Premiere: Stream a Laid-Back Cut from the Upcoming Night Noise Music Compilation

Today marks the release of the second instalment in the Night Noise Music series Amuse Bouche, featuring a huge list of tracks from Mono Life, Plastic Fantastic, ‪Tremolo‬, Sinchi Collective, AWITW, MAN2.0,‪ Raymod‬, Gemini Brothers, Jamie Porteous, Leonard De Leonard & Humantronic, International Peoples Gang V Hot Toddy, Middle Sky Boom & Eliezer, Bedford Falls Players, Rude Audio, Will Earl Allen, Pino, and Ujin Ray.

Amuse Bouche Vol. 2 showcases tracks from label regulars and newcomers alike, presenting an eclectic insight into the label as a whole. From MiddleSkyBoom & Eliezer’s laid-back tribal cut “Move In Place” to the dark slow-mo techno of Gemini Brothers’ “Kathamah,” the compilation shows that label has a varied-yet-cohesive sound that spans a wide range of electronic styles.

Available today, you can pick up the compilation here, with MiddleSkyBoom & Eliezer’s “Move In Place” (feat. Noemie Dahan) streaming in full via the player above.

Studio Essentials: Bruno Pronsato

A wise man once said that there are many paths to the top of the mountain; in the case of Steven Ford (a.k.a. Bruno Pronsato), one of the most revered voices in minimal house music, speed metal drumming was a fairly unique entry point. Having played for a band in Texas for years, Ford moved to Seattle back in the early noughties, where he found his real passion in electronic music.

It was when he made a further move to Berlin, the city he calls home today, that Ford really settled into making the kind of sounds we know him for today. Working under the name Bruno Pronsato, he was picked up by Hello? Repeat, Telegraph, Lick My Deck, and many other bastions of the genre. Through a lengthy, ever-expanding back-catalog of adventurous dancefloor material, he’s established himself as a musician with one ear for delicate subtleties, and another for stirring groove and rhythms.

When he’s not alone in the studio, he’s working collaboratively with other like-minded producers—with Sammy Dee as Half Hawaii, Daze Maxim as The Others, or Ninca Leece as Public Lover. Most recently, he has teamed up with Benjamin Myers (one half of Benoit & Sergio) as NDF, for the Cruel Is The Color EP—which is scheduled for September 30 release. The pair have shared a studio together in the German capital for a couple of years, though rarely spent time together there due to clashing schedules; after one lunch date, the pair had bashed out the EP’s title track in around 30 minutes flat, with Ford manning the synths and percussion. 

That kind of ability to knock out quality, varied productions in next to no time only comes with real experience—something Ford has plenty of. It’s on that note, that we hand over to the man himself, to guide us through the essentials that make that exact studio such a fruitful outlet.

Bruno Pronsato’s Romance Club moves to its new home Renate on September 1.

JOMOX XBASE 888

This is one of the first machines that I bought after my move to Berlin. At first it was used for my live sets pretty exclusively. I felt in the beginning that it wasn’t much of studio machine—the percussion wasn’t as delicate as I usually liked in my recording sessions. I remember having a discussion with Mathew Jonson about it years ago, around 2007: he explained some little secrets to me that he used to make it a bit more delicate in the studio, so I started using it more and more, mainly for modulating kick drums. You have to really push it in the DAW to really get the full effect.

However, in a live environment it tends to sound great as it is. It’s a bit of a monster to carry around to shows. My old back is starting to dread seeing it sitting in my bag for a show. In fact, it’s been a minute since I’ve taken it out. It’s an incredibly fussy machine. It likes to switch to Japanese in the middle of a set, or when trying to pull up kits—but it’s been worth every penny. It needs a tune up and new OS, but still one of my favorites.

JOMOX MBASE 11

Yet another Jomox product. I think anyone who knows my live sets or my recordings knows that this one has been integral to my kicks and often my basslines.

I used to use the MBase 01, before it was discontinued, but now I use the MBase 11—and this comes with a compressor, which I like more. It adds a bit more strength to my kicks in certain club settings, and this wasn’t possible with the 01 model. As far as kicks go, it’s a monster. It’s one of the few machines that can stand its ground after an over-compressed Traktor set (before I play live). It’s hard to match mastered volumes as a live act—but this little guy, as inexpensive as it is, always steps up the game.

Most important, for both of these machines, I really like the ability to mess with the LFO speeds of the kicks to make it a bit more strange—or more wobbly.

NORD G2

The Nord actually belongs to Ninca Leece. I had used it in the past, years ago, but seriously got into this one because I was in the middle of doing my Archangel project (my more downtempo alias signed to Foom) live at Berghain Kantine and wanted to bring a more live feeling to the show. I pretty much used it because I wanted a keyboard that was stand alone and wasn’t reliant on a computer.

As I dug into it to build some patches, I slowly started realizing that it was a much bigger beast than I had expected. The patches we built were amazing and incredibly weird for the show—far weirder than what was on the album. It’s my go-to for digital modular and is an amazing tool for studio as well as live.

Metric Halo MIO 2882

Where would I be without my Metric Halo MIO 2882? I’ve had it my entire musical career. Its analog/digital conversion is impeccable. I’ve used it for almost every show and from everything from mic’ing a grand piano to playing at a bar in Mexico. It’s been almost twelve years in the studio and all over the world. It’s a work horse and almost indestructible. I’ve only had to repair it once so far.

Vodka Soda

Last, but not least, is the vodka soda. It’s for the refreshing moment after coming to terms with what you’ve done—a celebration of sorts. It actually takes a lot for me to dig a track that I’ve made, and this is the sort of final edit that I go to—a congratulatory slap on the back, if you will!

Tuff City Kids Ready New Permanent Vacation LP

Gerd Janson and Phillip Lauer (better known as Lauer) are readying a new Tuff City Kids album through Permanent Vacation—although a release date is yet to be confirmed.

Ahead of the Adoldesscent LP, the Munich-based label has also revealed details of the preceding Labyrinth EP. The release consists of four versions of the title track, all of which feature vocals from Norwegian singer Annie.

The EP will arrive on vinyl and digital formats on September 9.

Tracklisting:

A1 Labyrinth (Club Mix)
A2 Labyrinth (TCK Mix)
B1 Labyrinth (Morgan Geist Remix)
B2 Labyrinth (DJ Oyster Drum & Bass Dub)

Fabric’s Licence Suspended Following Drug-Related Deaths

London’s Fabric nightclub will remain closed until Islington Council has met to review the club’s license following the deaths of two 18-year-olds to suspected drug overdoses.

One of the men died in hospital last Saturday having collapsed outside the venue at 08:20 BST; the other man collapsed and died nine weeks before.

According to an official statement made on Friday, August 12, the club was set to close for that ensuing weekend—but, as reported by the BBC news, the club will now remain closed until the local council has reviewed the existing licence, which has been temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This is expected to happen within the next three weeks.

“Officers felt the need to act due to concerns about the safety of those attending the club because of the supply of class A drugs in the venue and the recent deaths of two young men linked to the club,” a Metropolitan Police spokesman told the Islington Gazzette.

A statement by Fabric said:

“For the past two years Fabric has operated without incident but tragically in the past nine weeks two 18-year-old boys have died as a consequence of drug overdoses.

“In order to understand how this has happened we have agreed with the police and other agencies to suspend our operation whilst we investigate.”

It said anyone with a ticket would be refunded.

Milton Bradley Returns to The End of All Existence Alias

Following on from May’s Tragedy of Truth album debut on his own DoNotResistTheBeat! label, Milton Bradley is set to return with The End of All Existence, an alias through which he only expresses himself infrequently.

With years of experience in Berlin’s electronic music scene, gigs around the globe and releases on labels like MDR, Prologue and Ann Aimee, Bradley has built a reputation as a versatile artist, with plenty of releases under his belt and a sonic signature that is hypnotic, industrial, trippy and continually evolving.

Constantly exploiting his various influences, Bradley has birthed a variety of pseudonyms. Back in 2012, his love for acid house gave birth to his ’90s acid-inspired project Alien Rain; and in 2010 he launched his DoNotResistTheBeat! sub-label The End Of All Existence, a project that focuses on the ambient and experimental side of techno that could be the soundtrack to a fictional world’s end. The project was premiered live at the Berlin Atonal festival in 2014 and now returns with the third part of the series.

Bradley’s productions are massively influenced by the rough and dark Berlin areas of the late ’80s, where he grew up. This bleak, droning feeling is apparent on tracks such as “Choir Of Devastation” and “6 Minutes Before Dawn,” both found on the A side.

On the flip side, “Post Apocalyptic Being” and “Echoes Of The Nameless” share similar cinematic aesthetics and offer a glimpse into a dystopian reality.

Tracklisting: 

A1 / 1. Choir Of Devastation
A2 / 2. 6 Minutes Before Dawn
B1 / 3. Post Apocalyptic Being
B2 / 4. Echoes Of The Nameless

The End of All Existence Part III is scheduled for September 26 release on 12” and digital download via The End Of All Existence.

For more information on Milton Bradley and his production techniques, check out our recent In the Studio feature with him. 

Stavrogin ‘Echo_22’

Stavrogin is the production alias of Theo Darton-Moore, a young London-based producer. Lost In Systems is his first ambient-techno release; it’s a completely different style to the digital-only productions that surfaced around 2011. The core of this latest six-tracker was written back in 2013/14 using lots of sample processing, time-stretching, and granular processing following his graduation from university.

The release comes through 3BS, an Australian label started in 2011 and run by Jon Papert. The duo met through Darton-Moore’s work running the Stray Landings music blog—”I reviewed one of his releases,” he recalls—and they have been sharing music ever since.

The release is scheduled for August 29 release; ahead of this, Darton-Moore and the label have agreed to offer “Echo_22” as one of today’s free downloads.

Echo_022

Jonathan Uliel Saldanha ‘Train Tunnel / Crane Dub’

Jonathan Uliel Saldanha is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sound, stage, and film. He works with live-dubbing, electroacoustics, percussive sounds, and wind instruments to create dense and confounding pieces of art. Those pieces have been released by a raft of labels such as Ångström Records, Wordsound, Rotorelief, and Tzadik, as well as SOOPA, an international art and music platform founded by Saldanha.

His latest release, Tunnel Vision, will land on his own Silo Rumor imprint and is a collection works focused around “resonant spaces, sub-bass, and a particular set of instruments interacting with disembodied voices.” The release is an edited and remastered version of Saldanha’s original score for Raz Mesinai’s experimental sci-fi film “Tunnel Vision.”

From the release, Saldanha has offered up “Train Tunnel / Crane Dub,” a haunting atmospheric cut, as today’s XLR8R download.

You can download the track via WeTransfer below.

Train Tunnel / Crane Dub

Hear Pinch Remix Roots Manuva

Roots Manuva‘s sixth studio album, Bleeds, dropped via Big Dada in October of last year. The album was heralded as a return to form for the UK hip hop pioneer and featured production from Switch, Adrian Sherwood, and Rodney Smith (a.k.a. Roots Manuva) himself. Following its early success, the album is now being repackaged as a deluxe edition, with 10 new and exclusive tracks, studio off-cuts, and remixes, including reworks from Kode 9, Pinch, Champion, and rLr (a.k.a. XL’s Richard Russell). The deluxe package also features new artwork designed by Leif Podhajsky, the visual artist behind covers for Grimes, Bonobo, and Foals.

In support of the release, XLR8R has been gifted an exclusive stream of Pinch’s deep and atmospheric remix of “Don’t Breathe Out,” a cut from the deluxe package. The Tectonic label head takes the more ethereal original and twists it into one of his notoriously bass-heavy reworks, with Roots Manuva’s flowing rhymes rattling round on top.

You can stream Pinch’s remix of “Don’t Breathe Out” in full via the player above, with the deluxe edition available for purchase here.

DeWalta Next Up in Ask the Experts; Send Him Your Questions Now

A couple of months ago, we announced the re-launch of our Ask the Experts series, and invited you to get the answers to everything you could possibly have ever wanted to know from Gerd Janson; earlier this week, we followed that up with a session in the hot seat from Mathew Jonson, and now we can announce that our next guest expert will be DeWalta.

Berlin-based David Koch (a.k.a. DeWalta) has been a favorite of ours at XLR8R for some time now. The minimal maestro consistently impresses in whatever endeavor he applies himself to: in terms of studio work, his stripped-back production style is forever making magic happen (with a wealth of high-quality releases on the likes of Indigo Raw, Meander, Haunt, and Hello? Repeat). It’s a unique style—one which manages to balance instrumentalism with electronics, and one that is both contemplative and rousing. To get more of an idea of his sound check out his track “Jog Trot,” a cut that he offered up for free download with us a few years ago.

He’s equally credible behind the decks, whether that be alone or with contemporaries Mike Shannon, Tobi Neumann or Enzo Siragusa, for example. You’ll regularly catch him spinning in his home city at the likes of Club der Visionaere and Hoppetosse, as well as countless other clubs across the world. The result of the whole package? A true expert.

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when preparing your questions—Ask the Experts was designed to get our favorite artists talking, on subjects that they might typically not do otherwise. All questions should be sent to [email protected]; we’ll pass them along to DeWalta who will select his favorites, and at the end of the month, we’ll publish his answers.

Lapien Readies Rekids EP

Berlin-based producer Lapien (a recent subject of our Interpretations series) is set to release an atmospheric three-tracker on Radio Slave’s Rekids.

Also known as Metropolis or one half of Artefakt, Nick Lapien’s last three releases have landed on Finale Sessions, Fred P’s Soul People Music and, most recently, two on DVS1’s Mistress Recordings.

Releasing on Rekids, the multi-faceted Dutch artist’s next outing features three cuts with the dusky “A Change Is Gonna Come” initiating the package using infectious hats, subtle sub-bass and an indistinguishable vocal that ebbs subtly in and out of the mix. “As It Is” is the most robust number on the package with its undulating percussion and moody chords taking centre stage, until “Vexed” concludes everything with gloomy pads, shuffling hats and echoing effects.

For more information on Lapien’s production techniques, please see our In the Studio feature with him here.

Tracklisting:

A1 – A Change Is Gonna Come
B1 – As It Is
B2 – Vexed

A Change Is Gonna Come drops on Rekids on September 16 2016.

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