The Resin label returns to TaiShan for their next release. The man behind “Low Blow” comes back with more booty shakin’ business and betrays his obvious old-school electro influences on this, yet another riotous rump bumpin’ reveller! No-nonsense female hip-hop samples sit effortlessly alongside analog synth stabs and masterly scratching to prove that TaiShan ain’t no flash in the pan!
Hardcell & Per Grindvik 75
I really adore the a-side track on this. It’s a very Jeff Mills-sounding techno cut-tribal and funky, with very strong chords. It actually sounds like Mills produced by Adam Beyer! Proper!
Lenk 8
DK was originally launched as a house label by Jesper Dahlbaeck and Thomas Krome, and this is a solo release by Dahlbaeck. Relentless, groovy and dirty techno, a dancefloor destroyer! I play it every set. Jesper is a sick, sick boy! Massive!
Adam Beyer E6 Remix
A bootleg consisting of Adam Beyer remixing the Manuel Goetsching’s classic “E6,” often referred to as “Sue?o Latino.” This track’s been bootlegged many times, but this one’s the best. The flip side is a somewhat housey mix of Ben Sims’s “Remanipulator,” with the Cuban vocal riff. Very Ibiza, but still very good, and could potentially be massive.
Renato Cohen Spank
The rising Brazilian DJ/producer delivers another solid record on Technasia’s sub-label Sino. Driving, energetic, funky techno, the way I like it. I performed with him in Sao Paulo, and besides being a very charismatic and good DJ, he also knows how to produce wicked records.
Aeriated 2 the Tune of C-
Straight out of Leeds comes this cool and smooth track by 21 year old producer Duncan. It took my total attention when it came our way, because it’s a tune with all the good elements: East Coast house combined with dark, English drum & bass synths.
Infekto My Groove
In Barons Court in London, you find my favorite label: Hospital! “My Groove” by Finland’s Infekto is as good as it gets-future jazz with a ruff break. The vocal sample invites all the good-looking girls and boys to come out to play.
Rundfunk H
From the home of R?yksopp, Kings Of Convenience and Annie (to name a few), comes Rundfunk on Tell?, Norway’s most interesting label. Almost all the artists on the label come from northern Norway-the land of the midnight sun-and label manager Mikal Telle is a rockstar!!
Monobox Molecule
No longer is it reasonable to suppose that history unfolds as narratives of “great men” and “great events.” Nevertheless, for those living it, history is, as Chaucer put it, “the smiler with the dagger beneath the cloak.” In the fabled and often inaccurate stories of Detroit during its late 20th-century technological renaissance, Robert Hood’s name is everywhere. But it remains a mystery as to why his name is absent from so many accounts of the minimalist strand in contemporary techno and house. He effectively invented the analog strain of minimalism in 1994 on his breathtaking “Minimal Nation,” recorded for Jeff Mills’s Axis label. He’s a barely acknowledged but major influence on everyone from Basic Channel’s Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald to Force Inc’s Vladislav Delay and Akufen. Hood continues to leave his peers and loyal fans holding their breath for his new records. His latest full-length for the French label Logistic (for whom he did his first mix CD, among other projects over the past two years) is one of his best. Alongside the prescient Minimal Nation album (Axis, 1994) and Nighttime World (Cheap, 1995), Molecule follows a perfectly executed flight path. It’s almost a concept album insofar as certain threads run through all the tracks, from the opening bolt, “The Construct,” through the blinding ice floes of “The Diamond Age.” Hood’s ability to create a sense of space and tension with a minimum of equipment is stunning. He’s always shunned buying new gear and software, and eschewed sampling altogether. Yet, he creates cavernous, beautiful earthscapes that rumble like an oncoming tsunami. Too often, Hood’s considered a mere accessory to Jeff Mills. Yet their work is only superficially similar. Hood’s exquisite sense of melody-which he hides inside the tracks like a timer device set to detonate at the last second-still shocks me. Hood’s mastery of a few instruments and consistent ability to wring from them new sounds also makes his music by turns subtle and powerful. On Molecule, he’s brought his wholly original techniques into the light. “
QPE Boolean Logic
Well-made slower and darker beats. Atmospheric, bruised sounds. The experimental interludes cushioning the beat tracks are especially choice. Next generation from the purveyors of fine “illbience”-can I use that term?
