Ostgut Ton will release the debut Vatican Shadow EP.
In time for the 20th anniversary of his label Hospital Productions, Dominick Fernow will offer the first release of his techno-focused moniker Vatican Shadow on Ostgut Ton, following up on his Berghain residency and joining Ostgut Booking in 2016 with his Vatican and Prurient projects.
Produced in Los Angeles with Josh Eustis, the EP “casts a full spectrum picture of where the project was born and where it headed,” explains the label. Special focus was put on this artwork, contributed by Berlin-based photographer Christian Vagt, taken from his Softex series.
Tracklisting
A1.They Deserve Death A2. Rubbish Of The Floodwaters B.Weapons Inspection
‘Rubbish Of The Floodwaters’ is scheduled for May 12 release, with snippets streamable below.
With his discography growing steadily over the past couple of years, the South African artist constantly breathes new energy into his music by incorporating global influences into his work.
For Williams, Aweh, which is Capetonian slang for “awareness,” “spreads the message of his continuous musical journey and presents his many musical partnerships,” explains the label. Especially, “Blast,” which “is a perfect mixture of eerie Afro-noise with staggering traditional Gogo music vocals.”
“It’s very special to me”, Williams says about the track. “I made this when I was in Uganda to record an album with the children of the legendary Tanzanian artist Hukwe Zawose, including Msafiri Zawose. One of them, Pendo Zawose, had an extremely powerful presence and was doing incredible backing vocals. I wanted to see what she would do if I presented her something totally different, so I put on an extended version of a modern kwaito beat I got from
Tracklisting
A1. Esa & Narch Beats “Blast” (Ft. Pendo Zawose) B1. Esa “Rift Valley” (Ft. Abakisimba) B2. Esa “Rent-A-Disc”
Aweh is scheduled for May 22 release, with snippets streamable below.
Last month, 30drop released The Time of Cruel Miracles, a 16-track album with remixes from Substance, Architectural, Rivet, and Zero Mass.
The basis of the 30drop project is ‘Solaris,’ the 1961 novel by Stanislav Lem, and this specific quote from the book: “I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.” The album was devised from this quote, fictiously looking at the mental challenges that humans would have to overcome in future encounters with beings from other civilizations that are capable of interacting with us in a way totally unthinkable so far.
The music on the album was conceived as a story-telling whole—the tracks have also been crafted with the dancefloor in mind, think stripped-down rhythms, sweeping pads, and hypnotically bleeping sequences.
You can pick up The Time of Cruel Miracles via Juno, with LP cut “Beyond Language” available as a free download via WeTransfer below.
In only a brief time, Parris has not only engineered but fully-stabilised a sound of unique resonance. Through his leadership of label Soundman Chronicles and his own work on Idle Hands, Tempa, and Ancient Monarchy, his research and publishing has attracted fervent interest in the UK bass community and is rapidly gaining wider international recognition.
The London label describes the release as “some of the most sophisticated and realistic models we have manufactured thus far.”
Tracklisting
A. Your Kiss Is Sour B1. Flowering In Threes B2. My Beautiful Fantasy
Your Kiss Is Sour is scheduled for June 5 release, with the video for the title track streamable in full below.
This Friday, veteran West Coast promoter Lights Down Low will return to Downtown Los Angeles for a proper warehouse shindig. Lo-fi house expert Mall Grab was initially set to play the party for his LA debut, but due to visa issues his performance has been postponed. Instead, organizers have locked in Montreal-based deep house producer Project Pablo for an extended set; the second appearance at LDL for the SOBO label boss. Zernell of Crate Diggers, Made to Play contributor Mike B, and Lights Down Low’s own Corey Sizemore are set for opening duties. More information and tickets can be found here.
Dialogue will also return on Friday night following the success of their last event with XLR8R podcast contributors M.A.N.D.Y. This weekend’s party will feature the San Francisco born All Day I Dream artist Maher Daniel, who has also released on the Barcelona minimal label The Other Side. Dialogue’s own MD are on warm up duties. Click here for more information and tickets.
NYC-based event production house MATTE Projects will touch down in Brooklyn on Saturday evening with their BLACK concept, a cutting-edge electronic music event that, according to organizers, will “unify music, design, and contemporary art in an absolute aesthetic.” MATTE has booked a stellar musical lineup for this weekend’s party, including artists from the likes of Tale of Us, Midland, Valentin Stip, and a highly anticipated performance of Max Cooper’s “Emergence” live set. Visual exhibitions from Hubert Dobler, Kyle McDonald, and Paolo Montiel will also be on display. Tickets can be found here; more information is listed at the event’s Facebook page.
The 10-track album reignited Dust Editions, which had been dormant since Caminiti’s Coiling LP, released back in October of 2014. On Toxic City Music, Caminiti furthers his explorations of electro-acoustic music, with the album touching on “the psychic and physical toxicity of life in late capitalism.” Throughout 2015 and 2016, Caminiti recorded the sounds of NYC’s machinery and voices before working them into his studio experiments, which also found Caminiti returning to the electric guitar, alongside contributions from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Rafael Anton Irisarri. At once ominous and introspective, Toxic City Music is an alluring album that demands the listener’s attention.
As a follow up to the release, Caminiti has pieced together an equally deep and experimental mix that fuses electro-acoustic experiments with dub, glitch, and a whole range of interesting textures.
You can stream the mix in full below, with Toxic City Music available to purchase via the Dust Edition’s Bandcamp.
Tracklisting:
No Ufos “Seeing the Face Instead of a Mask” Microstoria “Init Ding” Prince Far I & the Arabs “Low Gravity” Ectoplasm Girls “Women at a Loss” Levantis “Stained Glass” Jean Schwartz “Gamma Plus” -> Black Uhuru “Apocalypse” -> Jean Schwartz “Gamma Plus” Equiknoxx “Someone Flagged It Up!!” Coil “Second Son Syndrome” / Sade “Why Can’t We Live Together” / Eliane Radigue “Safari” / birds & rain in Queens NYC (field recording) Creation Rebel “Starship Africa Section 1” Roberto Musci “The Way of Discreet Zen” Black Light District “Die Wöfle Kommen Zurück”
The pair of producers were introduced to each other by the label and immediately found common ground, sparked by a deep appreciation with each other’s work. With to-the-point direction from Rafael, Leandro went about creating specific sounds for the project, warm melodies and textures that would form the undercurrent to Rafael’s signature sound design—it’s a combination that takes each of their distinct sounds into new achingly beautiful territory.
Alongside the announcement, the duo have shared the first taste of the album in “Un Horizonte En Llamas,” a poignant seven-minute piece that pulls on the heartstrings. You can stream the track in full below, with the album available for pre-order via A Strangely Isolated Place’s Bandcamp.
As you’ll see and hear in the video below, French producer Leo Pol has a knack for conjuring insatiable grooves out of his machines. Using a collection of classic synths, drum machines, and sequencers, Leo crafts classic-leaning house with an indescribable x-factor—his live sets and studio jams are hypnotizing, groove-led rides that are equally captivating and dance-inducing.
Although he’s been releasing since 2013, it was two releases in 2015, “Joy Misery” on VELVET and an unknown artist EP on his own Uniile, that really put his name on the map—to give you an idea of the impact of Uniile 1, the cheapest the record is selling for on Discogs is $198 and “You Got The Funk,” a track from the EP, has had over 1 million views on YouTube. You’d still be forgiven, however, to not instantly recognize his name; even with the runaway success of these records, Leo has kept a low profile, there’s scarce information online and all but one of his records are short-run vinyl-only releases. The latest of those releases, IILE 01, kicked off his IILE imprint in June of last year, and shortly after, Leo was signed on as a resident at Paris’ Concrete, joining a stable of residents that includes Cabanne, Antigone, François X, Shlømo, Ben Vedren, Lowris, and Behzad & Amarou—a move that will undoubtedly open up his music to a wider audience.
Ahead of his forthcoming IILE 02release, which is set to arrive next week, and a string of tour dates—namely, appearances at Brox Festival and Nostromo Festival—we thought it was time to shine a light on Leo’s work. His affinity for hardware made him an obvious fit for Studio Essentials, so we invited Leo to record a ten-minute jam and detail his key studio pieces.
The Pyramid is a really powerful sequencer that I’ve been using a lot since I was given it as a gift by my girlfriend for Christmas—I know, I’m lucky. It’s really intuitive and allows me to use almost all my machines when coupled with the iConnectivity 4×4 MIDI hub and the Roland SBX-1. The interface is really easy to use and it has some pre-installed midi chords for people that aren’t good piano players—they are also great to get ideas flowing in the composition process. All the midi/din sync channels and the nice pads really make this piece stand out. When using this with my hardware, I find that I make much different music than I would with a computer. I only used the Pyramid to compose the track in the video and I highly recommend it.
Roland TR-808
What can be said about the bass queen that hasn’t already been said? It’s still one the best drum machines on the planet, even after all these years. I use it a lot to produce all kinds of music, from hip-hop to house to electro—its unique sound fits perfectly every time if you record it properly. I love to get the crunch from old mixing tables on the 808 to make it sound even warmer. When I use either the 606 or 707 kick, I always layer the 808 kick with it to have a more club-ready sound; otherwise, they sound a little bit weak by themselves. The 808 I have in the studio is the second one I’ve bought, the first one I had sounded really crunchy without any effects on it but I exchanged it for a 909 and I now regret it. To sync the 808 with the rest of the studio, I use the Roland SBX-1, which allows you to add swing to it—I used it like this for a while but now prefer to keep the original groove of the machine.
Uher Royal Deluxe
I always wanted to have a reel-to-reel tape recorder but could not afford a Revox A77 or B77, so I bought the Uher instead for 80 euros in great condition. It’s awesome to record either your master or individual instruments through—either through it and its components or on the tape—and on the 909 it does something really incredible. It also has a nice tape delay and built-in monitoring speakers that sound really nice. I really like recording in mono on it, especially for the drums because it makes them really snappy. I normally love to do parallel compression on my drums but I find I don’t need it when I record them on tape. I know I’ll buy a better one in the future, but this one does the trick just fine for now.
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Juno 106
In the video I use this for the bass, but most of the time I use it to make housey chords and leads. It has the nice Japanese sound that the Junos all have; mine has a voice problem and bugs out sometimes and I love it this way—some weird notes sometimes appear in the middle of the recording and it gives the track something special. I use the Juno in 80% of my tracks, it’s my favorite synth by far. I love to wake up and listen to the track I did the day before and jam with the 106 on the track to add more melody and make it more complex. One zero six, one zero sex.
Oberheim Matrix 1000
The Matrix 1000 is a really cool synth with over 1000 different presets and the particular ’80s Oberheim sound. I use it a lot to produce house music with its nice, powerful organ sounds—this is due to the mono audio output. It’s quite hard to mix it with the rest of my synths because the signal takes a lot of space in the global mix, but once you understand how it works you cannot produce without it. I think that it’s one of the cheapest Oberheim synths you can find and it’s a piece I hope I’ll never have to sell. The only problem with it is that you can’t really edit the factory sounds, except with a synth midi controller like the Stereoping, which I currently don’t own.
Shanti Celeste‘s Peach Discs label will release the debut EP from Bristol-based duo, Fred.
002 will be the label’s second release following is November launch with the Chilean-born label head’s untitled two-tracker, her first solo release in over a year.
This new release consists of “two sample-based house tracks.”
