Four of London’s underground hip-hop stars throw down about their city’s summer party doings over some plucky rare-groove beats by Titan Sounds owners Mickle and Skitz, while singer Est’elle croons out the chorus. Even if the lyrics are a bit local, you should at least grab this for the bangin’ instrumental.
Dust Where You Wanna Be (Roots Manuva Remix)
Your man in London, Rodney Smith, puts the funk into cinematic dream-rockers Dust’s little jammy-jam with scratches, thunky beats, some West Coast-gone-haywire high-register keyboard noise, and some of those puke on “Babylon”-style lyrics, ya see? Hard, strange and irresistable.
Matsai He Boomah
Newcomer Matthieu Hourteillan brings it for French label Missive, with some subtle, pulsing, midtempo treats that rotate some hardy ragga and soul vocal samples and bits of sitar around stealthy breaks ‘n’ bass. German duo Tiefschwarz gives it the obligatory house rub, et voila, a nice one.
The Gas man Remedial
Christopher Adam Reeves (a.k.a. The Gasman) apparently derives his recordings from cut-up old classical reel-to-reel tapes which he further mutates via a cheap PC. Around half his tracks have precedents in late-’80s/early-’90s rave, but Remedial particularly intrigues when The Gasman’s music-making process produces ghostly aberrations not dissimilar to the reprocessed 1930s ballroom music on The Caretaker’s Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom. With their warped, lingering trace-memories of the original sound-sources, these dense, neo-classical pieces have a strange and eerie potency. Why Reeves names tracks after a chemical treatment for head lice, a pre-colonoscopy bowel-cleansing preparation, and an abnormal duct from an abscess isn’t, however, immediately apparent.
Matt Elliot The Mess We Made
Revealing a fondness for drifting in and out of sleep that he shares with My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, Matt Elliott claims that most of his ideas are derived from hypnogogic or hypnopompic conditions-respectively, the partially conscious states of drowsiness experienced before sleeping or awakening. From this somnolence, Elliott crafts the most beautiful but unnerving recordings. For the most part eschewing the clattering breakbeats of his previous Third Eye Foundation project in favor of mournful and warped chamber music, Elliott frequently deploys his own eerily stretched and indistinct vocals. This decision to foreground his own voice-self may explain why Elliott has chosen to release music under his own name rather than exhume his former alter-ego.
Bolz Bolz Warrior EP
After two years off, Bolz Bolz re-emerges to outline the future of his new style. “Do What You Do” and “Chance” are new-school dancefloor electro tracks paired with Bolz Bolz’s sensitive analog sound structures. The flipside offers the 4/4 “Who’d She Coo” and “2nd Chance,” a bass-buster certain to shake the electro-breaks fans’ booties!
Uultrakurt & Pantytec Barry-Lynn Bronzon
Cabanne and Gluck of Ultrakurt are back with some more crunchy goodness after releasing their solid cut, Post Office,” last year and remixing Perlon favorite Pantytec. Zip and Sammy Dee return the favor on this EP, with a great remix of “2 Millimeters” that makes this a French minimal-techno gem. “
Black Panther The Darkest Night Ever!
A longtime DJ and mixtape maestro hailing from Brooklyn’s Fort Greene district, Black Panther has made a name for himself through radio work, shows with hip-hop crew The Ancients, and a series of dope compilations. For his latest project, BP enlists a team of NYC underground all-stars, who bring the lyrical fury over 17 Panther-produced selections. Third Earth fam members Kimani and Mr. Khalil both appear, as does the inimitable Jean Grae. The mighty Stronghold posse is in full effect, and we also get treats from Murs, Oktober and E-Dot. Raw hip-hop from some of New York’s finest.
Oren Ambarchi, Gunter Muller, Voice Crack Oystered
This latest installation in Audiosphere’s excellent Invisible Architecture series is perhaps the most compelling to date. That the teaming of guitarist Oren Ambarchi, percussionist and MD-master G?nter M?ller, and cracked electronics virtuosos Voice Crack (Andy Guhl and Norbert Moslang) would yield such stellar results should come as no surprise. After all, as three-quarters of Poire_Z, M?ller, Guhl and Moslang are a tried-and-true combination. The fusion of Guhl and Moslang’s strategically placed buzzes, hums and squeals with M?ller’s soft, padding percussion is always a potent, elegantly abrasive mix. The addition of Ambarchi’s intricate guitar drones tempers the trio’s heady sound just slightly, without sacrificing any of its crackling intensity-or, indeed, its pearly evanescence.
Calibre Make Me Wonder
Funky guitar stabs, vocal hooks, Amens and some authentic hand claps make this a sure dancefloor hit. Check the flip’s “Got To Have You” for a lazier vibe and one of the catchiest b-lines you’ll hear all summer. One to make you sweat.
