, and I want to know when!'” When Tropic of Cancer was asked to do some additional dates with HTRK in Europe, Lobo brought in Taylor Burch of DVA Damas, for whom she had previously played live synths. Burch has remained in the live band since, and takes on guitars for most songs, while Lobo sings and plays synths.
Tropic of Cancer became an altered two-piece live, but remained solo as a recording project—2012’s Permissions of Love EP for Mannequin was the first release on which Lobo worked mostly by herself, with only some post-production help from Mendez. The descent into a slower, more disorienting mode on this record and her I Feel Nothing 12-inch for Sleeperhold Publications has been taken in a new, more majestically produced direction with the Restless Idylls full-length, which she recorded in early 2013 and was just released via
Restless Idylls
Making an album was a leap Lobo had been somewhat reluctant to take, but with encouragement from Mendez, her old friend Regis (a.k.a. Karl O’Connor, a Sandwell District co-founder and the co-head of Downwards), and Blackest Ever Black’s Kiran Sande, she decided to take on the challenge. Restless Idylls was composed and tracked in her home studio, and began with Lobo taking stock of existing material and penning some new tunes. “I did a bit of inventorying of all the things I had made over the past few years, and got some new instruments,” she explains. “For the first time, I had a really nice, proper synth: a Roland GAIA. I’m a big fan of low-end sounds, and that synth has this really crazy low-end setting.” In addition to this synth, the album shows Lobo making use of fewer software instruments than she did on earlier EPs like Permissions of Love and I Feel Nothing. “I like the feel of analog instruments a lot more,” she explains. “It just feels more real, more concrete.”
Lobo also got Regis on board as a producer early on, after she had a few songs ready to go. O’Connor had previously expressed interest in being involved in the LP project, and in what turned out to be a thematically foreshadowing trip, he visited Los Angeles in early 2013. As she had long ago promised to do, Lobo took O’Connor on the Scott Michaels-led “Dearly Departed” tour of Hollywood—a Hollywood Babylon-esque look at the grimy, often showbiz-related crime-history tour of the city.
“I’ve always had this fascination with crime, murder, homicides, and horror movies,” explains Lobo. “My dad was a homicide detective for a long time, and a police officer too, and my mom is super obsessed with Hitchcock… I think this is just part of my DNA.” It’s a fascination she and O’Connor share; the two even made a lunch outing to El Coyote, the last place Sharon Tate ate before being murdered by the Manson Family. Although it’s something the two apparently never discussed outright, Lobo feels like this shadowy corner of American cultural history informed the project in certain ways—not so much in terms of lyrics or subject matter, but rather the underlying feelings of dread and loss one can hear in the production and instrumentation.
Following O’Connor’s departure from LA, the two worked together on the album via the internet, with O’Connor in the producer role. He also added some important instrumental elements to the LP, including, says Lobo, the eerie piano part in the background of “The Seasons Won’t Change and Neither Will You” and the trebly synth parts throughout the record that serve as a counterpoint to its rumbling low-end. “He really brought the iciness up in the mix—it made the tracks more balanced, and added an element of heartbreak.”
The album version of “More Alone,” which appeared on a 7-inch single earlier this year via Blackest Ever Black, is one of the most memorable tracks on the record. Lobo’s mournful vocals carry a stirring melody that brings to mind This Mortal Coil in its crumbling majesty. Some of the most affecting tracks on the album have a more indefinite, ambient aura to them, such as opener “Plant Lilies at My Head.” Although Lobo thought of it as her “Jacques Cousteau song” for its underwater-like feeling, from a listener standpoint, it sounds like there’s more of a Gavin Bryars “Sinking of the Titanic” thing going on.
In the end, Mendez actually did end up contributing to this Tropic of Cancer record—as a visual artist. He provided art direction and what Lobo describes as the “hi-fi colors” of the cover artwork, which depicts a candelabra, purchased from a shop in Hollywood, with a hand creepily reaching out toward it. The image helps round out the light/shadow feeling Lobo was going for, giving the album’s deep sadness a bright, if eerie, counterpoint.
Figuring out how to build and realize her music on her own has, Lobo says, been “tough in a lot of ways, but also really fun and inspiring.” She’s forged a new and intriguing sound with Restless Idylls, and relentlessly heavy as it may be, the heartbroken (and those who generally connect with the darker side of pop and techno) might find refuge and inspiration in the oddly shaped ambience within.
Even in Warsaw, Poland—home of the XXANAXX duo (pictured above)—those in the know know that London’s xxxy can fashion a damn fine remix, which is exactly what he does here. Essentially rebuilding a new instrumental bed for the angelic vocals from XXANAXX’s original “Broken Hope” single, xxxy transforms what was a folk-tinged slice of electronic pop into a slippery piece of UK club music. While the man’s remix is offered here as a digital download, those jocks looking to pick up this smooth, skipping number on vinyl can do so here when XXANAXX’s full Disappear EP drops on October 7.
Fly Juice/Mad Hatter, the latest release from DVA (a.k.a. Leon Smart), pairs an EP of previously released tracks (from last year’s Fly Juice record) with a new EP (Mad Hatter). It’s 12 tracks long and clocks in at 50 minutes, but it isn’t an album. Smart has a notoriously lively personality, and this absolutely comes through in his music. Comprising these two separate efforts, the record is all over the place, sometimes even switching styles in the course of a single track. Perhaps to bolster this madcap approach, it comes complete with a pair of DJ Rashad remixes, which are advanced as ever.
Several of Smart’s tracks are characterized by breakdowns into seemingly unrelated samples; “Mad Hatter” delves into boogie, while “Gang Gang Riddim” diverts into dancehall. These twists are essentially instructions as to how to properly enjoy this music—in the most exuberant state of inebriation possible. There is simply no other circumstance in which these abrupt left turns make sense. “Chilli Burrito” only makes this clearer. The track’s arcade rave is underlaid with a sample of an American girl talking merrily about ecstasy, and closes on the darkly comical phrase, “The only bad thing that’ll happen is that I’ll have a seizure.” Smart’s style is typically a garish fusion of bassy staggers and plastic videogame sounds, so when he deviates from this mode, or at least introduces a more emotional element, it’s a kind of pleasant shock. “Long Street,” featuring Big Space, is highlighted by its bent synthline (which is perhaps too straightforward to be called a pad, but acts in a similar way), which feels like a respite in the context of the record, while “Shook” does the same thing with laser ripples and needlepoint synths.
DVA’s place is undoubtedly in the club, and Fly Juice/Mad Hatter‘s tail end makes the most sense in a conventional DJ set. The instrumental of French Fries‘ “Ganja” remix has the sparsest, easiest swing here, while DJ Rashad is able to streamline “Walk it Out” and “Fly Juice” with his signature style. Like DVA, Rashad inserts a seemingly unrelated soul sample into the former, but after its introduction, he keeps it going, infusing it into the track’s speedy drums and fluctuating subs. His take on “Fly Juice,” meanwhile, incorporates woozy chords and a sparkling arpeggio around a vocal repeating “I love it.” Both producers bring a certain hyperactive energy; Rashad offers a sort of choppy, controlled chaos, while DVA is reckless and twisted.
Mad Villains (a.k.a. Adriane Jackson and Willie Jones, pictured above) is a Southern California house duo currently living in the UK, who collaborated with Chris Parkin on the just-released Tell Me Again EP for Top Billin. Also featured on that record is this DJ-primed remix of the title track from UK producer The Golden Boy. All the quintessential house pieces are in play on his version: piano stabs, vibrato string keyboard presets, and a tuneful, female vocal refrain. The Golden Boy finesses Mad Villains’ self-proclaimed “ghetto house” cut into a trusty, throwback house jam.
