Gobby Fashion Lady

Gobby is unburdened. He’s not lazy or singularly egotistical, just calmly unaffected by the need to impress—or perhaps even express—through his music. His label, UNO, says that he uses his music “to ward off irritability and paranoia,” and indeed, there’s a healing sensibility subtly present throughout Fashion Lady. Sections of extended riffing on a single theme last just longer than expected, and the result is akin to being lulled into a Theta state, the unconscious mind opening slightly at the behest of Gobby’s brand of rustic, pharmaceutical techno.

His deftness with texture is especially impressive, making each drum and synth sound his own through even-handed manipulations. Yet Gobby doesn’t wear this as a badge of honor; the soundsmithing comes across more like the results of playful experiments than obsessive nights spent dialing in each element. Album opener “Krylon Surf Magix” is a resolute, driving piece centered around a one-bar bassline loop and a four-to-the-floor feel. The song’s meandering accents of chorusing and panning synths with muted bits of noise and affectation bring to mind moments of AFX’s Analord series. “Lect Hom” digs deeper into this side of his sound, picking up the tempo and flavoring a rush of deep warehouse rave with detuning synth stings and hoovers above a wavering bassline—it’s Speedy J meets GHB.

Elsewhere on Fashion Lady, Gobby balances these more audacious arrangements with tribal and hypnotic works. “Healing Factor,” on its surface, is four-and-a-half minutes of a single loop—a battle record heard through a radio dunked in the bathtub—but Gobby’s textural chops weave enough dynamism throughout the proceedings to make the jump from extended interlude to full-fledged work. Similarly, “VB News” is based around a single, off-phrase looping of a screwed talking drum, but the constant microscopic changes in the track give it a sense of progression, making it heady and entrancing.

“Rashe” marries these extremes with a running arpeggiated bassline and long, slow blends of percussion, occasionally kicking into an abstruse techno flex-out, but never bearing down with a full-on, thunderous punch. Instead, Gobby goes deeper, extending the tension for almost the entire track. If Pete Swanson’s more techno-centric deconstructions were extracted from the field of noise he laces them in, “Rashe” would be the skeleton left behind.

Fashion Lady is personal music, though it’s bolstered by the frameworks of a few familiar, established genres. Gobby truly seems to make music for himself first and foremost, but that’s exactly what makes his sound work; it’s at the confluence of indulgence and honest inspiration.

Vincent Parker “Hypo”**

Experimental East Vancouver artist Vincent Parker‘s new release, Hypo, has gained a decidedly positive buzz since it dropped earlier this month. At first listen, Hypo is a dense, challenging work to dive headfirst into, an abrasive burst of darkly colored synths and restlessly sinister polyrhythms. The title track and opener sets the stage for the monstrous album which follow. A hollow blast of gutted feedback gives way to an off-kilter riff before a relentless kick and cymbal pattern drag the whole tune into a frenetic display of firepower. Once the initial shock wears off, there’s a dense, beautifully layered tune in “Hypo,” one that rewards close attention and could very well induce nightmares. The entirety of Hypo is available as a free download over on Parker’s Bandcamp.

Hypo

Close Beam Me Up

The accompanying press release for the lead single off Will Saul‘s forthcoming Getting Closer LP, a first offering under his freshly minted Close alias, is a curious one. “The new project sees him step away from the deeper house and bass sounds that have characterised his own discography,” it states, noting a shift from his recent output on Aus and Simple. Given the trajectory Saul has taken alongside contemporaries during the past couple of years, one could at least approximate what a “step away” from those loosely defined genre tags wouldn’t sound like. However, upon listening to “Beam Me Up,” that statement feels like a downright misprint; the track is so much a triangulation of the current convergence of deep house and bass—particularly when one factors in the track’s title, its collaborators, and those artists recruited for remix duties—that it almost feels like Saul is fielding a fantasy UK house team for the forthcoming Ibiza season.

This isn’t necessarily a knock on its quality. Birthed from enough smoke billow to fill a small lounge, “Beam Me Up” tempts the listener. It’s initially understated and for an effort with such blatant peak-time aspirations, the attempt to withhold payoff feels noble. The move also calls into question Scuba‘s feature credit, though his presence is immediately realized once the smog recedes, revealing a bit of the trademark bluster we’ve come to expect from the Hotflush honcho. Slightly less walloping than “Adrenaline” or “Loss,” the track still manages some of the to-and-fro momentum that can leave a big room feeling slathered. For her effort, vocalist Charlene Soraia is really the star here. Playing with the track’s dim-lit nature, she meanders in a manner that feels freestyled, coasting through the changes with a handful of false choruses before unloading on the drop. Bearing the track’s title, the hook is crafted to latch onto listeners’ frontal lobes, where it’ll hopefully reside for the remainder of the summer—not necessarily by their own accord, but rather as a result of hearing it played out every damn weekend.

Of the included remixes, George FitzGerald‘s is easily the victor, perhaps even trumping the original in dancefloor clout. Shearing the fat from the front end, he at once manages to elongate the glorifying hook across the track’s runtime and to knock it from its head-high perch into the nose-down nether. It’s not all too removed from what we’ve come to expect from the London upstart, but given his recent scalding streak, it’s difficult to complain. Taking into consideration its title and the inclusion of ominous chopper-circling-overhead effects, Scuba’s “Dub of Doom” ends up sounding surprisingly staid, only flicking a slight bounce into FitzGerald’s equation. For those deriding Paul Rose’s plug-and-play formula of the past couple of years, this will only add more fodder to the fire. The wildcard of the lot, mostly in a geological sense, is Hercules and Love Affair. The New York outfit occupies the diva-driven land of the original and as such, one would expect the group to attempt to inject some life into the track’s remaining parts. Yet, like the others, this remix too merely adheres to the refrain, soaping Soraia into a Debbie Harry-like lather and padding her with a dainty organ riff that too quickly dissolves into synth-squelch territory.

One the whole, “Beam Me Up” is largely inoffensive, which is precisely why it’s likely to get picked apart in the coming months. A batch of remixes that truly rinsed the original into divergent realms would’ve went a ways towards remedying this, but to hear one is to hear them all. And while this can be read as a credit to Soraia’s overarching standout contribution, the rest largely plays more like a head fake than any sort of “step away.”

Mixpak Announces Dancehall EP Produced by Douster

The label helmed by Brooklyn DJ/producer Dre Skull, Mixpak has just announced its first vocal EP of the year, a record called Inna Style N Fashion which was produced by the versatile, globetrotting Douster. Featuring a different young Jamaican vocalist on each of the EP’s four cuts—including the likes of Beenie Man-affiliated singer Kantana—the upcoming EP showcases a classic dancehall sound in the vein of Ward 21 and South Rakkas Crew with plenty of island-pop and house influence. Inna Style N Fashion will be out on May 14; its tracklist and artwork can be perused below.

1. Kantana – Dollar Sign
2. Kari Jess – Like A Genie
3. Keida – Never Lose
4. Cee Gee – Wine

Rachael Boyd “You Need to Stop Looking (Sun Glitters Remix)”*Abandon Building*

It’s hard to pigeonhole Rachael Boyd‘s sound, as she hits an off-kilter sweet spot between orchestral composition and hard, snare-driven beats that are devoted to details. That description may raise a few eyebrows, but, surprisingly enough, her concoctions manage to hold together. They are also a natural fit for Luxembourg-based producer Sun Glitters (a.k.a. Victor Ferreira, pictured above), who lends his lush, low-end heavy sounds to Boyds’ forthcoming tune “You Need to Stop Looking.” His take is heavy on left turns: “You Need to Stop Looking (Sun Glitters Remix)” pushes an off-balance beat, Boyd’s voice on loop, and symphonic swells before shifting gears in the track’s closing half to make way for an understatedly beautiful acoustic outro. Sun Glitters’ remix will be featured on Rachael Boyd’s forthcoming Too High EP, which will also feature remixes from Kelpe and other when it drops in May via Abandon Building.

You Need to Stop Looking (Sun Glitte

Opal Tapes Readies New Releases; Preview Them Now

Opal Tapes has been making waves in the world of underground dance music for a short while now, steadily building an impeccably curated discography of scuffed, lo-fi house in process. Keeping up its prodigious release schedule, the label has just announced another batch of five cassettes that flirt with the ever murkier boundaries between electronic dance music and experimental noise. In addition to releases by S Olbricht, Nikolai, and Rejections, this latest batch features a tape from Berlin noise-techno producer Shapednoise and the fascinating Mexico-via-Brooklyn sound collagist/producer Naka Naka. Samples from all five tapes—which will be available to order soon—can be streamed below, and be sure to check out Opal Tapes’ already extensive back catalog on Bandcamp, here. (via Juno Plus)

Check Out New Mixes from Grouper and Solomun

Portland’s avant-folk rambler Grouper (a.k.a. Liz Harris) and the house-inclined Diynamic co-boss Solomun (a.k.a. Mladen Solomun) both unveiled new mixes today, following residencies at Bristol’s Cube and Ibiza venues Sankeys and Pacha, respectively. Sonically, the two mixes couldn’t be more further apart, but with each one clocking in under an hour, both mixes are easily digestible. “The best thing about being alive,” proclaims a disembodied voice at the start of Grouper’s mix for FACT, “is that you can still wish you were dead.” Going by the title Image of True Death, Harris’ mix rarely ventures outside of the ambient folk synthesis she’s perfected on her records, featuring a couple of hard-to-find folk tunes in addition to scattered lullabies, orchestral pieces, and what could very well be an unreleased Grouper song. There’s no tracklist for the mix, but it can be streamed and downloaded here.

Appearing today on Resident Advisor, Solomun’s mix consists of 30 tracks carefully selected and mixed live at his Hamburg-based club Ego. The result is a lively DJ set that meticulously represents the producer’s dancefloor outings, and precedes Solomun’s 12-hour open air residency at Burn Studios on May 18. In the meantime, his mix is available for download via Resident Advisor, here.

Pinch Launches New Label, Shares New Mix

Genre-bending dubstep producer Pinch recently announced the launch of his new label, Cold Recordings, sharing with the news a DJ set crafted as a taste of what’s to come. Already having three labels to his name—Tectonic, ‘Earwax, and Subtext—the Bristolian artist is certainly no stranger to running an imprint, and Cold will continue his fostering of the UK’s ever-evolving hybrid bass sounds with its first release from Cardiff producer Elmono. The brand-new “Baton Rouge” b/w “Shadows on the Moon” 12″ draws inspiration from all sides of the bass music spectrum, capturing that introspective sweet spot where techno, garage, and dubstep meet. Head to the Cold website for a free download of Pinch’s latest mix, featuring plenty of forthcoming Cold material, and check out previews of Elmono’s new tunes below.

Sizlak “The Way I Feel”**

The latest effort to come from the steadily growing, Urulu-helmed Amadeus imprint is the Bresiln & Sizlak EP (artwork above), a split effort between Nottingham residents Joe Breslin and Sizlak. To spread word of the record’s release today, the latter producer has offered up a bonus cut, the slippery “The Way I Feel,” which begins as a simple piece of skipping garage before moving into more low end-focused territory. Armed with rising bass notes, a host of FX, and a good sense for structure, Sizlak’s one-off freebie makes for an impressive six minutes of audio while serving as an effective nod to his new EP (preview after the jump), where another Sizlak solo effort can be found alongside Breslin’s own solo cut, a collaboration between the two, and a remix by the hands of fellow Nottingham producer Animist.

The Way I Feel

Listen to Maceo Plex’s ‘DJ-Kicks’ Mix

Deep-house mainstay Eric Estornel has kept busy in the past few years, running his burgeoning Ellum Audio imprint, reviving his Maetrik moniker, and readying Maceo Plex’s installment for !K7‘s DJ-Kicks series. As we reported in February, the mix features 10 edits from Maceo Plex and the unreleased “Galactic Cinema” (stream that here), in addition to tunes from Voice Stealer, S.A.M., DJ Stingray313, and others. Now, that anticipated DJ set can be streamed in full. While Maceo Plex’s mix isn’t going to be released for another week, it’s nonetheless streaming in full here, courtesy of Resident Advisor.

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