British producer Ryan Lee West (better known as Rival Consoles) will return to Erased Tapes this summer with a new mini-album, scheduled for release at the beginning of August.
West first released on Erased Tapes back in 2007 (the year the label was founded), and has since put out a number of EPs, as well as three full-lengths via the imprint. The forthcoming Night Melody picks up where he left off with 2015’s Howl—a deep, textured work of electronic music.
West explains the title of the release: “I found myself in a silent home, with the days getting dark very early. I’ve never before in my life been affected by the lack of light so much. I just remember it always being night time. I would either make music into the night, go out drinking with friends, or go to parties and dance into the early hours, every day, week after week, month after month, until eventually the days became brighter again.”
Ahead of the release of Night Melody, Erased Tapes has shared one of its cuts (“Lone”), which can be streamed below. The record will be released on August 5.
To mark the occasion, which falls on the end of the label’s first decade in business, it has gathered a whole host of artists (90% of the acts to have ever contributed to the Aus catalog, in fact), who provide a bunch of new and exclusive cuts over the 24 track compilation. Aside from Saul, there is new music from Bicep, Midland, Huxley, Deetron, Nick Höppner, Pearson Sound, Youandewan, and Marquis Hawkes amongst others. The release will be made as a quadruple vinyl, triple CD and digital compilation (also featuring a continuous mix by Saul).
Aside from the release of Aus 100, the label is also undertaking a global 10 Years Of Aus tour from April through the rest of the year.
Aus 100 is due out July 8, and can be pre-ordered here. Check out the full tracklisting below.
After These Hidden Hands re-surfaced earlier this year with the collaborative single, “These Moments Dismantled” featuring Lucrecia Dalt, Tommy Four Seven and Alain Paul (a.k.a. Shards) are set to release Vicarious Memories, their second full length LP, on August 8, 2016.
Vicarious Memories builds substantially upon the sound forged with their debut album, and brings a considerable new level of detail, complexity, and musicality, which ranges from flowing mellifluous grooves, somber drones, to the outright bizarre and unexpected. Although loosely an instrumental electronic album, the album makes extensive use of guitar and vocals, and features prominent guest vocal contributions from Berlin-based musicians, Julia Kotowski and Ale Hop.
The album’s preceding single, “SZ31X71,” a track which features on the LP, is out July 11, featuring a remix by revered TriAngle artist, Roly Porter.
Vicarious Memories will be released via the group’s own imprint, Hidden Hundred, available both digitally and as a 12″ vinyl LP featuring gatefold cover art by Norwegian illustrator Anders Røkkum.
Tracklisting:
A1. Glasir A2. Dendera Light A3. The Telepath feat. Julia Kotowski A4. SZ31X71 A5. Grelles Licht B1. Angkor B2. Socotra B3. Lima 3AM feat. Ale Hop B4. Litla Dimun B5. Hoh Xil
Vicarious Memories LP is scheduled for August 8 release.
Hester, an American DJ-producer from Chicago/Minneapolis, has previously released on Maryland’s EDEC Music Outlet.
Besides the tracklisting, below, almost nothing else is known about the EP, although it is believed that one of the tracks was debuted in Rødhåd Essential Mix in February this year.
Thomas Fec—enigmatic frontman of Black Moth Super Rainbow and pioneer of his own brand of lo-fi, electronic psych rock—has released a new track entitled “Human Om” under his Tobacco solo moniker via Ghostly International. The new track finds Fec returning to the distorted, noise-inflected melodies of previous solo work (Ultima II Massage)while toying with rhythms that stop and start in concert with droning vocals.
Stream the new track via SoundCloud below, and preorder his forthcoming Sweatbox Dynasty LP, due out August 19th, via the Ghostly store here.
Acid Test, the sublabel of Los Angeles house and techno imprint Absurd Recordings, has announced that Johannes Auvinen (a.k.a Tin Man) has been chosen for its next release. Tin Man has gained notoriety in recent years for his collaborative approach to acid, delivering several joint projects with notable techno artists such as Cassegrain, John Tejada, and Gunnar Haslam.
On ‘Acid Test 11,’ Auvinen recruits UK-based production duo Jozef K and Winter Son, who give both tracks a melodic, emotional texture not usually found in techno or acid. For remix duties, Interdimensional Transmissions head Erika provides a stripped-down, driving version of the title track.
Tracklisting 12” / Digital:
A1. Fates Unknown A2. Fates Unknown – Erika Remix B1. Pendle By Night
You can listen to snippets of Acid Test 11 in the player below.
Acid Test, the sublabel of Los Angeles house and techno imprint Absurd Recordings, has announced that Johannes Auvinen (a.k.a Tin Man) has been chosen for its next release. Tin Man has gained notoriety in recent years for his collaborative approach to acid, delivering several joint projects with notable techno artists such as Cassegrain, John Tejada, and Gunnar Haslam.
On ‘Acid Test 11,’ Auvinen recruits UK-based production duo Jozef K and Winter Son, who give both tracks a melodic, emotional texture not usually found in techno or acid. For remix duties, Interdimensional Transmissions head Erika provides a stripped-down, driving version of the title track.
Tracklisting 12” / Digital:
A1. Fates Unknown A2. Fates Unknown – Erika Remix B1. Pendle By Night
You can listen to snippets of Acid Test 11 in the player below.
Parisian techno producer François X has announced the release of his next EP, which will drop via his own DEMENT3D Records this July.
François-Xavier Zoumenou co-founded DEMENT3D alongside Julien Haguenauer (a.k.a. Heartbeat) back in 2011, and the pair have since put out records by the likes of Polar Inertia, Antigone and DSCRD. Their next release will come from François X himself, two years after his last solo appearance on the label (he has also collaborated with Antigone and Opuswerk during the interim). Having dropped what the label describes as his penchant for “the tribal shamanism,” the French producer pursues a much more subtle approach to techno with the forthcoming Unicorn Paranoia.
Zoumenou explains that the EP is “without a doubt techno with raw character,” but that “there is a subtler and more delicate aspect to it that reflects one of the angles of what I feel is my approach to music. My DJ sets, for example, tend to aim at length and progression rather than instantaneous efficiency. I apply myself to bring about contemplation and reverie, those fleeting moments when “the magic” briefly performs. Persistence Hunting and Unicorn Paranoia are a perfect realization of that illusion.”
Unicorn Paranoia is set for release in mid-July, both as a vinyl and digital download.
Following on from his acclaimed “Battery Park” track last year, André Hommen is set to release a new EP, titled Bassari People.
On the A side is “Bassari People,” where he pairs a catchy african vocal with a strong bass line, while “A.R.M.C.” on the B side is the more deeper and melodic cut.
Tracklisting:
01. Bassari People 02. A.R.M.C
Bassari People EP will drop June 9 on Objektivity.
Experience is always going to be one of the key factors when it comes to determining a DJ’s skills. The longer you serve in a musical scene, and the deeper that you go, the more well-rounded the end results. Behind the turntables, it means the closer you are to achieving the perfect mix: the kind you don’t hear, that melts two tunes seamlessly into one another. Equally, it means the development of a basic instinct for what tracks really work, and when. These are not the kind of traits that are endowed upon all that many selectors, though it would be safe to say that Vera Heindel is one of them.
Having grown up in Heidelberg, a town in the South West of Germany, Heindel discovered an affinity with electronic music during the ‘90s. She then spent years enraptured by the dancefloors of Frankfurt, before finally taking to the decks just before the turn of the millennium. It didn’t take long for her to begin cutting teeth at many of the leading clubs in and around city—but perhaps the most defining periods of growth came during two residencies, one at Mannheim’s HD800 and then and the infamous Robert Johnson of Offenbach (where you’ll still often catch her nowadays). Fast forward to today, and she’s become an integral part of a burgeoning scene in her current hometown of Berlin. On a local level, that means gigs at the likes of Panorama Bar and Club der Visionaere, though she also spins at clubs worldwide most weekends.
Through all of this, she has earned a reputation for making interesting, carefully-considered selections, and for patching together bits of techno, house, minimal and electro. In part, her appeal is a result of these earlier years and the resultant expertise gained; however, it’s just as much to do with her ability to go with the flow, and adjust to ever-changing tastes and demands.
Recently she turned the page onto a new chapter of the journey, launching her Melliflow imprint alongside friend and fellow DJ, Alexandra. With one EP already out the way, and another on the way from Dan Andrei and Kozo, things look very promising for the project. Moreover, it offers Vera another avenue through which she can expose her exceptional skills in curation.
Aside from her life behind the decks, she’s also had her fair share of action in the studio. On a solo basis, she’s put minimal-leaning house records out on the likes of Hello?Repeat and Cargo Edition, as well as teaming up for collaborative EPs with Ricardo Villalobos, Federico Molinari, and, most prolifically, with Maayan Nidam as Mara Trax.
This mix has been a great source of excitement in the XLR8R podcast schedule for many months, even more so after we hosted Vera at our party in LA back in January of this year. With only a very few other studio mixes available online, we couldn’t be entirely sure of what to expect. What we received is a groove-filled hour of beautifully diverse club cuts—old, new, and unreleased—with a flow that only a few select DJs could create. It’s the sort of mix that transcends time and trends, and one that we are delighted to share.
When and where was the mix recorded? It was this afternoon. I went to the club Ipse in Berlin to record it. They have the setup I needed, and the sound is good there.
What equipment did you record the mix on? An Allen & Heath XONE92 mixer, two Technics 1210 turntables and two Pioneers CDJ 2000 and Sennheiser HD25 headphones. I recorded the mix on an Edirol R09 field recorder.
Did you have a specific mood/ idea that you wanted to express? I wanted to record something more stripped down, an after hour vibe, deep, tripping, a bit obscure, with the energy flowing in waves. It was also important to me to not sound too old school, but also include some of the nice, new music that is being produced by some very talented people around me. I wish I could have included tracks of all of them, but some just didn’t fit in.
How did you select the specific tracks that you wanted to include? The main focus of the mix was to express that vibe I described before, so I selected the tracks according to the mood and their function in the mix, rather than creating a super special track list. I listened to a bunch of records and picked the ones that resonated with the feeling I imagined for the mix.
How did you approach this mix in comparison to a regular DJ set? In the club you interact with people; the set is influenced by the sound in the club, the vibe, your own mood in that moment etc. At home or in the studio you have nothing to work with really, nothing to react on, so automatically you start thinking more about the mix and it becomes more conceptional. I find it very challenging. It’s against the nature of DJing, somehow.
You recently just launched Melliflow alongside Alexandra. What were the initial inspirations behind starting the label? The music and the passion that we share for it. We are both lucky to have many talented music producers among our friends, and we felt it was a good moment to create a platform for all of us and present the music we like.
You started with Spacetravel and next up is AK41. What else can you reveal about the upcoming releases? What I can tell you is that all releases will be quiet different from each other. We are not focusing on one specific sound. We will release what we love and what we play. Our DJ sets are usually going everywhere, from minimal to techno to deep house, electro, experimental. This will be reflected in our music selection for Melliflow. If you have been following our Melliflow activities until now you might be able to get some hints on what is going to come in the near future 🙂
Did you include some Melliflow material? Of course.
What else have you got coming up this year? The usual—playing gigs, searching for music, taking care of the label, hopefully make some music myself again soon and also going on a long holiday 🙂
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Vera plays this weekend at London’s Found Festival as one half of Mara Trax. More information here.
