Girl Unit Readies ‘Club Constructions’ 12″ as Hysterics

Venerable UK outpost Night Slugs has tapped one of its brightest stars to issue the next installment in the ongoing Club Constructions 12″ series, London DJ/producer Girl Unit. But the artist born Philip Gamble will be releasing his three-track record under the alias Hysterics, a moniker which purportedly explores a more stripped-back sound which evokes “heavy industry” and “human exertion” (i.e. heavy breathing). Gamble’s Club Constructions Vol. 5 is set to drop on July 9, but its artwork and tracklist can be seen before then, below. (via Juno)

A. Pleasuredrome
B1. Code Switch
B2. Code Switch (Club Mix)

High Five: Clouds

Despite what promotional photos like the one above may lead some to believe, Clouds is in fact a production duo, one that consists of Scotland natives Calum MacLeod and Liam Robertson. Over the past two years, the pair has built a reputation as solid as the hard-edged techno productions which the two jointly craft, issuing a handful of impressive releases, and most recently delivering the harrowing Man Out of Dubs EP. With Clouds’ proper debut LP, Ghost Systems Rave, on the horizon for Tiga’s Turbo imprint (a label the duo has appeared on a number of times before), we asked MacLeod and Robertson to share with us five tracks that have helped inspire their sound, and the pair returned our call with a somewhat surprising collection of quality cuts.

Truncate “Transients V1”

We love pretty much everything that Truncate or Audio Injection touches. This one has such an amazing groove that just keeps building and building. It sounds very simplistic, which can be a very hard thing to achieve. We were gutted when we couldn’t catch Truncate at the Sub Club in Glasgow [recently], as his music in that setting would have been a heavy scorcher.

MPIA3 “Casual Welding”

The first time we heard this was when Blawan played it at the Sub Club. One of us was even walking from the dancefloor to the bathroom and had to double back to hear what it was. The weird, jittering synth line was stuck in our heads for weeks and the acid stabs throughout are killer.

Actress “Bubble Butts and Equations”

We love the way the huge kick thunders in and out of this track, especially because the synths are so dramatically sidechained to it. When the synths are allowed to breathe, Actress deploys a wicked droning melody, and the scattered, distorted hats on top really appeal to us. It’s easy getting lost in the melodic breaks and then sucked into those chubby kick drums again.

Surgeon “Patience (Part 2)”

This record came out in 1997 when we were five and six years old, and yet it still sounds so fresh. Surgeon is a huge influence on us and this tune is a personal favorite. We’re really into the detuned, overdriven-sounding tom hits which bounce around the track. We’ve played this track out countless times and we still love watching the reaction of the dancefloor as it comes in.

Panda Bear “Tomboy”

This one has a slightly different vibe but it’s a banger nonetheless. The synth in the opening seconds is fucking formidable. We saw Panda Bear play in Manchester about a year ago, and he blew us away. This track was a real highlight for both of us.

Hi, Doctor Nick! – The Doctor Recommends More Bits of Gear and Discusses Whether DJ Schools Are Worth It

We’ve said it before, but there really is no stopping Nick Hook. Whether he’s fresh off a long overseas flight or in the midst of whatever other craziness his daily life entails, our resident advice columnist finds the time each week to answer our readers’ questions and dole out some knowledge. There’s no topic that’s out of bounds, whether it’s music, DJing, gear, travel, romance, production, or any other thing the XLR8R faithful needs to know about. So drop the good doctor a line at [email protected] and watch the knowledge flow.

Ayeeee. It’s like 1:20 a.m on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I’m riled up from the basketball game, but also it feels like 7 a.m. cuz I just got back from Sónar. Hopefully I can sleep tonight.

Sónar was so amazing. I loved it so much. Everyone should go next year, or sometime at some point. It’s such a good vibe. I love Barcelona. I would shout out like 7 million people but that’s probably boring. My favorite set of the festival was Bambounou. He was so good.

Also, we are running out of questions again. Everyone send them to [email protected]. EVERYONE.

Hi Doctor Nick,
I was wondering what your thoughts were on DJ schools like Dubspot and Scratch Academy. My friend wants to start DJing and is hell bent on signing up for classes, whereas I feel like you could learn all that stuff on your own with practice, like I did.

I know you’ve talked about production schools before, but I’m curious if you feel the same about DJ schools.
Anibal

To be honest, I’m into anything that works for said person. I have a yoga mat at home, which I never really use, but when I go to a class at my gym, I always get that full hour of enjoyment and focus. I know sometimes the perception is out there that you aren’t keeping it real if you don’t do it yourself, but I wouldn’t worry about that. I know some guys that teach at Dubspot that are not only amazing teachers, but amazing people and you know I’m all about meeting people outside of your ecosystem. So maybe the beauty just comes in that fact, that while you are learning how to scratch like A-Trak you will be also maybe meeting some new peers that you can make beats with, throw parties with, and so on down the line.

Hi Doctor Nick,
First up, I really love your articles. There’s some nice stuff to learn, especially for a youngster like me. 🙂

During my vacation, I’m going to work on an assembly line and make a few thousand dollars. I’m going to spend the first money I make on gear and not on my first car.

I know you already listed some of your favorite gear, but you also said that you could go on forever—could you maybe go on a little more for me? 😀 That would be dope.
Samuel

Awesome man. Shout out to the youth. We need you guys. Gear over cars always. Ride a bike. When I was a kid, I only started to get into trouble once cars came along. Also, I’m still mad at that dude who got held back a grade when we were younger and ended up getting all the girls when he had a car first just cuz he was older than us. Not fair.

In terms of gear, I can’t remember where we left off, but right now:

1. It’s not quite analog, but Ableton Push has completely blown my mind. The fact that I can turn the screen dim on the computer and make music is one of the best feelings I’ve felt in a long time. Combining step sequencing and “MPC”-style drumming at the same time is incredible, and the way they have used the pads with the scale structures has made me start to see the piano the right way for the first time in my life. It’s also been really useful to start practicing and helping with my theory. I really can’t say enough good things about it. And I have it as a hub controlling all my MIDI stuff.

2. Did we talk about the new Korg MS-20 last time? I think so, but I’ve had a chance to play with it more, and for the price, it’s really great. It’s fully analog, there’s USB MIDI, and MIDI in. I’m really actually not mad about the little keys and it sounds pretty spot-on for an MS-20. The filter is amazing to run audio through, so you kind of get a dual usage from it. I haven’t played with them yet, but I’m also eager to mess with the Vulca series stuff. Korg is killing it right now. Respect.

3. Random guitar pedals. Keep your eyes out for cheap, used guitar pedals. Run your stuff out of the computer through them. Putting hats through the purple Boss Flanger sounds amazing. Taking your kicks through RAT pedals sounds great, and any Electro Harmonix is going to be pretty tite.

4. Shure SM7 microphone. Great mic and it’s not that expensive.

5. FMR Really Nice Compressor. Like the name says, it’s a really dope compressor for a cheap price. Stereo. Highly recommended.

6. They’re a little more expensive, but save your money and fill up a lunch box with 500 Series modules. Stereo Pre/EQ/Compressor and you can take them anywhere you go. API is what I got my eye on next, but there are a million little companies doing amazing things. Matched with an Apogee Duet, you have about the highest quality stereo chain you can get and anything you do is 100% record quality. Look at Vintage King and start salivating over all the cool stuff.

7. MFB-522. It’s an 808 clone that’s super dope and super cheap. It’s perfect to sequence with Push, it works with MIDI. I want all of their products to be honest, but I don’t have any yet. Bok Bok and Nehuen both have this thing and it’s always dope every time I get to mess with it.

That’s a little more for now, but here are some bonus websites to waste time on…

www.vintagesynth.com
www.tapeop.com (A free subscription to the mag is highly recommended)
pensadosplace.tv

Okay. See y’all soon. xxxx

Hi, Doctor Nick! appears every Thursday on XLR8R. Do you have a question for Doctor Nick? Please submit your inquires to [email protected]. Nick Hook can help you.

Una “The Astronomer (John Tejada Remix)”*Cool Jewel*

Several months after the release of its Laughing Man EP in March, Los Angeles trio Una has assembled a collection of remixes of those tracks from 14 different artists. Warp veteran Nightmares on Wax, Street Jazz label boss DJ Cam, and Kompakt regular John Tejada all contributed to the digital package which drops on July 2 via Cool Jewel (the vinyl version features a slightly different tracklist and is available now). Featured here, Tejada’s remix of “The Astronomer” transforms the jazzy, downtempo original production into an astral cut of future garage complete with a skittering beats, airy pads, and swells of low end buoying the obligatory pitched-down vocal sample.

The Astronomer (John Tejada)

DJ Sprinkles Queerifications & Ruins

The first thing to notice about DJ Sprinkles‘ Queerifications & Ruins is that her album-titling game is as tight as ever. Once again, the only job left for critics in the face of such conceptual acuity is to unpack the phrase. Sure enough, this two-disc remix collection pursues the artist’s twin prerogatives: thoroughly undermining expectations while happening to create some indisputably beautiful, backhandedly classical sonic artifacts along the way.

Covering the period from 2010 to 2013, Queerifications rounds out what now looks like Terre Thaemlitz’s Mule Musiq trilogy: just as Midtown 120 Blues and Where Dancefloors Stand Still consolidated her skills as a producer and DJ, Queerifications is bound to solicit wider appreciation of her iconoclastic remixing style. It’s also the lengthiest of the three by a longshot; we’re treated to more than two hours of Sprinklesiana here, with most tracks clearing the 10-minute mark. A Sprinkles remix is already a world unto itself—at this level of concentration, one might think we’d get sick of a sonic vocabulary that’s basically consistent, despite regular moments of unpredictability. But, as with Where Dancefloors Stand Still, Sprinkles allows her material to unfurl completely, making hours feel like minutes in the process. This collection is another generous helping of crepuscular sublimity from house music’s foremost historical materialist.

DJ Sprinkles’ love of deep house is matched only by her fondness for disruption. The lengthy cuts here comfort and confront the listener in equal measure, which is to say that Queerifications & Ruins is sonically consistent with DJ Sprinkles’ original productions and mixes. Whatever the context, Sprinkles remains decidedly Sprinkles. These remixes sound equally luxurious and cheap, employing a liquid combination of ironed-out, polyrhythmic percussion; resonant, contemplative clusters of piano; nimble, bumping azure bass lines; and looped vocal samples. Reserved enough to never be in the listener’s face, these tracks have a crafty undertow, and Sprinkles’ subtle additions and subtractions ensure that even 15-minute tracks don’t get old—even when a stentorian vocal sample is wailing away regularly.

The occasional formal gambits are intriguing, too. Hard Ton’s “Food of Love” gets Sprinkles’ “Dubberama” treatment, which means Thaemlitz overdubs a wandering, spangled piano invention over its second half. The “Rock Bottom Mix” of Adultnapper’s “Low Point on High Ground” likewise wrings a lot of drama out of Thaemlitz’s expressive dissonances, especially when she nips those ponderous tone clusters in the bud with the damper pedal, resulting in a prism of bodily creaks. Surely there’s an argument to be made that Thaemlitz is house music’s Harold Budd, bolstered by the likes of “Food of Love” on the one hand and Thaemlitz’s 30-plus-hour piano solo “Meditation on Wage Labor and the Death of the Album” on the other. Such intriguing digressions aside, Sprinkles’ remixes are extremely serviceable, particularly because she doesn’t try to be faithful to anyone but herself. As a result, songs by Oh, Yoko and Marco Bernardi can pass through the Thaemlitz mill and somehow end up on the same continuum. There’s a formula, and a counter-formula, at work that ensures there are no surprises—DJ Sprinkles has already beaten everyone to all the punches. It’s a sign of her continued relevance that in spite of this familiarity, every minute of the three Sprinkles discs that have come out this year feels essential.

Bhok “Say Something”**

We know very little about Sam Stewart—the producer who goes by the name of Bhok—but this tune has piqued our interest with its funky, clattering sensibility. “Say Something” begins with a loose-limbed beat and deep, propulsive bass before introducing cut-up vocals sampled from Brandy’s and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine.” While R&B vocal sampling in this kind of house and bass music has become a bit of a cliche, Bhok saves face with a rhythmic complexity that recalls some of Blawan’s better moments.

Say Something

Basic Soul Unit Lab.our 01

If Stuart Li were a visual artist, we’d all be talking about his draftsmanship—Basic Soul Unit is all about the quality of his lines. His productions develop with sensuous clarity that we can easily visualize; from the introduction’s steady accumulation of details to the way he sets about sculpting a narrative once things are in motion, this is the work of someone who’s spent a lot of time studying the masters. But nothing gets very far on technical skill alone these days, and Li’s sequencing prowess is matched by a sense of sound design that doesn’t need to get noisy to be thought-provokingly weird. That subtle experimentalism gives Lab.our 01, the inaugural release on his freshly minted label, its drive—half the pleasure of these three tracks lies in how they’re crafted.

Check the way “Innershell”‘s scraping hi-hats, aggressively foregrounded, amplify the sample bubbling lopsidedly in the background—the track wastes no time creating a context spacious enough for a piano vamp and wobbling bass synth to pass through, with each generation of sounds steadily increasing the track’s force. Like a Robert Hood production, everything is under control, every sound has been carefully considered and placed, yet the track feels like it’s about to burst. “Frack” and “Earwerm” follow “Innershell” in contrasting sharp and muffled sounds, but the tension never feels exaggerated. “Frack” has a larval, technoid feel, with mincing claves just barely holding on as Li unleashes a synth line that sucks at the rhythm like an opened airlock. “Earwerm” is a maelstrom of gnashing, open hi-hats, a kick drum that looks to Shed’s brutal wallop, and a belching 303. It’s a noisy defile, but what’s interesting is the way it fails to blot out the dark import of a peripheral, screeching loop, as if someone were vainly trying to apply the brakes. That’s a good metaphor for the EP as a whole: it asserts its quality as a matter of course, but the shadow of something outside Li’s control draws us deeper inside.

Download a New Mix from Pariah

Though it feels like we’ve mostly heard from Pariah in relation with Karenn—his hard-edged techno project alongside Blawan—the London-based producer/DJ is obviously no stranger to solo work. Fortunately, for those who may need a reminder of that fact, the man has shared a new hour-long mix in anticipation of his upcoming performance at Fabric this weekend. Spending as much time in the depths of pensively sparse techno as he does in the midst of soul-drenched house abstractions, Pariah’s new DJ set certainly bodes well for his fast-approaching solo appearance this Saturday. The full mix can be streamed and downloaded below, where its complete tracklist can also be found.

Jackmaster Hater – Your Mind (Ron Hardy Edit) [Warehouse Box Tracks]
R.a.H – Spacepops [Morphine]
Alex O. Smith – Plesetsk Cosmodrone [FXHE]
Steve O’Sullivan – Better Late Than Never [Sushitech]
Portable – Albatross (Kowton Remix) [Sud Electronic]
Aaron Carl – Crucified (XDB Edit) [Millions of Moments]
Soul Capsule – Beauty and the Beat [Perlon]
Vester Koza – Mosquito [Maslo Records]
DJ Spider & Marshallito – Noam Chomsky [Subbass Soundsystem]
Kyle Hall & Kero – Zug Island [Wild Oats]
Dan Fun – The D.F Soundsystem A2 [Borft]
Blaze – Lovlee Dae (Eight Miles High Remix) [Playhouse]
Nail – Optimus [Fear of Flying]
Jack-Tronic – Windy City [Peacefrog]
The Music Freaks – Wild Pitch A1 [Sex Mania]
Gherkin Jerks – Don’t Dis The Beat [Alleviated]
Elgato – Dunkel Jam [White]
DJ Skull – Get Em [DJax Up Beats]

Stream the New LP from Planet Mu Boss Mu-Ziq

It’s been six years since the last album from Planet Mu head Mike Paradinas (a.k.a. µ-Ziq), which might not be much of a surprise given the prolificacy and quality of the label’s output. But the UK artist’s latest LP, Chewed Corners, is nonetheless on the way, and is currently available to stream in full. The forthcoming µ-Ziq record presents a lush, analog side to the sound of the veteran producer—whose first album was released via Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label back in 1993—trading in some of his beloved aggressive electronics for a trippy, kosmische-inspired listen. Set to drop on June 24 via Planet Mu, Chewed Corners can be heard in its entirety below.

Watch Carl Craig Talk Movement Festival, Modern DJing, Record Shopping, and More

Following just behind the release of his three-disc contribtuion to Ministry of Sound’s Materpiece mix series, Carl Craig takes a few minutes to chat on camera about his role in Detroit’s recent Movement Festival, the state of modern DJing, and how record shopping has changed. The latest subject of FACT TV‘s Record Shopping With video series, the pioneering producer/DJ is as well spoken as ever, chatting during a visit to London’s Phonica shop and highlighting Juan Atkins’ and Moritz Von Oswald’s Borderland LP (a record we recently highlighted ourselves). Craig also goes on to discuss his old record shop haunts in Detroit, among other topics. The full video is available to watch below.

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