The compilation continues a busy 2017 for Hoo, following on from releases on No:words Music, Kindisch, Voltaire Music, Rewire Musik, and label home Get Physical. Hoo provides a handful of tracks on the compilation—which also features artists such as Nima Gorji, Clara Brea, and Joey Daniel—and in support of the release, Hoo has offered up one of his cuts “Cosmos Excerpt,” a collaboration with Enzo Leep, as today’s XLR8R download.
From the outset, Hoo and Leep make their deep intentions known, sprinkling haunting piano lines and minimalistic jazz-like percussion on top of deep and rolling low-end grooves.
You can pick up “Cosmos Excerpt” below, with the compilation available here.
The latest video in Point Blank’s sound design series looks to Absynth and its capabilities.
In the video, Chris Carter details Native Instrument’s Absynth, giving some tips on how to manipulate external audio in the plugin. Absynth is unique because it’s a semi-modular soft-synth and a powerful effects tool. To give an idea of what it can do, Chris takes a multitrack vocal and processes the tracks simultaneously using the audio in function of Absynth. In the tutorial he uses effects such as the frequency shifter, aetherizer, and the ring modulator, trying before showing how to automate them.
You can watch the video in full above, with more about Point Blank’s courses here.
Dockyard Festival has announced the artists and stage lineups for this year’s event, taking place on Saturday, October 21 during ADE.
This year, the festival will go down in the new location of N1-Park in Westpoort with four different areas over the 12-hour party. The areas will include Dockyard Presents Cocoon with Sven Vath, which will feature Ame (live), Ilario Alicante, Mano Le Tough, Markus Fix, Nakadia, and Tim Green; Mystic Garden Presents Mindshake, featuring Paco Osuna, Cuartero, Eats Everything, Egbert (live), Jairo, Luca Agnelli, and Technasia; Polegroup with Oscar Mulero, Exit, Kwartz b2b Lewis Fautzi, and Peal; and Terminal One Presents Machine with Ben Sims, Kirk DiGiorgio, Octave One live, Planetary Assault Systems live, Rod, Shifted, and Truncate.
You can find more information on Dockyard, including tickets, here, with the full stage lineups below.
Dockyard pres. Cocoon:
Âme (live) Ilario Alicante Mano le Tough Markus Fix Nakadia Sven Väth Tim Green (live)
Over the last few months, London-based producer Tony Craig (a.k.a. Hypah) has been causing a stir with his relentless, pulverizing techno, drawing acclaim from NTS and Rinse FM and artists such as Slam, Truss, Ancient Methods, Cleric, and Tommy Four Seven.
When quizzed on his musical outlook and ethos, Craig explains that he looks to “very specific moments in my life” for inspiration to make “people feel the way I felt when I first heard techno. Like a God made music just for me and everyone too. Like there was an extra bit of meaning in the music that only I could hear.” Although he looks to transcendental experiences and life affirmations for inspiration, the music he crafts is uncompromising and menacing, gritty techno cuts that look to destroy dancefloors.
As an introduction, Craig has offered up his cut “Loves Disappearance” as today’s XLR8R download via WeTransfer below. You can also find more on his music here.
Berlin Bass Collective is a relatively new events series, and now label, based in the German capital. The collective has quickly made a name for itself since the 2016 launch of its “Disco Kiez auf dem Dach” parties at Neukölln venue Klunkerkranich and its larger “House of Love” parties at Loftus Hall and Prince Charles.
Operating under an open-ended music policy, the primary thread linking BBC events together is an aim to spread positive energy, and as a result, much of the bookings at BBC parties are funkier and brighter than the lineups at other clubs and parties in the techno capital; previous guests include Toy Tonics contributor Black Loops and KANN member Zola. The collective has recently announced the launch of their label, which will also remain open-ended musically.
The label’s first release, a four-track VA titled Sound of Berlin Bass Collective, features label resident Brian Ring, an Irish producer and DJ with a previous record on Gerd Janson’s Running Back, and Bridge Guy, the newest project from Leeds-born producer Andrew Ashdown. This first release is meant to reflect the easy going atmosphere at BBC parties, incorporating lo-fi elements and groovy bass lines to create a contemporary fusion of disco, soul, and classic house.
In anticipation of BBC’s debut release, which is out today, the collective has offered up a full stream of Bridge Guy’s track ‘Living There,’ which you can hear in full below.
On July 14, Fur Coat will launch the Oddity label with their new EP, Genesis.
The label is aimed towards at the darker and trippier end of the techno spectrum, which should come as no surprise to fans of the Venezuelan duo. The tracks on Genesis will also be familiar to any attendees of recent sets by Tale Of Us, Mind Against, or Slam, with all three acts supporting the four tracks on the EP immensely—Slam also provide a remix on the EP, inspired by the reaction on the dancefloor when testing out the original version of “Sustain.”
Musically, as you can most likely infer from the artists mentioned above, the release features wall-shaking low-end grooves and intricately woven synth lines that perfectly encapsulate the ever evolving sound of Fur Coat—the duo commented that this was a key point of the label: “It’s a platform for us to express ourselves and have 100% the control on the art concept we want to put on each vinyl, the music we want to show from ourselves, and the artists we share passion for.”
Ahead of the release next week, you can stream the mind-bending cut “Parallel Dimension” via the player below, with a pre-order available here.
Steffi has a new LP on the way, titled World Of The Waking State.
World Of The Waking State will be the Dutch artist’s third LP on Ostgut Ton, and follows on from 2014’s Power Of Anonymity.
According to the label, it was “created in a period when she found herself free of the past and settled more comfortably in her own skin,” resulting in a record that’s more experimental than her previous material.
For more information on Steffi, read our feature here.
Tracklisting
01. Different Entities 02. Continuum Of The Mind 03. All Living Things 04. The Meaning Of Memory 05. Schools Of Thought 06. World Of The Waking State 07. Kokkie 08. Mental Events 09. Bounces Of Nature 10. Cease To Exist
World Of The Waking State is scheduled for September 22 release.
Radio Slave‘s Rekids is releasing “Wulfman,” a 2016 track from ZW, alongside three new remixes.
ZW is believed to be a collaboration between producer Zeb Wayne and Zineb Zebdi, also known as Ziwi. The pair are most widely acknowledged for two 2016 singles, namely “Wulfman”—which was seemingly self-released and featured two Radio Slave reworks—and the limited-edition Float seven-inch.
Rekids will now release “Wulfman” alongside three remixes, from Alva Noto, Belfast-born favorite Calibre, and Radio Slave himself.
Ahead of the EP’s July 14 release, the 10-minute Radio Slave remix is exclusively streamable in full below, while the original is streamable above.
Further details of a ZW full-length are expected to be announced soon.
Since releasing his last album on Hypercolour in February 2016, DMX Krew, real name Ed Upton, has not for one moment rested on laurels, releasing two further LPs on Ekster and Abstract Forms labels, as well as EPs and singles for Central Processing Unit, Shipwrec, and more.
Strange Directions is album number 21 from DMX Krew and lands once more on Hypercolour, the British label that continues to make waves in the music scene with releases from the likes of Matthew Herbert, Luke Vibert, Gary Gritness, The Cyclist, Outboxx and A Sagittariun in the last 12 months alone.
The label explains that the release consists of a mix of “experimental and expansive joints,” “funkier techno jams” and “melancholic synth sensibilities.”
Tracklisting
A1. Snowy Blue A2. U Talk 2 Much A3. Hip Hopeless A4. Odd Chill B1. Home Made Drum Machine B2. Kinesthetic B3. Nice Portal B4. Soft Networks C1. Strode Down C2. Thin Hype C3. Grimsthorpe D1. Zero Sum D2. Axial Mode Beat D3. Strange Directions
Strange Directions is scheduled for on September 1 release.
Varg is Jonas Rönnberg—a prolific yet utterly unpredictable producer based in Sweden. Under this alias, he blends experimental techno statements and self-assertive live performances with an agility and depth of focus rarely summoned so instinctively.
His earlier work landed on Northern Electronics, the widely acclaimed techno label that he co-runs alongside Abdulla Rashim—but he has since shared his work via Semantica Records, Posh Isolation, Jealous God, and many more labels, and also under a wide number of different aliases. The most notable of these is Body Sculptures, a group that brings Rönnberg together with Loke Rahbek, Puce Mary, and other unique voices in European electronic music today, but he collaborates, too, with Christian Stadsgaard as The Empire Line, while one must also not his ambient side projects such as D.Å.R.F.D.H.S.
Sonically, his material encompasses dark ambient, drone, dubstep, industrial, noise and also techno in its more traditional form—though he claims to not be “so interested” in the latter. It’s a mightily impressive and eclectic collection of work.
Here he talks us through the key pieces of studio gear behind his productions.
Varg will be performing this weekend in Paris at The Peacock Society Festival. Playing this year are Dixon, Nina Kraviz, Marcel Dettmann, and more leading names. More information can be found here.
EDP Wasp
I bought it from Pite-Johan through a plastic bag at the Globen metro station. It looked like crap with a bunch of plastic pieces missing, and it died after maybe 10 days. But then the genius Daniel Araya fixed it up and even 3D printed the missing plastic pieces and put it all in place. I use it for pulsing bandpass sounds mainly. It’s a very nice synth to run through the Koma filter pedal and then trigger from the TR-808.
Orgon Energiser
I have four of these laying around in the studio. They are my favorite piece of gear of all time, except the iPad. I kind of use this for the same thing as the WASP, like bandpassed basses, for example.
The difference here is that the Energiser has a sub-OSC that bypasses the filter. So you can make very thick metallic sounds with it. It’s amazing. My track “Run No More pt I & II” from the Idealism II compilation is almost only this piece of gear. I’ve found all four in Stockholm in prices from 350€-900€.
San Pedro Labs TTSH
A clone of the Arp 2600 built and designed in Sweden. I bought it straight from the source—the San Pedro Labs office is like 200m from the Northern Electronics office. I mainly use this to make kick drums and other percussive sounds. My track “Strictly Uniforms,” for example, is 100% made with the TTSH and nothing else. Using its own trigger system to sync the sounds. I think, from memory, the track is just five layers of sound from it.
iPad
My main tool right now. I have two of them that I use in every single track that I do. There is not a single recording lately that has been done without the iPad. For example, seven tracks from the Gore-Tex City LP were made on only the iPad and my synth apps on there. This is the future of making electronic music. Since I used to take a lot of walks and write down thoughts about music, the iPad has kind of changed this game. Now I can make the track right at the spot instead. This is a game changer!
Analog Rytm
I got this maybe like two years ago and never really used it. It sounded way too good for me—too hi-fi and too pumping. One day I decided to try it out again and my face melted. Using this thing live with the parameter locks is insanely good for both studio and live use. I have a hard time using this as a classic drum machine as I use it mainly as a percussive synth. So I most often pair it with my 808. The interface is easy to learn and making changes on the fly is also very easy. Polyrhythmic sequencer etc… I mean, just buy one if you have the money or scam a bank or whatever and get it. It’s worth it.
