Hironori Takahashi “Kyres”

In anticipation of his forthcoming EP from London’s Aconito label, Tokyo-based techno producer Hironori Takahashi has released this stone-cold track just in time for the winter months to come upon us. From the beginning of “Kyres” (which will not appear on the EP), it feels like you’ve been shrunk and placed inside some sort of perfectly efficient techno machine, one driven by an intense kick and snare accompanied by clicky percussion and a deep bassline, all of which pulse consistently. The only glimpse we get of the outside world are the the muffled atmospheric field recordings that float atop the tune’s dark, rhythmic core. Takahashi’s EP, Gaia’s Archetype, will be released on vinyl November 22 and features two new tracks along with an edit from Aconito label head nAX_Acid. Check the tracklist after the jump.

Tracklist:
A1. Serv
A2. Outgass (nAX_Acid Edit)
B1. Outgass

Kyres

Video: Braiden “The Alps”

It’s one of Mary Anne Hobbs’ favorite tunes of the year. It’s the next record dropping on Joy Orbison’s Doldrums label. It’s the first single to come from photographer-cum-producer Steve Braiden. It’s called “The Alps,” and before it’s even released, it seems to have become as massive as the mountain range that provides its name. Here, the bounding, icy tune is given a dark video of vintage, black-and-white footage from some nuclear power plant of sorts. We’re not sure how the imagery correlates with the music (Maybe the intent is to somehow convey the bottled energy that throbs within Braiden’s track?), but regardless, only about half of the production makes the cut before everything fades out. We’ll be sure to catch the remaining four minutes when “The Alps” 12″ drops on November 22.

a. d. l. r. “Wisp”

It’s good to hear a lot of Southern California’s young music makers challenging the local scene that many of them are inextricably linked to, and doing so to a point where we music critics may have to ditch any comparisons to their hometown peers altogether. Laguna Beach-born Nicholas Morera (a.k.a. a. d. l. r.) eschews all ‘beat scene’ trademarks for a unique sound driven by atmosphere, experimentation, and, seemingly, randomness. His “Wisp” track, taken from the forthcoming Foam on the Waves of Space-Time… album (coming January 11 on Non Projects), sounds like Morera snagging a potpourri of disparate audio clips and letting them run wild through a gauntlet of effects and analog processing. The song is certainly ambient and gelatinous in its structure, but here and there, a. d. l. r. introduces a jarring smash of rhythmic sounds—effectively giving the composition something to anchor its weightless husk to.

Wisp

oOoOO: Christopher Greenspan Joins the New Wave of Ethereal Electro-Pop Makers While Sidestepping the Name Game.

San Francisco producer Christopher Greenspan wants to make sure that people don’t mistake his moniker (spelled oOoOO, but simply pronounced “oh”) as an intentional act. “Actually, I hate the name,” he says, cradling a cup of tea at a local cafe. “It got me grouped in with other obscure, unpronounceable names, which then got me grouped into the ‘witch house’ genre. In reality, the name came from when I was putting songs on MySpace, and I just put in a bunch of Os.”

While Greenspan’s ethereal productions may occasionally share heavy, manipulated hip-hop beats and dragging, distorted synths with other so-called witch-house artists, Greenspan tends toward samples and airy vocals to guide his melodies. “What I do is poppy electronica, in my mind,” he says. “It’s not a clear aesthetic that I was trying to achieve. Some people say they hear songs in their head, whereas for me, it’s a lot of hours of experimentation.” For example, with a track like “Mumbai,” an Indian-tinged piece from his self-titled debut EP on Tri Angle, “everything started with a drum track, just playing it on a loop and experimenting with synths over it,” he explains. “I thought it was almost done, but then I put the vocal sample in, and I think that’s the strongest part of the song.”

“Mumbai”

Though this process explains why Greenspan might not be as prolific as his contemporaries, he admits that “there’s definitely a lot of pressure to compromise the amount of time and thus the quality of what I’m putting out.” While an LP is in the works, it might take more than a year to create nine songs, he reasons. Even in the here and now, Greenspan feels the pressure to keep pumping out remixes: “I’ve been doing some stuff for major-label artists where there’s a clear deadline. They’re offering a lot of money, and I can use the money, but sometimes I’m not feeling it after a couple of weeks, and I have to turn in something I’m not happy with.”

While these might seem like the regular growing pains of an emerging producer, it’s clear that Greenspan is sincere in his self-imposed demands for quality. “I played in a lot of other peoples’ bands for years, but at some point, I just decided to do my own thing,” he says. “I like a lot of leftfield electronica along with radio pop music, and I felt like people weren’t combining the two in a satisfying way.” But with his juxtaposition of gauzy synth work, otherworldly vocal elements, and chunky beats, Greenspan is definitely meeting his own demands, as well as pleasing fans of weird electronic music, no matter what silly name journalists want to give it.

oOoOO is out now on Tri Angle.

Panasonic Confirms the End of Technics Turntables

DJs the world over will be mourning the news that Panasonic has officially announced that production of Technics turntables ended this fall. Last month we posted that Panasonic had planned to discontinue the Technics SL-1200MK6 analog turntable, the SH-EX1200 analog audio mixer, the RP-DH1200, and RP-DJ1200 stereo headphones, and now comes the news that the entire line of Technics turntables has been shut down. The surge of digital DJ equipment is seen as the culprit by Panasonic, whose PR people said in a statement, “…the number of component suppliers serving the analogue market has dwindled in recent years and we brought forward the decision to leave the market rather than risk being unable to fulfill future orders because of a lack of parts.” Ouch. We’ll let you know of any candlelight vigils or processions in honor of the turntables that have faithfully served analog DJs for as long as we can remember. For the full press release and details check the Resident Advisor article.

Listen to a Live Performance From FaltyDL in London

As we saw briefly in this recent video interview with FaltyDL (not to mention his set at this year’s Decibel Festival), the DJ/producer holds his own quite well in a live setting, so we’re certainly more than willing to catch his DJ sets in any capacity. FACT posted a live recording of DL’s performance at the Heaven club in London, and it’s certainly a doozy. The whole thing kicks off with “Re-Schooling,” one of our favorite Lone tunes from his new club-friendly production work, and moves quickly into bouts of UK funky, garage, techno, and other bass musics, with plenty of surprises in between. You can stream the whole performance in the player below.

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Teengirl Fantasy “Dancing in Slow Motion (Brenmar Remix)”

What’s beautiful about Teengirl Fantasy‘s original “Dancing in Slow Motion” is that, for a song borne of a gritty, DIY, electronic dance music ethos, it packs a whole lot of emotional punch on both the lyrical and musical fronts, and keenly harks back to a time when dance producers gave a shit about telling a story through song (our hats tipped to Shannon’s “Let the Music Play,” and the whole of ’80s Miami freestyle). Problem is, you can’t actually dance to it. So in steps remixer extraordinaire Brenmar (a.k.a. Bill Salas, pictured above, who also provided us with this week’s killer podcast) to change all that. Not only does Salas give Light Asylum front lady Shannon Funchess’ harrowing, heartrending vocals the full-on diva treatment they deserve (worthy of that other dance queen Shannon) but he also kicks the beat up a notch and rearranges the tune with sizzling pads and an all-around warmth, shuffle, and bounce, which he’s managed to bring to more than a few R&B tunes as of late.

Dancing In Slow Motion (Brenmar Remix)

Baths to Tour North America Next Year

The creator of one of this year’s most rewarding and melodic beat-related albums , Will Wiesenfeld (a.k.a. Baths), follows up the release of his lovely Cerulean (not to mention his inclusion in our beat-scene feature) with a headlining tour across North America. Along with Braids and Star Slinger, the rhythm-loving producer will take to the nation’s roads, traveling throughout February and the beginning of March to play in Texas, the Carolinas, New York, Montreal, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and many more fine locales. You can find the whole list of upcoming concert dates below.

2/4 The Nightmare, Dallas, TX
2/5 The Mohawk, Austin, TX
2/7 The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA
2/8 Club Downunder, Tallahassee, FL
2/9 New Brookland Tavern, Columbia, SC
2/10 Duke University Duke Coffeehouse, Durham, NC
2/11 Rock and Roll Hotel, Washington, DC
2/12 Knitting Factory, Brooklyn, NY
2/13 Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia, PA
2/16 Mercury Lounge, New York, NY
2/17 Brighton Music Hall, Allston, MA
2/18 Il Motore, Montreal, QC
2/21 Skully’s Music Diner, Columbus, OH
2/22 The Canopy, Urbana, IL
2/23 Gabe’s, Iowa City, IA
2/24 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN
2/25 Der Rathskellar at the University of Wisconsin Union Directorate, Madison, WI
2/26 Subterranean, Chicago, IL
3/1 Chop Suey, Seattle, WA
3/2 Hollocene, Portland, OR
3/4 Rickshaw Shop, San Francisco, CA
3/5 Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA

Talk “Holy Mountain”

US producer Talk (a.k.a. Daniel Lewis) claims to either be from “darklands” or “rave cave,” neither of which may lead you to his real-life Southern origins. Earlier this week, Talk released his first EP, Holy Mountain, on Jason Forrest’s and Jubilee’s Berlin-based Nightshifters label. Talk’s purported origins in “darklands” may seem incongruous to the South’s sunny weather, yet his music certainly has an ominous disposition. For instance, here on the EP’s title track, eerie, flute-driven interludes give way to acerbic synths and the sunken drums of UK funky. Holy Mountain also features two other Talk originals alongside remixes from LOL Boys, Skinnz, and Distal. He’s also made a video for his song “Burning Alive,” which you can check out after the jump.

Holy Mountain

Holy Mountain

Check Out Pictureplane’s New ‘Dimensional Rip’ Mix

When he’s not inciting internet drama and ‘to mix or not to mix’ debates, as he did so effortlessly on his recent podcast for us, Colorado DJ/producer Pictureplane likes to spend his time tearing our dimension to shreds in a variety of different ways. As the mixmaster also known as Travis Edegy put it on his blog, “I have been conducting magical social experiments under the guise of ‘dimensional rip,’ as a way of altering the reality of both myself and the world (universe) at large, attempting to tear open and manipulate the fabric of reality, basically.” So, his latest rip comes to us in the form of a mixtape, featuring 11 obscure happy hardcore and jungle tunes slowed down to the artist’s liking. And judging by the usual tempo of those genres compared to the general pace of his 40-plus-minute mix, Edegy tweaked these old-school rave jams to a considerable degree. You can download Pictureplane’s Happy Slowcore Mixhere, and check out the full tracklist below. We even included some of the original versions down there—you know, for fun.

1. Dyewitness “Masterplan”
2. Nature One “Sense of Live (Video Mix)”
3. Para-Dizer “Song of Liberation (Exit EEE Remix)”
4. Brothers in Crime “Forever”
5. DJ Hixxy and Bananaman “Together Forever”
6. Star Wash “Strong Like a Lion”
7. Mystical Units “Positively Evil”
8. Atomik “Battle of the Sattelites”
9. Industrial “Renegade”
10. DJ DR J “Rock Me Journey”
11. Definition of Sound “What Are You Under”

Nature One “Sense of Live (Video Mix)”

Star Wash “Strong Like a Lion”

Definition of Sound “What Are You Under”

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