Already grooving as well as Neu! or Konk, this kraut-no-wave-surfing quartet follows up its “Eye Contact” single with two other savory tunes and their remixes. “Don’t Stop” gets a stripped-down, Lower East Side workout from Death Comet Crew’s Stuart Argabright, while “Windmill”‘s motorik dual-bassline desert-drive disco chug gets a dub-disco freakout from Matmos’s Drew Daniel. An album from these guys is gonna mean lights-out for a lot of you wankers.
Iken Image Of A Drawn Sword
East English knob twiddler Iken catches you off-guard by infusing a midtempo techno rhythm with some stumbling beats and a bluesy piano riff for the title track of this 10-inch. Flip it and you get the easy quasi-schaffel of “Early Light” and the industrial-age chamber music of Estuary. Really lovely stuff.
K.I.M. Kim Kong
How does reputedly mysterious freak-cult K.I.M. top a noisy, shuffling, 3/4 time ’80s-ish remix by Chicken Lips’ Andy Meecham of their breathy disco/EBM insta-classic “Kim Kong”? Simple: by sticking the crunchy, desperate “Sex Beat” from 1981 by L.A. punk idols Gun Club on the vinyl as an extra track. Now you’re talkin’ some outside shit.
Monolake Cern [Edit]
Techno’s rudiments remain unsafe in the coldly calculating hands of Robert Henke, as he’s shown on his recent Momentum full-length. Here, he does the DJ a favor by offering up both a longer edit of the drum-&-bass-tempo “Cern” on the title track, and a flipside expansion of “White,” which adds another breakdown or two to the icy, crumbling, minimalist proceedings. Sublime.
Slaughter Mob Saddam
That the Mob seem to have rather carelessly titled a Mideast-flavored grimage track after one of the few Arab names many Westerners know can be overlooked, cuz, well, it’s bad-ass. That floating flute, that mega-shuffling riddim, that brapping bass…who can resist? Same goes for the soundclash sample-infected dancehall twister “Dub Weapon,” the stripped-down and subdued “Thriller Funk,” and the creeping speed-dub of “Zombie.” An auspicious UK garage debut, to say the least.
Geeneus The Journey Remix
Oris Jay presents a different side of himself on his remix of East London baddie Geeneus’s jam, drumming up a thumpy bit of breakstep, with a two-note bassline and an unstable-voice keyboard line in the breakdown. On the flip, Shimano’s remix brings a classy drum & bass feel. Well done.
Circuit Breaker & Deckart Supa!
Berlin boy Jochem Breaker follows up the red-hot “I Tell the DJ” on Dangerous Drums with this funky-ass collab with his man Deckart (of Fab Factory) for his own Viper Jive imprint. The title track nicely sprinkles a Supercat sample throughout a driving, keyboard-infused, classic-sounding breakbeat jam, while the flip’s “Stabbin'” unfolds the breaks to a jumpy, more old-school 4/4 mode, done with a solid, studied panache.
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone Twinkle Echo
San Francisco’s Casiotone adopts the same tone of confessional melancholy that made the Postal Service’s debut so gripping. And even though Twinkle Echo is a rawer and less graceful record than Give Up, it does have similar charms, with noisy, glitch-pop backings tenderly touched by Owen Ashworth’s emotronic vocals, which are alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking. If you like long road-trips, cardigans, late-night phone calls, the Smiths and teen angst, then Twinkle Echo will play like a 30-minute love letter straight to your soul.
Various Artists Themselves: The No Music Remixed
This remix album of The No Music by indie-hoppers Themselves (the pairing of Doseone and Jel) sounds like your grandpa after a particularly large Sunday dinner. It’s full of gurgles and creaks, drums that sound like heart palpitations and bass sounds that come farting out of the speakers in artful patterns. What’s nice is that it lacks the droning boom-bap that even the most oddball hip-hop can’t step away from-Jel’s breaks and Doseone’s elliptical raps are swept into the sampler and redone into lo-fi guitar sauce, ear-splitting gabber, and Renaissance Fair glitch by such names as the Notwist, Hood and Hrvatski. Tasty, and sometimes tasteless.
Various Artists Fabric Live 13: J Magik
Infrared label head and erstwhile Metalheadz pin-up boy J Magik delivers a mix for Fabric that bounces up and down like a crazy fairground ride. An excellent document of the current jump-up revival sound, the tightly wound rhythms flow from Tali’s uplifting “High Hopes” through the brilliant techno/rave madness of Baron and Total Science’s “Monkey See Monkey Do,” from Hold Tight’s housey stormer “925” through the awesome punk rock pounding of Dillinja’s “Fast Car.” Maximum bassline pressure for home, car or carnival.
