Lucy has announced the release of a new solo EP on Samurai Horo.
A truly bold sound explorer, Lucy has always added a skewed, angular version of modern techno. The outer edge of his experiments bare particular mind food, and his release for Horo adds a new slant to his sonic identity.
Those intrigued by Lucy’s live performance at Mutek 2015 or his monthly sound bath meditation sessions in Berlin, will find Eat, Drink, Shop, Relax represents a combination of both these events. Recorded live to tape in Lucy’s Berlin studio, the four tracks work together to achieve a warm, comforting mood that feels at times like the machines have developed their own language and Lucy is their chosen conductor.
The EP title finds its meaning in a critical perspective on consumerism, but while the world continues to move at a breakneck pace driven by people’s acquisition of ‘things,’ Lucy’s experiments exude a notion of peace and contentment. Perhaps the underlying theme of the release is a time and place where freedom from the clutches of consumerism can, and will be the norm. If this is the soundtrack to an idealistic future.
In advance of the EP’s April 1 release, snippets can be streamed below.
One half of popular Innervisions duo, Âme‘s Frank Wiedemman, has announced the release of an upcoming EP set to land via Innervisions—the label he runs alongside Kristian Beyer and Dixon—later this month. Named Moorthon, the three-track EP will mark Wiedemman’s first ever solo effort. Just last year, the German producer released a well-received full-length, alongside Australian folk singer RY X, under the Howling moniker. Titled Sacred Ground, their collaborative debut LP also lent its name to an intimate music festival, exclusively curated by the two artists, launched in Germany last year.
Tracklisting:
A1 Moorthon II B1 KleinerVogel B2 Moorthon I (Digital only)
Moorthon will land via Innervisions on March 18, 2016.
Over the weekend, Leon Vynehall took a turn behind the decks of BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix. Opening with classic cuts from Steve Reich and Fela Kuti, the two-hour session features unreleased material from the likes of Mosca, Hodge, Fold, and A1B. Listeners can also catch the premieres of a couple songs from Vynehall’s upcoming EP, Rojus. Stream the mix in full and find its complete tracklist here. Or, for more music to fill the day, Soichi Terada has also delivered a rather special mix for Resident Advisor; stream it below.
During his BBC Radio 1 residency yesterday, James Blake shared a new track he produced for the East London grime rapper Trim. Having previously collaborated together under the moniker Trimbal, Blake and Trim have since abandoned the project but the two artists have remained in contact and continue to join forces in creating a wicked and grimacing sound.
Check out James Blake’s entire BBC Radio 1 show here and you can stream the track in the player above.
The most recent release from independent Belgian imprint Tangram Records comes from an audio-visual live bass crew known as Up High Collective. Having previously released music through labels such as Brownswood and On Point, the hefty collective—which consists of members Ducap, Oddlaner, Sir-5, DIA, and William—released Phonemica late last month. The EP was featured on KCRW (A.Valadez) and Rinse FM (Ivey Lab and Alix Perez) and has so far received support from tenacious musicians and tastemakers such as The Gaslamp Killer, Kutmah, House Shoes, Soulection’s Joe Kay, and more.
To celebrate the wild success of this release, Up High Collective have graciously given us the opportunity to host the EP’s title track as today’s XLR8R Download. The track’s spacious intro builds a high-level of anticipation before being interrupted by a clandestine synth arrangement that tosses itself into a neck snapping beat with filthy percussion and chest rumbling low ends.
Be sure to check out more from Up High Collective by visiting its SoundCloud page here.
You can download the track “Phonemica” below via WeTransfer.
MMOTHS (a.k.a 22 year-old Dublin-based musician and producer Jack Colleran) has today released his long-awaited debut album Luneworks. To mark the occasion, the album is available to stream in full below.
Roots Manuva celebrates Record Store Day with another vinyl packed with the kind of combination of “bass and verb” which has made him one of the UK’s most essential musical artists. Off the back of the universally-acclaimed Bleeds album, Manuva has cooked up three brand new tracks to go alongside “Crying” and “One Thing” from that collection.
All five tracks are produced by Switch under his new production banner, With You. With You consists of Switch and Daouda Leonard (assisted by Stabber), on this outing, with a little help from their friends Crookers, Toddla T, Coldcut and were written, recorded and produced at his studio in Los Angeles during the Bleeds sessions. Flip the vinyl and you’ve got the instrumentals to enjoy, too.
The video for “Crying” —which is streamable below—captures harsh slice of life action shot on location in Thamesmead, South London and was produced by French team Division Paris and directed by Helmi. Root’s comments on the video gives you some idea of what to expect: “Pure genius, they are top flight people. I wish I could work with more people of this nature with guts and passion and integrity coming from a bass culture background.”
Tracklist (RSD Release) A1. Iron Shirt A2. Crying A3. Body Hot A4. Watch A5. One Thing
B1. Iron Shirt (Instrumental) B2. Crying (Instrumental) B3. Body Hot (Instrumental) B4. Watch (Instrumental) B5. One Thing (Instrumental)
In their latest and final announcement, the festival have added a host of audiovisual artists: Scottish techno producer Alex Smoke is preparing a collaboration with visual artist Florence To, alongside performances by Kuedo, Raquel Meyers and Cao Yuxi. Other highlights include Moritz Simon Geist (a.k.a. Sonic Robots), who will be orchestrating a live techno performance solely created by robots, and Oscar Mulero, who will be ditching the techno in favour of experimentalism.
For more information on the festival, and tickets, head to the festival site.
Italian producer Mattia Trani has revealed details of his forthcoming album (The Hi-Tech Mission), which is set for a May release.
Trani has been representing the Detroit sound in Italy for some years now, with releases on Minimalsoul Recordings, as well as his own Pushmaster Discs (a label that has also hosted the likes of Ilario Alicante, Myles Sergé and Percyl). His latest outing will be his first full-length, an album inspired space travel, that continues to push Detroit sounds, as well as venturing into some jungle rhythms.
The Hi-Tech Mission is due for release on May 13. Check out some video teasers for the album below, and what happened when we caught up with Trani to speak about the album.
What you’re known for is a sound indebted to classic Detroit techno, but on your new album, The Hi-Tech Mission, there are several tracks with which you step into the faster UK-centered territory of jungle or drum & bass. Taking this into consideration, can you introduce yourself to listeners who are becoming familiar with you now in relation to the forthcoming album? On this album my philosophy was to show my perception of techno, with the classic Detroit 90s atmospheric pads and raw basslines. On “Low Tech Descending,” it’s through the classic 808 beat and vocoder robot sound that recalls old Aux 88 or Kraftwerk tracks, whilst on “Metaphysic State” I revisited keyboard and piano modulations, and applied them to a classic dancefloor heavy 909 beat. When I arranged all of the tracks in the end, I tried to complete the album with two additional different-sounding tracks, which I chose to make with jungle moods. I’m a big fan of the old Wax Doctor classic works, so the track “Traffic 2 Traffic” was inspired by them, but I added some Rhodes parts to incorporate my studies of blues and jazz into the song. “Future Funk Return” on the other hand recalls 90’s PlayStation game theme songs, cruising at 170 BPM, with voice samples and futuristic strings: just pure, raw jungle, nothing else.
The The Hi-Tech Mission revolves around a concept about space travel. Could you tell us more about this theme? Was the album conceived with the theme in mind or did the concept appear along the way? The idea of space travel was always in mind. When I started to write the tracks my vision became complete—I love space, I love the planets, I love this unknown universe around us, and so for my listeners the idea is to imagine going into a space shuttle for an unknown destination. The music accompanies the listener’s entering of the “Hi-Tech Shuttle” together with me.
How did you initially become influenced by Detroit techno? I always studied piano, and at the moment I’m studying jazz and blues, so my approach with music was always to use melody and harmony (with pads, strings, piano, synth, and lead), with big analog drum machine rhythms (such as Roland). The first artists who did this sound were the 313 artists of the Motor City—Juan Atkins, Mad Mike, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Underground Resistance, and Drexciya, who 30 years ago did what I’m doing today. Maybe in another life I was born in Detroit. I feel like an heir of these big Detroit musicians and this is my mission—the Hi-Tech Mission.
In advance of the release of their upcoming studio album, Advancement, Solar Bears—which consists of John Kowalski and Rian Trench—have offered up a new mix, entitled “False Memories,” which is available to exclusively stream below.
Advancement is the result of Kowalski’s continued crate digging and Trench’s extensive production work. Their first releases featured everything from krautrock to library music to psychedelic electronica. The band’s love of cinema and experimental film has been cemented by a long term collaborative relationship with the American director Michael Robinson, who has created two videos and the artwork to accompany the release. Robinson’s work explores realms of light, abstraction, texture and colour-interfacing with imagery in site-specific settings to live music.
Advancement LP is scheduled for March 18 release via British independent label, Sunday Best.
Mix Tracklisting:
01. Angus MacLise “Humming In The Night Skull” 02. Robert Wyatt “At Last I Am Free” 03. Principles Of Geometry “Roanoke” 04. Garnegy and Maties “Aquarama” 05. Enya “Deireadh An Tuath” 06. Steve Roach “Comeback” 07. Eduard Artemiev “Lullaby” 08. Ryuichi Sakamoto “Bibo No Aozora” 09. Tonto’s Expanding Head “Tama” 10. Christian Chevalier “Sea Cathedral”
