Numbers head honcho and all-around UK dance-music ace Jackmaster has announced plans for a month long stateside tour starting this week. The stretch of performances kicks off with an extensive list of appearances at both SXSW and Miami’s Winter Music Conference, after which Jackmaster will then join Skream and Benga as they wind their way around the East Coast and parts of the Midwest. For the full list of dates, check out the flier below.
The Brighton-based Donky Pitch imprint recently issued the third EP in its trilogy of free releases, Hyaline (artwork above). This final installment comes courtesy of Moscow, a fellow Brighton resident who offers up five tracks of synth-soaked beat work to end the series. “Mind Shine” is taken right from the middle of the effort, and is a hip-hop indebted tune that finds a bombastic middle ground between Southern rap and the SoCal beat scene. Moscow also throws in touches of space-age boom-bap, the sort that seems to be escaping from the island of Britain more and more these days. You can cop Moscow’s Hyaline EP, along with releases from Boss Kite and Ghost Mutt, for the small price of your email address over on the Donky Pitch Bandcamp.
Last month, news broke that Finnish duo Renaissance Man had enlisted a fleet of top-notch producers for a new remix album, which has since been dubbed Remix Project. The 10-track collection, which officially drops on March 19 via Turbo, includes reworks of tracks from last year’s The Renaissance Man Project by an impressive slate of artists that includes Matthew Herbert, Joakim, Teeth, Paul Woolford, Locked Groove, Dexter, and more. That information alone would be enough to get most people excited, but Turbo has elected to tease everyone a bit more by passing along a stream of the remix LP in its entirety.
François Boulanger has been making drugged-out electronic music longer than most might realize. Based in Liège, Belgium, the producer has remained unnaturally prolific since he first started out with the name Kingfisherg about 10 years ago, quietly releasing bits of crunchy IDM via the now-defunct Carte Postale imprint and cassette label Wigflip. And yet Boulanger has only more recently began garnering international attention for the drifty, experimental beats he crafts under his two currently active monikers, Ssaliva and Cupp Cave. Now more than ever, people seem to be listening to—and enjoying—the wealth of music Boulanger creates, and as his quality releases and subsequent accolades start to pile up, it would appear that his moment could very well be right around the corner.
“I’ve been making stuff as Ssaliva for a bit more than a year, now,” the artist explains. “Cupp Cave started around 2006, I’d say.” It’s true; Discogs lists 2008 as the year Cupp Cave’s first full-length, Garbage Pail Beats, arrived, and Mercury Coast, the first offering from Ssaliva for the Surf Kill label (a joint endeavor he runs along with friends Dynooo and Nosedrip), apparently dropped on February 1, 2011. Be that as it may, neither project really started taking off until later that year, when Matthewdavid’s Leaving Records unveiled Ssaliva’s Thought Has Wings cassette and Vlek pressed the Dice Pool 10″ for Cupp Cave. The support from multiple labels could appear sudden or random to outsiders, but for Boulanger, it was all a long time coming. “I’ve been chatting with Matthewdavid for ages now, even before the first Cupp Cave [record] got released.” He elaborates, “I’ve always been a big fan of both his music and Leaving Records. As for Vlek, those guys [have been] good friends for quite a while.”
Despite the clear lines drawn between Boulanger’s two production aliases, their ever-expanding output can often be somewhat difficult to differentiate by mere listening. Cupp Cave does tend to gravitate toward higher bpms than Ssaliva, but both projects still rely heavily on slowed-down samples, wavering synth tones, a gritty sonic aesthetic, and vintage inspirations and source materials. A track like “Crayola” sounds like the kind of psychedelic house Boulanger might release as Cupp Cave, and the ’80s-tinged “Bable” jam wouldn’t have been totally of place on an early Ssaliva tape. For the producer, however, it all boils down to method. “As for Cupp Cave, it’s mainly the laptop [I use], [but] when I started Ssaliva, I was kind of sick of the laptop, so I started messing with loopers and a four-track porta-studio,” he says. “In the end, I still use those, but also samplers and synths.”
It’s that handmade, analog-centric style of producing that brought about this year’s excellent RZA EP, Boulanger’s latest release as Ssaliva. Well, those methods in addition to the inspiration of his friends and musical peers, who he currently lives with in Liège. “I’ve always made music alone, in a place quite far from any distractions, so the fact that I’m surrounded by people making all sorts of things all day is really refreshing. Wanda Group, Dynooo, and Sagat; all those guys inspire me a lot.”
When asked what he’s currently working on, Boulanger says, “I’ve been working a lot on the visual elements to go along with the music, lately. Lots of video experimentations.” Case in point: the murky clip for “Mental Ray” (below), a cut from his forthcoming Ssaliva record for Surf Kill, Sextape Hiss. He also shares that there are new tunes on the way from Vlek and the latest addition to the roster of labels he works with, Ramp, the latter of which will take the form of a Cupp Cave mini-album called Retina Waves. We’ve been anticipating its imminent release on April 9 for what feels like forever, but Boulanger often and without forewarning drops unreleased music on both Ssaliva’s and Cupp Cave’s SoundCloud accounts, so that helps satiate our hunger for his dusty tunes. Suffice it to say, Boulanger’s creativity is restless, and by the time his new albums arrive, the producer will undoubtedly have another year’s worth of syrupy beats and vibrant dreamscapes ready to unload in whatever ways he sees fit. Finishing up his preview of what’s in the works, the artist adds one more important item to the list: “Oh, much slower tempos, too.”
Named after the year he fell in love with electronic music (1988) and the coinciding sound he aligns himself with, Italian producer Deep88 has been crafting tracks and releasing vinyl efforts on his label—which also operates under the Deep88 handle—from similarly minded artists for a while now. Here, we have an original production that he’s offered up, one that stays true to the first part of the artist’s moniker with a subdued, rolling bassline and a swung groove of the sort found in classic Midwestern house. Atop this rhythmic structure, Deep88 showers the tune with gentle, swirling pads and a brief appearance by an effected vocal sample that brings it all together.
It was almost a year ago when we posted the original version of Auntie Flo‘s “Highlife.” Now, we’ve got our hands on a reworked version of the percussion-heavy house track from UK resident Sophie, who spins the tune into much brighter territory with an array of gliding synth melodies and bubbling percussion. Sophie’s remix is joined by reworks of another Auntie Flo tune, “Oh My Days,” from Alejandro Paz and Pearson Sound on the Auntie Flo Remixed EP (artwork above), which is out today. After giving Sophie’s twist of “Highlife” a listen below, you can stream a preview of Pearson Sound’s “Oh My Days” re-fix after the jump.
The master of elongated pieces of techno, Ricardo Villalobos (pictured above), has delivered not one, but two remixes for Rush Hour artist San Proper, which will appear on a forthcoming 12″. Each side of the vinyl hosts a Villalobos rework of “Animal,” the title track from Proper’s forthcoming debut LP for the imprint—including a dub version of the tune which clocks in over 14 minutes and a “more upbeat 10-minute club mix” on the b-side. The single is set to drop in vinyl format on March 23, and will be followed shortly thereafter by a digital release on April 9. Before then, you can check out the intense artwork, along with a preview of each of Villalobos’ productions, below.
“Animal (Ricardo Villalobos Club Mix)”
“Animal (Ricardo Villalobos Dub Mix)”
Though it won’t be released until March 20, Pretty Ugly, the debut album by UK producer DVA, has been streaming online for a few days, and now we’re treated to the first video to surface from it, for “Eye Know (feat. Natalie Maddix).” The piece features the Hyperdub signee holding a flashlight in the dark next to singer Natalie Maddix, as colorful haze and flickering lights wash over their faces. Apparently, the two made this video during a power outage in London, which perfectly fits the tune’s dark and sultry sound. You can read more about DVA and his forthcoming album in an interview that appeared today over on the The Quietus.
Blunted Robots boss man and Rinse FM regular Brackles delivered an excellent mix of old-school garage tunes in anticipation for London’s annual Lovebox festival. Lovebox Jukebox #14 is a 41-minute trip down memory lane via loads of classic tunes, all handpicked and mixed with loving care by the UK mixmaster. There’s no tracklist available, but you can stream the whole thing in the player below. (via FACT)
Last month, Los Angeles outfit Virtual Boy dropped its debut self-titled full-length via Alpha Pup, and now, the pair has passed along a slightly unsettling video for the album cut “Memory of a Ghost.” While the visuals follow the symbolic adventure of a faceless child, the music exists somewhere between a slice of tender beat work and a brooding head-nodder—complete with a robot-esque vocal that teeters on the verge of cheese, but somehow ends up making sense in the context of the song.
