Beginning with their second album, 1999’s The Contino Sessions, Death In Vegas have been more psychedelic rockers than dance-music producers. Scorpio Rising, Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes’ lighter, more hopeful follow-up to that morbidly dark work, continues their trip into mind-altering rock. Similar to David Holmes and Massive Attack, DIV act as conceptualists for a large, rotating cast of star singers (Liam Gallagher and Paul Weller, among others) and session players. Aided by legendary violinist L. Subramaniam, spectral guitar effects and liberal usage of sitar, the disc takes on an ethereal, uplifting glow, most powerfully on the Hope Sandoval-sung bliss-rock epic “Help Yourself.”
Falko Brocksieper Hoax Deluxe
Part of the mighty Kompakt empire, Sub Static reinforces Germany as Earth’s premier techno/house hotbed. On his debut album, label boss Falko Brocksieper forges sophisticated and quirky dance tracks designed neither for superclubs nor for intimate spaces, but rather for those enchanted rooms where jocks only spin Perlon, Playhouse, Kompakt, Traum and Sub Static platters. With a sly wink, Falko subtly twists tech-house-and, on the title cut, even EBM-protocols, but his work should please both cognoscenti and casual partiers. Hoax Deluxe carves out distinctive space in the overpopulated dance world.
Bobby Karate Hot Trips, Cold Returns
Along with Electric Birds and L’usine, Bobby Karate (Steven Ford) is inflating Seattle’s electronic-music scene into something worth your respect. A former punk-rock drummer, Bobby Karate-like Brad Laner/Electric Company and Ken Gibson/Eight Frozen Modules-has made a dazzling transition to minimalist laptop composition. Karate’s debut disc melds math-rock’s unpredictable time signatures to microsound’s pointillist DSP and morphed field recordings. Combining Mego’s crackling aggression with Mille Plateaux’s elegantly designed clicks and cuts, he’s birthed one of the year’s most dynamic and distinctively constructed discs. Though largely unknown, Karate is swiftly rising to the upper echelon of laptop producers.
Odd Nosdam No More Wig for Ohio
One of the savants behind the awesome cLOUDDEAD and the awful Reaching Quiet, odd nosdam keeps his music as lowercase as his name and titles. He also makes eccentricity his guiding principle, which is why No More Wig For Ohio is hip-hop’s answer to The Faust Tapes. The first half of Ohio has more in common with Faust’s Dadaist collage aesthetic and the pranksterish genre-hopping of Evolution Control Committee and Nurse With Wound than with underground-hip-hop orthodoxy. It’s one fucked-up trip. The disc’s second half offers a surfeit of sluggish, fat funk beats soaked in hazy, Boards Of Canada-esque melodies and Dalek-like distortion.
Fiona Renshaw Waste Away
Laws of Motion look to shed the strictures of nu-jazz legacy with signings like Tom Noble and this powerful singer/songwriter/guitarist. Ms. Renshaw gives her passionate original A-side a gutsy downtempo beat treatment, and leaves her flipside cover of Gil Scot-Heron’s “Home is Where the Hatred Is” beatless and huge.
Butch Kassidy Sound System Brothers & Sisters
The monsieurs of Parisonic license and remix this gorgeous dub stepper from the Red Hook label. Black Ltd. riff off the intro’s ’60s-concert-environment footage before thumping into a disco-ey jam with relentless bass and subtle wah guitar. Rufuss retain the authentic dubwise feeling in their uptempo treatment. Dangerous, this one.
Tussle Eye Contact
Rubbing some avant-dub style into their motorik steez, San Francisco instrumental quartet Tussle shows the world how to shut the fuck up and play non-stop. “Eye Contact” is propulsive junkyard boogie in a ghostly echo chamber, while the flip’s version gives the drummer some-no, all-of whatever it is drummers take. Remixes, apparently, to come from Barry 7 and Drew Daniel, so hold tight.
Rei Loci Faction EP
Scottish producer Craig Allen offers up a simmering and unique interpretation of the Detroit sound. The title track runs warm, punchy synth tones, singeing strings and loads of synthetic quack noises over a slight, spitting drum pattern. The flip’s “No Neutral Surface” and “Lacuna” are more classically Motor City techno, but Allen’s chaos-teasing keyboard work keeps them from sounding too derived.
Daily Planet Why You Wanna
Chicago’s twin rhymers Allstar and Spotlite enlist fellow vocal soldier Iomos Marad and producer Dug Infinite to follow up their masterful debut, “We Like to Party,” with another banga. These kids just don’t play when it comes to confident, laidback flows that dispense with haters and industry booshit. Backed by Dug Inf’s smooth beats, the Daily’s styles’ll keep ya watchin’ like Miramax. Tune in, sucka.
Mike Shannon Know Returns EP
Shannon’s steadily built a rep for his firm, disciplined production style, and these three tracks show him developing it into something truly hypnotic. He centers each tune on a strong, risky rhythm around which he dapples bits of melodic synth color. Don’t sleep on this Canadian.
