Out of the recent tide of new labels clogging the shelves, Sonic’s Space imprint is one of the few to have successfully carved out its own niche rather than touting the same threadbare platinum breaks. Here, Sonic & Silver offer two more majestic pieces, in which zero-gravity grooves tumble within an empirical hue of interweaving melodies. Recommended.
Agent K Feed the Cat
As New Forms was to drum & bass in 1997, so Feed The Cat is to broken beat in 2003. Like Roni Size, West London’s Kaidi Tatham (a.k.a. Agent K) is his scene’s most classically minded head, a producer whose album wears its fusion-jazz influence proudly on its sleeve. Tatham’s sultry LP (first released last year in England) delivers handsomely on the promise of its singles, as the boardsman drips cascading keys and honeyed vocal refrains over a bed of prickly polyrhythmic tines. Indeed, dancing to these tunes is like sleeping on a bed of nails-tricky and euphoric all at once.
Zombie Nation Absorber
Germany’s Zombie Nation could stake a claim as the antithesis of the high-fashion, theatrical element of Fischerspooner, with its faux horror-stage sets featuring outlandish makeup, fake blood, dramatic vocals and severed legs. The man behind Zombie Nation is Splank (a.k.a. Florian Senfter), a Munich-based producer who literally came out of nowhere thanks to the huge European success of his debut track, “Kerncraft 400.” Now, nearly three years later, Splank has emerged with a very impressive album, Absorber, on his new imprint Dekathalon. It’s a modern electro album with style-albeit a very dark style-with intricate, tightly wound, almost mechanical arrangements incorporating bits of glitch, electro and techno. Fans of the Kompakt label or artists such as Chicken Lips will be especially pleased.
Various Electricity 2: An Electronic Pop Sampler
Much of the synth and electro-pop being churned out these days is more Déjà vu than a Wharhol exhibit in an old Campbell’s warehouse. We’ve seen and heard all this before. Modern-day covers of ’80s hits aside, there exists a fine line between originality and blatant rip-offs of 20-year-old synth-pop gems. Electricity 2 straddles that line, mixing moments of unique, blip-happy electro pop with grating synth muck. Highlights include Spray’s “Don’t You Know Who I Am?”, a sweeping, time-changing electro whirlwind, while Turd Ferguson’s smirking spoof of Miss Kittin on “Alan Cumming-Nightcrawler Mix” leaves you smiling. And don’t forget about Heaven 17’s new song, as well as fine works by Astromill, NukleoN and Soviet. Now where’d I stash my “Frankie Says Relax” t-shirt?
Various Sonic Rec Room
New York’s underground zine Repellent is an active purveyor of exploratory artistic expression, so it makes sense that the 16-track compilation Sonic Rec Room contains such a wide variety of largely experimental electronic music. Ranging from the fractal-laden warmth of Blurter’s “Parkonenlatz” and the 8-bit Gameboy shenanigans of Nullsleep, to the nursery-rhyme-gone-wrong “Run Through the Wind” by XAR (a.k.a. Michael Portney, the “Soy Bomb” guy who crashed Bob Dylan’s Grammy performance a few years ago), there’s truly something for everyone. Some of the tracks come off a little flat, but really, can you bear to miss out on Donna Summer (no, not the disco diva) mashing up loops of several highly recognizable guitar riff samples amidst glitchy breaks chaos? No, you can’t.
Benjamin Wild Wie Es Sein Wollte
Not necessarily material for the four-on-the-floor set, minimal techno is usually tricked out with burbling blurps, teensy percussive bits, crinkly keyboard quirks and lush, dubby beats. Such is the case for German producer Benjamin Wild’s latest full-length, Wie Es Sein Wolte. Wild keeps things fairly warm and peppy throughout most of the album’s 12 tracks, accented by smooth funk and dub. Yet there’s something lacking here, at least from an album perspective. While there are several tight tracks (such as “Rave Spleen,” the feathery “Flora De La Noche” or the raw funkiness of “112BPM_Rocker”), Wie doesn’t sustain its infectious element throughout the entire album.
Various Always Trying
While we all know that techno has never enjoyed the same kind of success in the US as it does in the rest of the world, it’s a good thing there are enough labels out there willing to support the genre. France’s Logistic Records, which has released a slew of minimal techno tracks in the last seven years, is celebrating its anniversary with the release of Always Trying, compiling and remastering what it considers to be its greatest tracks. Featuring several Detroit artists, including Octave One (with his relentlessly funky Working Night” mix), Robert Hood, Claude Young and Aril Brikha, as well as percussive-heavy tracks by Technasia, John Thomas and Fumiya Tanaka (but no Dan Bell?), Logistic is certainly puttin’ in work. Let’s hope they keep on trying.
DJ Zeph Florwax
Zeph has been demolishing dancefloors and making other DJs green with envy by playing the test-pressing of this single in clubs for the past month or so. Now the rest of us can finally have this ridiculously dope burner for ourselves. The track is discofied in a completely good way, with a nicely compressed bassline leading the headnodic charge. Add in great b-boy rhymes by Rashaan Ahmad, plus a high-quality b-side, and you’ve got one of the best 12-inches of the year.
People Undeer the Stairs Or Stay Tuned
Hear me out on this one: People Under the Stairs is the new Gangstarr. They’re not going to replace Gangstarr-no one can-but they’ve got the veteran duo’s same formula down pat, and consistency is their hallmark. This album gives you exactly what you’d expect from PUTS: entirely sample-based production with tons of soul, solid rhymes and a listening experience that won’t blow you away, but is nonetheless very pleasing for the hip-hop purist. If you’ve been digging hip-hop for a long time, it’ll be hard for you to not like this album.
Various Crash Redevelopment
Co.ad.audio is a new label cooked up by Brooklyn’s own Datach’i and Unit plus cohorts. Crash Redevelopment represents the ultramodern sound of the borough’s underground electronic contingent: dizzyingly artificial sound templates, wire-guided beats that twist around curves and fold themselves over with ease, and catchy melodies struggling for daylight in and among the noise. Unit melds expansive pads with percussive rattles for a contemplative-yet-mischevious feel; wingman Datach’i comes with drum patterns that would make Squarepusher’s head snap. Newcomer Velapene Screen closes out the comp in fine style with the midtempo ditty “Plastic Hamburger Hat.”
