James Braun ‘Tearjerker’

After a five-year hiatus, Tartelet mainstay James Braun returns with the EP Tearjerker, announcing his debut album for 2018.

JB (James Braun) has been part of the label since its conception in 2007 and has contributed immensely to its development. Over the years, his sound has continuously morphed—from cheeky tech house to emotional Detroit-inspired house escapades—always reflecting his originality and musicianship.

The Tearjerker EP is said to be “a testament to JB’s musical journey.” Rooted in classic U.S. house and techno, the EP delivers elaborate melodies not found in earlier productions. The tracks were all produced at the newly opened Panalama Studio in Copenhagen, which JB runs alongside Lasse Walentin.

Ahead of the EP’s November 16 release, you can download the title track below. It’s a cut that showcases JB’s signature heavy groove and bass, combined with rich pads and playful synth melodies.

Tearjerker

Silvia Kastel ‘Air Lows’

Air Lows is Silvia Kastel’s debut solo album. I hadn’t heard much of this Italian artist and assumed she’s fresh on the scene, but she’s been playing live and releasing records and tapes since she was a teenager in the late 2000s. Abstract, experimental, jazzy, rocky—weird and interesting music. She’s collaborated with Smegma, Gary Smith, Aki Onda, and Ninni Morgia as Control Unit, amongst others. And straight off in Air Lows, I felt at the hands of an experienced and imaginative musician. There was no itch to skip forward. She caught me and I let the LP run.

The opener “Target” is after-hours electronica. The kicks of the peak party hours are still punching but with lessening momentum. Silvia’s looped processed voice invokes us to “lay back” and engage the mind’s eye rather than the limbs. The flavor of psychedelia here is cool open space, and the rhythm is four-four, but deconstructed. She’s moved into the techno aesthetic and calmly made an incision with a scalpel and removed the organs and bones that don’t serve her function.

Throughout the music is meditative, patient, with a quality of aloneness. Good for a night in with yourself or one other. (It’s telling that Silvia put out a 12” on a series called Bedroom Solitary in 2015.) And the style is refreshingly natural. She’s comfortable in this impressionistic digital terrain and happily sets off exploring on her own. Nothing feels forced or amplified for impact. It’s a humble and understated sound and one that endears me to her as a human. The tracks and the overall narrative are succinct, though I wished the trip was longer. When the album finished I was compelled to play it through again.

But the arrangements are wonderfully timed. The tracks start and are immediately interesting, and progress surprisingly but coherently. And they end just right, not needing more, nor having exhausted their material. They aren’t club-friendly, though I can picture hearing them in sets between avant-garde live acts or in the third room of a party. Lucretia Dalt came to mind.

The few lines of lyrics in the album are unsophisticated in their choice of words and imagery, but admittedly it is clear they serve more an instrumental and phonetic purpose than a semantic one. Still, the lyrics in “Spiderwebs” and “Concrete Void” could better match the poetic qualities of the music.

Having only listened to clips of Silvia’s other work I got a warm welcome into this LP and stayed as a happy guest. But when I left the pleasure faded quickly, and there wasn’t much to remember or hold on to, try as I did. Certainly no melody to hum or sing in the shower or cycling. Despite its high quality the experience was ephemeral and limited to the actual listening of the music, unlike some music which you can take with you anywhere. I would like to be able to take the Air Lows feeling with me. What keeps it from being memorable?

But overall I have the pleasure of discovering Silvia Kastel, a talented and surprising and prolific artist, at a point of confidence in her career. I’ll certainly follow Silvia on social media and play her releases as they come.

Tracklisting

01. Target
02. Bruell
03. Air Glow
04. Air Mob
05. Heart 2 Tape
06. Spiderwebs
07. Concrete Void
08. The Closer The Stranger

Air Lows will land on November 10 via Blackest Ever Black.

Sam Gendel Shares New Single From Upcoming LP on Terrible Records

Sam Gendel has shared the new single from his upcoming 4444 album on Terrible Records.

The LP is set to drop on November 17 digitally, as well as a standard 12″ and limited edition 12″—each of which will arrive hand numbered and hand signed with a one-of-a-kind handwritten note, specific to each sleeve. The new single, “Promise Is,” is a beautifully crafted slice of trippy pop music inspired by a scene from Citizen Kane, as Gendel explains:

“This song came into existence after I watched Citizen Kane. There is a point in the film when Charles Foster Kane prints a “Declaration of Principles” for his readers of the New York Inquirer, stating that the paper will always tell the news honestly and champion the rights of its readers “as citizens and as human beings.” And yet Kane, like so many who have made this promise in both cinematic and real life, eventually crumbles under the weight of fame, fortune, and beautiful lovers. “Promise Is” is my Citizen Kane moment, but it’s a cliffhanger, right?”

You can listen to the single below, with the album available for pre-order here.

Minimono ‘Still Mine’

The latest release from Italian duo Minimono is a four-track vinyl-only EP on Elephant Moon, titled After The Light.

The EP follows on from a deep and trippy outing on Inner Balance with four cuts of groove-led smooth-as-silk house. From the funky bassline and shimmering pads of the title track to the slowed-down breakbeat grooves of closing cut, “I See You,” After The Light once again shows that the Bosconi label heads have an enviable amount of high-quality house music flowing out of their studio.

You can pick the EP up here, with a previously released cut titled “Still Mine” available to download via WeTransfer below.

Still Mine

Hear Alex Niggemann’s Contribution to Watergate’s 15-Year Anniversary Compilation

On Friday, Watergate will celebrate 15 years with a box set compilation featuring 5 x 12″ vinyl, 2 x CDs, Sound Travels book by Linus Dessecker, Illustration by Frank Höhne, and two tickets for Watergate club.

The compilation, titled Watergate XV, will look to celebrate Watergate’s 15 years of operation with a sprawling collection of cuts from club residents Matthias Meyer, Jimi Jules, Marco Resmann, La Fleur, Tiefschwarz, Floyd Lavine, Lee Jones, Adana Twins, Sebo K, Hyenah, and Cinthie; new comers Gorje Hewek & Izhevski, Gumz, and Ryan Davis; and regular guests such as Butch, Henrik Schwarz, Ellen Allien, Alex Niggemann, Catz n’ Dogz, Steve Bug, Osunlade, Solomun, Rodriguez Jr., Oliver Koletzki, Anja Schneider, Mathias Kaden, and Kollektiv Turmstrasse. As you can probably infer from the huge list of artists, Watergate XV will encompass everything from deep house to rolling, heads-down techno and shimmering tech house.

Ahead of the release on November 10, Watergate have shared a deep and trippy techno cut from Alex Niggemann, available to stream via the player below.

You can pre-order the box set here.

Premiere: Hear a New Remix by Gerd Janson

Later this month, Correspondant will release Yovav’s Carribean Zen Mode EP, featuring a remix from Running Back’s Gerd Janson.

Carribean Zen Mode continues a relentless 2017 release schedule that has seen Correspondant drop eight releases, including outings from Ricardo Tobar, Sebastopol, Zombies in Miami, Man Power, Marvin & Guy, and Red Axes, among many others. On the latest, Yovav delivers a slice of enticing, hypnotic disco that, like the name suggests, conjures a sun-drenched island vibe. On the remix front, Janson refits the laid-back original with a swinging groove, upping the tempo for a sultry seven-minute ride.

Carribean Zen Mode drops on November 24 and can be pre-ordered here, with Gerd Janson’s remix streaming in full via the player below.

emawk ‘everyone’ (T4PES Remix)

New York-based producer T4PES has offered up an unreleased remix of emawk‘s “everyone” as today’s XLR8R download. The original track is taken from emawk’s recent four-track EP titled for ness, which dropped as a free download back in September via Shoeboxx Recordings and Svnset Waves.

For his remix, T4PES take the hazy chilled-out grooves of the original and twisted them into a swirling, tripped-out beat outing. You can grab the remix via WeTransfer below.

emawk’s for ness can be grabbed here.

everyone (T4PES Remix)

Subtil Preps Vlad Arapasu EP; Shares Snippets

Later this month, Subtil will return with Vlad Arapasu’s Artificial Moves EP.

The EP follows on from Cosmjn and Hansel!’s 2017 contributions to the label and will be Arapasu’s first solo outing—he also represents half of Dubsons, a project with releases on Trapped London, VSA Records, NG Trax, and Body Parts Records, among others. With its hypnotic grooves and trippy textures, the release is already picking up strong support from artists such as Arapu, Barac, Priku, and the Arpiar trio.

You can hear snippets via the player below, with the EP available for pre-order here.

Sports Records to Host Lowris This Weekend in Los Angeles

This Friday, November 10, Sports Records will host Lowris at a TBA venue in Downtown Los Angeles.

Sports’ latest event follows on from two collaborative parties alongside Cyclone in which the two LA mainstays hosted Sammy Dee, Amir Javasoul, Mandar, and Leo Leal. For this edition, which sees Sports out on its own, Lowris will feature alongside Sports’ Clyde C, Berd, and Haze0.1 b2b B_Fairchild.

More information, including tickets, can be found here.

Hans Berg ‘Pathfinder’

Back in September, UFO Station Recordings dropped Hans Berg‘s Pathfinder EP.

The EP represented the label’s fifth release and the second solo EP by Berg and presented three tripped-out originals alongside a remix from Ed Davenport‘s Inland alias. Berg’s originals feature chunky beats and warped, emotive synth lines, while Davenport takes the title track down a deep techno rabbit hole.

In support of the EP, Berg has offered up the title track as today’s XLR8R download, available via WeTransfer below.

Pathfinder

Page 484 of 3781
1 … 482 483 484 485 486 … 3,781