Tale of Us has announced plans to release a new EP on R&S records, entitled North Star/Silent Space.
The Berlin-based duo, which consists of Carmine Conte and Matteo Milleri, has had one of the most meteoric rises in recent times.
“We are very excited to start this new journey with R&S,” Matteo explains. “We really took a lot of inspiration from all these great records from the past, so to finally be releasing with them is a great achievement.”
The North Star/Silent Space EP is scheduled for November 6 release.
With an obsessive determinism to sharpen her sonic palette, Laurel Halo finds a home at Honest Jon’s with a graceful and fascinating blueprint for releases yet to come on her latest, In Situ, a double EP marked by perfectionism. The record appears to hearken back to her first instrumental release, 2011’s Antenna, a collection that saw her shifting away from her heady, abstract pop material to become more attuned to making music with sound and shape as the focus. As with In Situ, those songs were ambient, ecological sketches. With the current release, the basic structure of each of each track is revealed at their very beginning, followed by a reconfiguring as each progresses. In a way, it’s similar in approach to Actress‘s work on Splazsh, or much of Drexciya‘s output. There’s a speculative feel with this approach, especially given her introduction of modular-synth work and her dub and world-music influences.
The EP begins with the pointedly titled “Situation”: Built around high-frequency bells, an aquatic, drifting piano line and staunch drums, the song’s feel sits between that of a mesmerizing Basic Channel workout and the spectral ambience of Oren Ambarchi‘s Suspension. The track swings and topples, as it develops and dissolves all at once. On this track, as on the others, is no structural payoff, per se—no “ah ha” moment in which the pieces all come together to wash over the listener, as with her past works. Instead, there’s a drifting aura, ushering you from one track to the next.
Elsewhere on the EP, there’s a sense of her desire to build a more congealed, material music, picking up where Aphex Twin left off with his ambient works. “Nebenwirkungen” recalls a standard Hessle Audio cut or a track from Kassem Mosse, but stretched out and dismantled even more than they allowed.
The aim here seems to be slippage: Rotating, percussive synth lines build momentum as broken techno drum patterns attempt to bridge together the individual melodic parts, submerged in deep bass pressure. This is readily apparent on “Drift” which uses a muscular, all-consuming kick drum as the core, while various metallic objects funnel around caught in the broken established groove. The closer, “Focus 1,” takes on Afro-jazz with a Vladislav Delay mindset, scooting along for eight minutes while a improvised lead piano line glosses over.
In Situ is ultimately beautiful in design, and speaks quite a bit to where Laurel could potentially go, now that she’s spent some time exploring her understanding of sound design and club music. You can definitely hear her thinking her way through each track, treating each as packets of sound, to be observed and experienced in a loop.
The newest signee to Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint is the remarkable and wildly imaginative 18 year old producer Seamus Malliagh (a.k.a. Iglooghost). Born in Ireland and based somewhere in the UK, Malliagh has previously released music via Error Broadcast, and has just put out his track “Saturn Rice” on Fly High Society’s Spacebus Vol. 1, a track that we featured in our download section just last week (download link below). Now, this youngblood is set to join the ranks of Brainfeeder, a label which has represented some of electronic music’s heaviest hitters like Lapalux, Martyn, Teebs, MONO/POLY, Ras_G, and Mr. Oizo.
Set to drop on October 30, his upcoming EP, Chinese Nü Yr, is the tale of a “gelatinous worm-shaped creature,” which ties into the distinct, pink aesthetic that he is so fond of using. You can find out about the story behind this EP by reading Malliagh’s words below, followed by a link to XLR8R’s free download of Iglooghost‘s “Saturn Rice.”
In the words of Iglooghost: “The EP is a story about a gelatinous worm-shaped creature who wears a witch hat called xiāngjiāo. He/she is really sad because his/her existence consists of infinitely being blasted through endless wormholes into different worlds that don’t make any sense – full of floating fruit and pink mist. He/she has a voice played by my little sister but sometimes my dad. He/she is perennially sad and terrified because it doesn’t make any sense why he/she was randomly born into this existence, but he/she is also shit scared because being shot at light speed through wormholes is probably f**king terrifying.”
Born In Flamez is a “transhuman experiment” that shirks “notions of identity” and “subverts gender and genre.” Born In Flamez’s debut EP, Polymorphous, is set to arrive on October 13 via Unreal Audio. Directly following that will be a remix EP, featuring reworks from Paula Temple, CYPHR, Aisha Devi, Anika Greta2, and She’s Drunk (pictured below).
The EP traverses a wide range of textures, genres, and tempos, with all five artists putting their own stamp on the beautiful alien world created by Born In Flamez. Dark, atmospheric grime sits next to industrial techno, glitchy electronics, and woozy beatscapes for a singular EP that presents a strong central idea.
Ahead of the EP release on October 16, you can stream She’s Drunk’s remix of “Polymorphous” below.
UK hip hop don Roots Manuva’s seminal cut “Witness” was released via Big Dada back in 2001 to a rapturous response. Now, Point Blank‘s Lead Course Developer and all round Ableton master, Ski Oakenfull, takes to the track, deconstructing its elements and providing great insight into the sound design and construction of the track. Point Blank has offered up the Ableton session from the deconstruction, which can be downloaded here.
You can watch the full deconstruction below, with more information on Point Blank and its Ableton Live Diploma courses—which includes sound design, composition, mastering, and music business—here.
If younger clubbers are familiar with the name Andrew Meecham, it’s likely through the British producer’s work as the Emperor Machine. It’s a project that’s seen the three-decades-and-counting veteran perfecting, via a series of EPs and albums for DC Recordings and Southern Fried Records, a oddball vision of house that has one foot in science fiction and the other in the carnival funhouse—a vision that culminated with the release of last year’s Like a Machine LP.
Meecham’s fondess for aural eccentricity wasn’t always so apparent: The noted synthesizer enthusiast, who first worked as a the keys man for electro-breakbeat unit Rhythm Mode:D, enjoyed massive success in the early ’90s as a member of pop-dance outfit Bizarre Inc (with Dean Meredith and others), releasing radio-friendly hits like “Playing With Knives” and “I’m Gonna Get You.” But it seems Meecham didn’t enjoy the view from the top of the dance charts. By the end of the decade, he was working in decidedly more left-field territory, crafting careening, punch-drunk rhythms as Sir Drew and, with Meredith and Stevie Kotey, Chicken Lips—not to mention his work with Erol Alkan as Future Four, which comes off a bit like a skewed version of Bizarre Inc. As the Emperor Machine, he’s just put a double dose of slo-mo, weirdo-house grandeur in the form of the the “Love Lick”/”Sisco Seeker” EP, released on Neil Parnell’s Nein label—and XLR8R took the opportunity to reach out to Meecham via Skype at his Llama Farm Studio, located 40 minutes north of Birmingham.
For the past few years, you’d been releasing your Emperor Machine material on Southern Fried. Why the switch to Nein? Basically, the contract with Southern Fried was up, so I just decided to try a new label. I didn’t really want to sign with anyone for an album deal; I was just looking to release some 12-inches. I met Neil while I was DJing in Croatia, and made a promise I would record an EP for him, just a one-off EP to see how it goes. And that was it, really. It was just a matter of being free—and things kind of went from there.
The press release states that “the only brief was to stick to 107 bpm and the other around 115 bpm. I really wanted the tracks to be synth -heavy, no guitars or live bass.” You certainly followed through on all that. Yes, that’s right! When we followed up with our chat in Croatia with a phone call, we were discussing the sound of the label, and he let me know that he really likes that mid-tempo bpm. I did the one track at around 115 and delivered it to him, and he was like, “Okay, let’s try another at 107, then.” And I was fine with that.
Do you enjoy being given such specific parameters before you get to work on a track? Yeah, I actually do, at least when you’re talking about a slower pace. When things are slower, there’s a lot more work that I need to do, and because there is more space, it forces you to become a bit more musical. It’s quite fun. Of course, if somebody asks me to write a banging, peak-time thing, I’ll do that, too. I’m always up for any challenge.
Both “Love Lick” and “Sisco Seeker” are long tracks as well, clocking in at over ten minutes each. Was that mainly for the hypnotic effect, or was it that you wanted to squeeze so much into the tracks? A bit of both, really. I always set a marker at ten minutes. And I always like at least a one- or two-minute intro; that’s for mixing, so you have plenty of time to bring it in.
DJs thank you for that. Yes, it can make things easier, and at the end of the day, 12-inches should really be designed for DJs; they’re meant to be played. I know that, for me, if it’s difficult to mix—even if it’s a great track—I probably won’t play it. Anyway, next there’ll be five or six minutes of music, then maybe two minutes of beats. I basically just like long journeys, rather than a quick in and out. Some people find that a bit annoying; they’ll mix out before another section starts. Or they can just drop the needle at some middle point of the track, and just mix in at whatever section they want. But really, I just enjoy making long tracks; that’s the real reason.
The name “Love Lick” is fairly self-explanatory—but what exactly is a “Sisco Seeker”? I have no idea. [laughs] It was just a matter of putting some words together. I think I was thinking of “disco seeker,” like someone who tracks down disco. I don’t know—I’m always just trying to find some angle when it comes to names. You want to have something that’s strange, and something you like, and something that doesn’t really mean anything but perhaps could. There’s not usually much behind them.
I’m guessing that after working on so many instrumental tracks over the years, it gets harder and harder to come up with clever new word combinations that fit your needs. It does. Right now, I’ve got a list of about 40 words that I like, and I’ll just put one next to another one and see how it works. Sometimes they come out really good…and sometimes they’re just rubbish.
I guess it was a bit easier with Bizarre Inc, when you could lift the song title from the lyrics. Definitely—but you needed those lyrics first, of course.
Speaking of Bizarre Inc—from the outside looking in, it seems like there was a rather major transformation of your musical inclinations between Bizarre Inc and Chicken Lips. Well, with Bizarre Inc, we were making pop music; we were signed to a major, and what we were doing was kind of controlled by other people. After that all ended, we decided to go back to where it all began—to the clubs—and make a kind of statement to who we really were.
And that was Chicken Lips? Yeah, Chicken Lips was the result of the anger and frustration that we were feeling.
It wasn’t exactly angry music, though. It was more the way that we worked on it…the speed that we recorded it. It was a reaction to this very produced music we had been making.
There’s so much of what might be termed “left-field” house around nowadays—but back at the time that Chicken Lips was kicking off, a lot of house had become somewhat mainstream and even bland. Do you feel that Chicken Lips reminded other producers know that they could mess around with the template a bit? Maybe a bit; maybe you can hear traces of what we were doing in other people’s music. And I don’t mind that at all! If anyone has taken inspiration of anything that we’ve done, that’s brilliant. Doing Chicken Lips was so exciting—it was good to go back to why we started doing this in the first place, and to get a bit of respect by doing it. We felt we had lost some of that respect with Bizarre Inc, but Chicken Lips gave us some new life, I think.
While we’re on the subject, are there any plans for you and Dean to work together again, perhaps to revive Chicken Lips? We do chat once a week, and there are a couple of folders with some ideas in them. It’s just a matter of getting together and doing something. But, fingers crossed, it will happen. It’s brewing.
Do you consider what you do as Emperor Machine to be an extension of Chicken Lips at all, like a solo version of it? Or are they totally separate projects? When I first started doing Emperor Machine, some of it was sounding like Chicken Lips. And I used to beat myself up about that. But then I realized, hang on a minute—I am Chicken Lips and I am Emperor Machine. I’m a player and programmer in both, so of course there will be similarities. But by now, I think that Emperor Machine has more of a sci-fi feel, whereas Chicken Lips might be more disco influenced. So there is a slight difference in my head. But sometimes when I’m working on Emperor Machine, I’ll think, oh, that would be a good Chicken Lips track. [laughs]
I was kind of shocked when I checking out the Emperor Machine page on Discogs that you’ve been working under that name for 12 years now. That in itself is longer than most dance-music producers’ careers. Yeah, it’s mad. When I first started doing it, this kind of music—that kraut, cosmic, electronic thing—just really got me. The science-fiction feel of it, too; with the early stuff, I used to write the sound effects first, and use them to inspire the drums and everything else. All the elements that I love in music are in Emperor Machine, so I really enjoy doing it. It also seems that I like working on my own; I also like to work with other people, but working by myself is just a lot of fun. So that might explain why I’ve been doing Emperor Machine for so long.
Most people would probably say that enjoyment is the best reason for doing it. I know—I’m really lucky.
And it probably gives you a reason to keep adding to your famed synthesizer collection. Actually, I’ve joined studios with another guy who collects synths, so we’re really loaded with equipment. Which is good; I don’t need to buy any more at the moment. Besides, I’ve got pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted, to be honest—aside from the [Yamaha] CS-80. They’re just too expensive.
What is your go-to synth? Recently, it’s been the Roland SH-7. That’s the one that sits right next to me.
What’s next in the world of Andy Meecham? There’s another EP with Erol Alkan as Future Four; two of those tracks are done, and we’re working on another. There’s an EP brewing, which might be Emperor Machine or something else. As I said, Chicken Lips is brewing to some extent, and there are a bunch of other things, but I can’t really talk about them yet! So I’m keeping pretty busy—and considering the kind of music I make, that’s pretty good.
“Love Lick”/”Sisco Seeker” is out now on Nein Records.
Producer Harry Agius (aka Midland) and vocalist/songwriter Robbie Redway‘s Akase project will release its latest single, “Murmur,” on October 16 via !K7.
“Murmur” is the second single to be released from Akase’s debut LP, Graspers, which will land via !K7 in 2016. The album was engineered in Berlin by revered engineer, producer, DJ, and Kompakt staple Ewan Pearson, who evidently provides two remixes of “Murmur” to complete the single release. The latest single “plugs into the creeping sense of disquiet of ‘Violator’-era Depeche Mode, with a sound palette that nods back to a two-step skip and ultra-modern synth grain of Midland’s releases on Aus Music.” For his reworks, Pearson refits “Murmur” to solid club framework, injecting his production prowess for two floor-shaking twists on the original that will surely cause damage whenever they are played.
Ahead of the single release on October 16, you can stream Ewan Pearson’s dub remix of “Murmur” in full below.
Fresh from releasing the LignesEP on Finale Sessions back in September, Gauss Ltd co-founder and Los Angeles-based producer Natan H has announced today that he will be the second artist to put out a full EP on the newly-formed Amsterdam label Taped Artifact. The new record, Erklingen, will feature four original tracks and is scheduled for a vinyl release on November 20. With a vision in mind for the sonic direction of Taped Artifact, label co-founder Kevin Arnemann set the stage for the imprint in April of this year with the label’s inaugural EP, Lumière. Shortly before that release, Natan agreed to submit some of his tracks, a few of which he thought would work well together. Not surprisingly, Arnemann quickly asked Natan to put those tracks aside for a release in November. Fast forward to today, and the Erklingen EP has already received early praise from the likes of Slam, DVS1, and Eric Cloutier.
Discover more about Natan H and his Gauss Ltd label by clicking here, and you can check out Taped Artifact’s Bandcamp page here.
After a 15-year long hiatus from performing at the well-known Midwest playground for all things diverse and disco, Nightmares on Wax is returning to the Smart Bar stage for a performance on Saturday, October 24. Nightmares on Wax (real name: George Evelyn) is an institution, albeit a delightfully different one: Perhaps best known in Europe for his ground-breaking ’90s albums Smokers Delight and Carboot Soul, his two-and-a-half-decades-long career has seen him crowned as Warp Records’ longest serving artist. Smart Bar is Chicago’s longest running independent nightclub, celebrating over three decades of showcasing new and exciting dance music and the most cutting edge DJ’s from around the globe—and though it’s been a long time coming, the venue is beyond thrilled to welcome back this legend to grace the decks after such a long time away.
Access to this special show is more than reasonably priced, with $12 advance tickets available right now on the Smart Bar website, and $16 tickets available the night of the show. You can find out more about Smart Bar by clicking here, and you can watch the Boiler Room episode of Nightmares on Wax by clicking on the video player below.
Todays XLR8R download is not for the faint of heart. With previous releases on labels such as Truncate and Blank Code, Minneapolis native Mike Gervais has steadily become a force to be reckoned with in the Midwest techno scene, delivering deep and raw techno cuts that always hit the spot. For his latest EP titled On My Own, the SYSTEM label boss drops three driving techno tracks, starting with the brooding atmospheric title-track “On My Own” and ending with the dramatic minimalism of “Relax.” Drawing from the cold and heavy corners of the techno globe, Gervais sets sail into the dark abysses of ambiguity with “Relax,” only to be greeted by gushing synths, thunderous claps and a bass heavy beat. Gervais always seems to pull at all the right strings, letting the tension rise until the journey is so intense that we have to rely on Gervais to confidently leads us through to the other side.
