Manchester’s Synkro jumped on remix duty for “So Bad,” a new track from Robot Koch’s Robots Don’t Sleep project—the results of which are as solid as one would expect from an artist who showed up twice in our list of the Top 100 Downloads of 2012. John LaMonica‘s sultry vocals, which featured prominently on Robot Koch’s The Other Side LP, enjoy the spotlight in the original version of “So Bad,” and while they still have a place in Synkro’s dub remix, he’s taken the R&B-indebted anthem down a notch; washed-out, trimmed-back vocals float atop of a velvet-smooth synthline while more clubby sounds bounce around in the upper registers. Look for more remixes from the likes Creep and Sun Glitters to appear with the rest of Robots Don’t Sleep’s self-titled EP when it drops on January 13 via Four Music.
“At the end of the day, there’s no instruction manual. We don’t have any answers.” So states Christina Wheeler during her mind-bending spoken-word performance halfway through Codes and Metaphors 2, the latest offering from Black Jazz Consortium (a.k.a. Fred Peterkin a.k.a. Fred P.). The song she’s speaking over is called “Be and Not Know,” a title whose indeterminacy seems to speak to the same philosophical stance Peterkin hinted at during an interview with Little White Earbuds three years ago when he said, “I don’t particularly have a theory for making music. Maybe that is my theory.” There’s probably something to that, as this four-track outing feels like the work of someone who has naturally, but not intentionally, managed to find new dimensions in a musical form that’s almost 30 years old.
This shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anybody. As a producer of genuinely original house music, Peterkin is matched by few others in the contemporary era. Like his peers on Underground Quality, his kind of innovation is subtle—it’s his application of small tweaks here and there combined with a willingness to look for inspiration outside of house that gives the producer his edge. Lately he’s been working on Codes and Metaphors, an album released in pieces as three 12″ EPs. We’ve already seen the first of this series, and the second one picks up where it left off. What’s different is that this newest edition adds a slight touch of techno psychedelia to what was already really good dance music.
Shifting swirls of piano chords and deeply reverberating bass introduce “Your Love feat. Lady Blacktronika.” It’s a natural progression from the ethereal vocals that end Codes and Metaphors 1, with an intimately romantic sensibility that retains some semblance of club readiness by finding a balance between dry percussion and effect-drenched vocals. Alternatively, Jus-Ed’s remix on the flipside dials down the atmospherics and punches up the low-end with diving, 8-bit buzz saws and an old-school snare that swings like Todd Terry in 1989.
Though the EP begins and ends soulfully, it’s what’s in between that really differentiates this second portion of the album. It’s techier than anything on part one, with two cuts that fuse aspects of techno and house without getting anywhere near the sort of slickness that usually defines that combination. For example, the first 40 seconds of “Heartrocks” are brought in with a four-on-the-floor that’s filled out by tough sounds that boom and crunch mechanically. Isolated, it would be a great DJ tool, but when let free, it develops through reversed pads into a sustained piece of trippiness. This totally “out there” vibe is carried even further on the aforementioned “Be and Not Know feat. Christina Wheeler,” with bizarre and glitchy shards of jazz swirling over short drum loops. Wheeler jumps in around the one-minute mark with an off-the-cuff spoken word that’s somewhere between grating and brilliant in the way that it evokes the thought patterns and uncertain conclusions induced by LSD. For the right dancefloor, this could easily be the kind of song that changes lives. For the wrong dancefloor, it’s an almost guaranteed purge. However, neither of these contexts changes the objective fact that the track—and the EP as a whole—is a very original work.
Yesterday, Mite dropped his “Pop” b/w “Time Stamp” single (artwork above) via the Party Guy label, and has sent over a bonus track which he produced with Broodlings, called “303 Tricks,” to celebrate. The powerful bassline drives the pair’s song, while other house elements—like an incoherent vocal clip, classic snare sounds, and pattering hand drums—support the hulking low end. After giving “303 Tricks” your undivided attention, you can also listen to Mite’s new single after the jump.
Securing an even bigger foothold at the crossroads of techno and pop, Berlin-based Italian duo Tale of Us returns to Life and Death for the Roman imprint’s latest offering. Lead track “Fresh Water” laces the staccato bounce of a rapid-fire bassline with sparsely placed and heavily truncated hints of acid. The smooth, poetic delivery of fellow Berliners The/Das verges on spoken word, as lead member Fabian Fenk injects the track’s choppy sturm und drang with brooding emotion and fluidity. Slow and steady, “Fresh Water” heats up to a boil of teetering strings, gurgling bass, and dramatic snare rolls, only to let it all go and settle down before a second movement. Ratcheting things up again, hi-hats click and dark synths drone, heightening the intensity ahead of Fenk’s farewell—a breathy series of vocal riffs that fade and echo away as the track drifts into its final moments. Tale of Us partners Matteo Milleri and Carmine “Karm” Conte often speak of instilling a deeper musicality into their productions without sacrificing dancefloor appeal in the process, and the mix of urgency, energy, and soul noir on “Fresh Water” faithfully communicates that; it’s a sentiment expressed across the entire EP.
Sounding almost like Endtroducing….-era DJ Shadow gone house in the dark and dreamy opening chords of “Life and Death,” Tale of Us teams with Milan’s Clockwork for the release’s second outing, an ode to its label. More linear than “Fresh Water,” “Life and Death” creeps along with padded drum beats and a vocal chanting, “It’s not between us and them but life and death,” again sung by The/Das’s Fenk. Though it technically falls within a tech-house framework, this track sidesteps club appeal, embracing an eerie, leftfield aesthetic of clamoring drums, echoing piano chords, and the muted plucking of a guitar. “Life and Death”‘s off-kilter techno-soul makes a strong case for what this unique label seems to be be seeking to achieve—namely, dance music that is at once menacing and infectious, and anything but the norm.
The EP’s final turn sees Tale of Us remix “Keep This,” originally by The/Das—and it’s quite possibly the first time the bellow of a hunter’s horn has been gracefully incorporated into the mix. Those blasts lead the charge for a strong closing track, as the song offers a beautifully melancholy blend of deep, walking bass, a shuffling brush beat, and the brief but cool wail of Fenk, who sounds like he’s singing underwater. Proceeding delicately, Tale of Us has “Keep This” humming with hypnotic textures, adding layers of French horn, light vocal ahhs, and plucky, soft-edged synths with little fanfare. Letting us down easy with equal parts late-night techno and mystical pop, the vision Milleri and Karm have put on display here proves to be one worth experiencing more often.
Not unlike his recent video for the excellent, XLR8R Pick’d “Straight & Arrow” single, New York house artist FaltyDL‘s playful clip for “She Sleeps,” a tune lifted from his forthcoming Hardcourage LP (out January 22 via Ninja Tune), focuses on the movements of an array of appendages. But instead of twitching hands and arms, this piece—directed by David Kaplan—shows us the jubilant dances of a troupe of roller skaters travelling through Central Park as DJ/producer Drew Lustman’s lush tune works out its bubbly grooves with the help of Friendly Fires singer Ed Macfarlane. It’s an infectious affair, so much so that even FaltyDL straps on a pair of skates by the end.
Last week, we informed XLR8R readers of a forthcoming collection of Kingdom-made VIPs set to arrive via the Fade to Mind label, and now, the nine-track effort is available to stream in full. Set to see a release as a limited-editon CD and 12″ tomorrow, the VIP Edition record—which includes such Kingdom classics as the man’s much-loved edit of Floetry’s “Say Yes”—can be streamed in its entirety below.
The Catz ‘n Dogz-helmed Pets imprint has revealed details of a forthcoming compilation, called Friends Will Carry You Too, which will drop early next year. The 30-plus-track collection pulls from some of the label’s more familiar faces—Tom Demac, A1 Bassline, Uffe, and, of course, Catz ‘n Dogz (pictured above)—while also incoporating an impressive list of like-minded contemporaries such as Breach, T. Williams, Trikk, Maribou State, Dave Aju, and many more. While no exact release date has been settled on yet, the label ensures that Friends Will Carry You Too (which is, in fact, a follow-up to the much smaller Friends Will Carry You compilation that the label released earlier this year) is set to drop sometime in March 2013. For now, you can peep the artwork and complete double-disc tracklist below.
CD 1 01 Squarehead “No One Has To Know” 02 Jay Shepheard “Right Reason” 03 Trikk “Floorwave” 04 Blckshp “Close To Mine” 05 Viadrina “Fake Light” 06 Catz ‘n Dogz “Mass Confusion (Eats Everything Remix)” 07 Friend Within “The Relate” 08 Billy Disney “Rum Punch” 09 A1 Bassline “Trip Over” 10 Breach & T. Williams “And Then We” 11 Rachel Row “Follow The Step” (Justin Martin Remix) 12 Rampa – Dirty Son 13 Lower Entrance “Unknown Variation (feat. Natalia Grosiak)” (Dave Aju Remix) 14 Simon Garcia “Control” 15 Tom Demac “Emerge (feat. Phil Kay)”
CD 2 01 Kixnare “Sun Touch” 02 Drrax “Red Turns To Green” (Eltron John Remix) 03 Eats Everything “Need (feat. Leah)” 04 Kamp! “Azure” 05 SLG “October” 06 Chmara Winter “Dive (feat. Vera D)” 07 Death on the Balcony “Time To Get Up (Edit)” 08 Catz ‘n Dogz “Starlight (feat. James Yuill)” 09 Lookleft & Bearight “Miss You” (dOP remix) 10 Maribou State & Pedestrian “Mask” 11 Uffe “Helsinki in Progress” 12 Good Paul “Realize (feat. Malenta)” 13 Till Von Sein & Tigerskin “In the Line of Fire” 14 Martin Dawson “Life (Edit)” 15 El_Txef_A “Hold Tight To Your Heart`s Desire” 16 Twilite “Hopin” (Bueno Bros. Remix)
Digital Exclusives: Mooryc “Pride” Adam Zasada “Destiny”
Aukland-based producers Sable and Forest Spirits have teamed up for the whimsical track “Take Care,” a production taken from their collaborative EP Carpooling. The melancholy tune evokes the mood of a foggy, country drive with its heavy reliance on bleary-eyed ambient textures and subdued bass patterns. Sable, who last appeared on XLR8R nearly two years ago, has favorably refocused his sound from club-ready sonics to more headphone-friendly material. You can stream and download the rest of the Carpooling EP for free, after the jump.
Berlin duo Barker & Baumecker has unvieled a cleverly psychedliec video for “Databass133?,” the shortest track to appear on the pair’s XLR8R Pick’d Transsektoal LP from earlier this year. Directed by the same man responsible for the dying—and eventually enflamed—bouquet of flowers found in the video for xxxy’s “I Know This Can’t Be Love,” David Richards, Barker & Baumecker’s tune is accompanied by the slow and ghostly formations of homemade crystals. Apparently, Richards cooked them up in his kitchen using “empty pesto jars” and “a normal table lamp.” (via FACT)
Today, rising producer—and recent Bubblin’ Up-featured artist—South London Ordnance offered up a new track for free download as part of FACT‘s ongoing 2012 Advent Calendar. Like most things from the South Londoner, “Dune” is hard to pin down in exact terms. The tune is impressively dense and enveloping, but just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, SLO throws in an acid-tweaked lead and keeps us guessing. You can stream/download “Dune” via the player below.
