13 Sep 2013 — Henning Lahmann
It's Friday night, it's already kinda late, it's been a slow yet busy week. Autumn has arrived. And well, the headline more or less says it all. I feel like this should become a thing, a column of sorts, the subject matter would certainly deserve it. But oh, can't promise that we'll have time for this. A few more thoughts – there's been a lot of meta talk about the state of blogging and music journalism as of late and how everything's going down the shitter, not least by myself, but also right over here, for example. Or just re-visit this gem from April. Judge for yourself. In any case, while this post might not be 'deep' or 'long-form', there surely is nothing less clever in terms of click-baiting than to lump a bunch of fresh tunes together into one single piece, so forgive me this mindless accumulation of dancefloor-leaning tracks and simply enjoy while you can. It's Friday night people, you should be out dancing anyway right? Second, the musically informed part of the Internet has had a good laugh today about a piece by Lanre Bakare on the Guardian which deals with that thing some folks like to call "outsider house" so mind you!, whatever you'll hear below, if you want to be the cool kid at your party this weekend, then never ever dare to use that term. Come up with something else. Be creative. Don't make up genres. Though our esteemed friend Adam Harper would like to disagree. But enough said, here we go.
Bakare did not only make the mistake to deal with the topic in the first place, but also called London's Trilogy Tapes "painfully cool", which apparently is a faux pas all by itself. It is quite a cool label though, and attached to it is Hinge Finger, as a sort of sub-division run by TTT's Will Bankhead together with Joy Orbison. This week, the imprint released the After the Job EP by our favourite Mix Mup, a producer who we believe to be based in Leipzig, not Berlin as Dummy claims. Be careful, those Leipzig folks – who are generally certain that their city nowadays has everything that Berlin has lost in the last few years (yawn) – really don't like being confused with us from the capital. The title track in any case is an absolute killer, and I'm sure it'll work on the 'floors of both cities. Get the 12" over here.
The Trilogy Tapes themselves haven't been sleeping either, unearthing another 'mysterious', left of the field producer named Rezzett, about whom we know absolutely nothing (for some healthy speculation head over to Juno). After listening to "Firebomb" a couple of times we do know however that we'd love to make little techno and house children with him/her. Though that would probably be quite irresponsible as they'd most likely only become outsiders at school. Anyway, listen:
Young Australian producer Eugene Hector aka Dro Carey also has released on TTT under his Tuff Sherm alias, a moniker he utilises to drop gritty, unforgiving ______. Quite an interesting fella too by the way, check out his interview with RA from 2011. Here however he's just messing around with "New Peaks", a song by London-based outfit Eaux, who had a very compelling 7" on Morning Ritual Recordings last year. The result is incredible, though I'm not sure whether the beat is really steady enough in order to go wild on the dancefloor. But well, if you don't know how to go on, just grab a mate vodka instead. The track is available as a free download. And speaking of Dro Carey, Hector has just put a 'deluxe version' of his latest mixtape, Brand Ambassador, on bandcamp. It's completely different of course, exploring hip-hop/trap-y territory, and the opening track is actually called "Vaporware Kings". So who's being ironic now? Grab it over here, highly recommended.
More after the break.
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Best Available Technology has had a very prolific year so far, with a superb cassette on the never disappointing Astro:Dynamics, Excavated Tapes 1992-1999, Vol. 1, and a surprisingly banging 12" on New York's Styles Upon Styles as part of their Bangers & Ash series. The former work contains a track entitled "Keys TDK SA-X100", a rather unwieldy piece of noise and scattered rhythm. Brooklyn's Michael McGregor, these days better known as M/M, has taken care of the piece by turning it into a surprisingly straightforward techno jam – which of course has never been a bad idea. M/M's latest original work Midtown Direct is still available via 1080p.
I hadn't heard of London producer Charlie Potter aka Morcee until sometime last weekend, but his tune "Black Hole" has been stuck in my head for the whole week. It's out now on Morcee's own label Tight Knit Records, and there's a Rinse radio rip of the whole track below. The track is massive, sporting a truly irresistible groove and featuring absolutely tight vocals by Lily McKenzie. If this doesn't get you moving then I guess nothing will. Get it here.
Not sure what even to say about the next one, DJ Rashad is more or less defining 2013 already, and the minute a German paper starts writing about a certain kind of music, you know it's practically doomed anyway. And this is, seriously, a particularly ridiculous attempt of jumping on the bandwagon. But that shouldn't bother you. DJ Rashad's forthcoming Hyperdub full-length Double Cup is surely one of this year's undisputed highlights, and the mind-altering, impulsive stasis of "Every Day Of My Life" should be enough to let you know why. Double Cup is out October 22.
There's a bitter joke somewhere that whoever makes it on Planet Mu will be signed away by Ninja Tune the next day. But what do we know. Sticking to the facts, Berlin via Brooklyn via North Carolina's Travis Stewart aka Machinedrum used to release on the former, but his upcoming LP Vapor City will be put out by the latter on September 30. Opening track "Gunshotta" is one of 2013's standouts, mostly due to the fact that the reviewer's lazy old fad to call someone a 'genre-defying' producer has never sounded more convincing than here. No single element of "Gunshotta" is truly unique taken by itself, but the resulting mélange of fashionable styles and directions makes Machinedrum's music so utterly enjoyable.
Anyone remember 'hipster house'? Right, outsider house's glamorous if a little dirty older sister. And guess what: There's a Guardian piece on that, too. Anyway, if you do, then you might remember that there was a time in 2011/12 when everything dropped by Not Not Fun subdivision 100% SILK was considered significant, which is even more remarkable in retrospect as nowadays Manda Brown's baby is still putting out pretty solid house 12" almost every other week, yet without much fanfare whatsoever. Even Not Not Fun appears to be flying under the radar most of the time despite excellent LPs by luminaries such as High Wolf or Ensemble Economique. Tokyo's Sapphire Slows has had releases on both labels; the upcoming full-length Allegoria due November 5, is set to be put out by the mother ship, though the vibe would certainly fit 100% SILK even better. Sure, we're not dealing with a straightforward dancefloor filler here, but first track "Dry Fruits" certainly does everything it can to induce a nice and warm, groovy feeling for those cherished afterhours.
One more to finish it off, our man Steven Warwick aka Heatsick has finally unveiled new material, not via PAN this time but on Sounds of the Universe. "Snakes & Ladders" is, of course, as far out there as it gets, so let's at least call it nonconformist for lack of a better characterisation. Nonconformist house anyone? No? I mean come on, just look how the artist himself describes the effort's two tracks: "Snakes & Ladders deals with game theory on the grid, slithering around precariously only to fall down a worm(snake?) hole on Time Smudge, reprogramming the ride".
So now you know. Dance, earthlings:
