Boomkat – new Circuit 7, Ike Yard, The Heels Of Love, etc.

Demdike Stare, The Focus Group, Anworth Kirk, Susan Christie and Samandtheplants, among others, rework songs from Jane Weaver’s ‘Fallen By The Watch Bird’ LP, pressed up on this beautiful vinyl edition for the Finders Keepers affiliated Bird imprint. Taking influences from Eastern European children’s cinema, Germanic kunstmärchen, 70s television music and early murmurs of 80s synth-pop, the album is described by the label as a “new conceptual pop project featuring cosmic aquatic folklore” – and the source material is here handed over to a suitably cosmic cast of characters. Demdike Stare open proceedings with their first ever remix – an extended and engrossing revision of ‘Europium Alluminate’, shapeshifting Jane’s vocals into a sustained breath of glooming haar rolling down over pulsing bass and submerged, mechanical rhythms sounding like the echos of overworked mill machinery. Working in the background of Susan Christie’s recital of poetry by Michael Hill, Focus Group give ‘A Circle And A Star Part 1’ a droning backdrop, while Anworth Kirk unfurl a tenderly psyched collage of folksy detritus, fuzzed guitar and languorous drums for ‘Noctilumina’. With Emma Tricca, Wendy FLower, Magpahi and Susan Christie all making further contributions, the album runs like a slightly smudged fairytale, replicating the sense of wonder portrayed on that suitably ethereal cover image.

**Deluxe first vinyl edition of this iconic modern masterpiece, limited to 800 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and packaged with six monochrome lacquered sheets housed in silk-screened PVC sleeve with original artwork by Tina Frank and Florian Hecker** Originally released n 2003, Hecker’s 3rd album release, ‘Sun Pandämonium’ received the Award of Distinction Digital Music at the Prix Ars Electronica festival the same year. Mastered for vinyl by Rashad Becker at Berlin’s D&M, it now forms part of Pan’s crucial vinyl series. In reviews of it from the time of release, you’ll find many, many adjectives invariably describing it as “sickening”, “vomit-inducing” or “overwhelming” to name a few, but we’d say it’s best summed up as visceral, both in the affective sense, and the most literal, pertaining to the organs in the cavities of the body. His extremely dynamic compositions attack from a bewildering range of angles with a psychoacoustic sound design intended to stimulate the most sensitive regions of the inner ear, which may well induce nauseating effects in the untrained or casual listener, but those with a strong stomach/set of lugs will no doubt find exhilarating. It’s almost like the aural equivalent of DMT, where vivid shapes and patterns are revealed to the user with a mysteriously innate organisation as the result of many refinement processes. Hecker’s intensely detailed and academic processes here reveal purely artificial, computer-created sounds in an advanced display of truly forward-thinking sonic acrobatics and alien timbres whose effect is as breathtaking as the most potent psychedelics, yet without any of the side effects (well, actually we can’t prove that last bit!). ESSENTIAL purchase!!!

*Strictly limited second pressing of one of the albums of the year so far – this time on White Vinyl* Sublime temporal intervention of fragile drone pop from Motion Sickness Of Time Travel, the solo alias of Hooker Vision co-curator, Rachel Evans. Between graduating from college and starting grad school last year she committed these five tracks onto a cassette for Digitalis which has since been remastered onto emerald green vinyl by Brad Rose, who hailed the album as “the best demo I’ve ever received” – and it’s really easy to believe him. ‘Seeping Through The Veil of the Unconscious’ finds Evans’ individual sound suspended like a time-lapsed image of Grouper’s angelic reveries or a more minimal, gaseous take on the sound made by Stellar Om Source. This is the sort of music you inhale with your ears, catching its subtly harmonised notes in your pleasure centres like some tingling rare space gas. Gazing out into the twinkling slow synth haemorrhage ‘Clairvoyance’, wordless vocals drift by like space dust on an endless cosmic voyage, while ‘Mental Projection’ is laced with the same kind of after-hours substance that informed the finest post-Detroit UK electronica. However, the album’s guiding star has to be the radiant ‘Telepathy’, a heart-stopping late night lullaby of half-heard vocal fragrances redolent of Altar Eagle albeit within a darkly rhythmic and strange 3D sound sphere. The detailed crevices and dense pop essence of this album takes everything she’s done before to incredible new heights, hence our highest recommendation for lovers of midnight electronic romance.

HotFlush present a striking document of their here and now, featuring ten previously unreleased exclusives from Boxcutter, Falty DL, Sigha, Boddika, Roska, dBridge, Sepalcure, and more. Each artist has handed in a killer original, which is something you don’t always get with a compilation. Sepalcure (aka Machinedrum and Praveen) eases us in with the nuanced narrative of ‘Taking You Back’ a highly evolved and dreamy 2-step joint in the image of their two magical 12″ singles. Next, Boxcutter brings the ruffige on ‘LOADtime’, built from burly breakbeats softened with his jazzy deftness, before Boddika swaggers out with the future jack of ‘Warehouse’. Second plate, dBridge excels himself on ‘Knew You Were The 1’ a sumptuous arrangement of midnight keys, soul-sweet vox and fluid riddim minimalism, while Scuba gives the killer jack attack of ‘Feel It’ and man-of-the-moment Falty DL delivers the magically atmospheric ‘Regret’ (how many great tunes does this man have?!?!). On the third and final plate Sigha churns the ‘floor with the Techno bulk of ‘Fold’ next to George Fitzgerald’s sub-loaded yet flighty ‘We Bilateral’ and Roska just turned us upside down with the fanciful Footwork of ‘Measureless’. Seriously prime gear, highly recommended!!!

Dave Huismans cements his reputation as a virtuoso beat breaker with his crucial third album ‘Fever’. While previous LPs ‘Aerial’ and ‘Unbalance’ carved out a whole section of Dubstep crossover all for himself, with ‘Fever’ he’s largely dropped the tempos in line with the dancefloor’s move to Housier climes. It’s a case of one step back, two steps forward as he imposes strict parameters for the production: every sound used was sampled from disco records. Of course, once those sounds are isolated, Huismans does whatever the f*ck he wants with them, resulting in a uniquely textured and deftly twysted evolution of his sound. From the Latin Rascal-ish stutters of opener ‘Winamp Drama’ it’s clear we’re in for a different kind of 2562 session. ‘Cheater’ comes next with more familiar patterns, but his usually aerodynamic arrangements are replaced with more weight, drums rub and spark off each other and the whole atmosphere is murkier, clouded with basement condensation. Again, with ‘Aquatic Family Affair’ his beats bristle with a frictional electricity, that scissoring swing syncopation shredding with a ruder clip. At the midway point ‘Intermission’ comes closest to the beat structure of the records he samples, tucking-up a deadly Boogie swing with very canny snare placements, as heard through squinted ears, while ‘Flavour Jam Park’ is just classic 2562, an extremely lean and brittle structure that feels like it may topple over at any time, before we roll into the ruffed-up couplet of ‘This Is Hardcore’ and the jabbing metallic stabs of ‘Brasil Deadwalker’. The energy is then cooled and controlled for the crispy swing of ‘Final Frenzy’ and the agile dip of ‘Wasteland,’ while the title track pulls off some kinda Theo-meets-Domu-in-zero G stunt. Like the recent Falty DL opus, this guy has found a special balance of soul-tugging swing and technical dexterity which deserves your undivided attentions. Highly Recommended.

**Clear vinyl, full colour sleeve** Twenty eight years after their seminal eponymous debut (and only LP), New York’s Ike Yard return with a shockingly impressive new album. Now pared down to a trio of original members, Stuart Argabright, Kenneth Compton, and Michael Diekmann (who recently turned up as B Lan 3 with a brilliant LP on Asthmatic Kitty’s Library Catalog Music Series), they’re still in possession of an unquestionably minimal, menacing and beautifully dystopian sound, the sort of blanketed darkness one can genuinely become immersed in. From the outset ‘Nord’ is as bleak as a north Manchester skyline, the furtive first track ‘Traffickers’ scanning the darkness with radar bleeps and distant bass hits while the atmospheres become increasingly tense, claggy and inimitably cinematic. ‘Miral’ shares an MCR/NYC sense of pessimism, pointillist drum machines are set with coldest warehouse reverbs and ghoulish synths bluster around Kenny Compton’s signature, unsettling vocals. From the dank cadence of ‘Masochistic’ inwards, don’t expect this to get much more positive. OK, there’s some moments which could be construed as ambiguous in the folk guitars of ‘Metallic Blank’ and the Nico-esque vocal melody of ‘Beautifully Terrible’, but ‘Type N’ brings us back to grizzled street scene futurism, where nervous drum machines twitch while fetid synth ambience closes in and we retreat into the proto-Autonomic sound of ‘Citiesglit’, ending up shivering, burned out and f**king harrowed by the side effects of ‘Orange Tom’. ESSENTIAL purchase!!!

Kaboom Karavan is the working moniker of Belgian Bram Bosteels, and true to Miasmah’s unshakable form he conjures dense and beautiful soundtracks to lost reels of flickering cinematic weirdness from the embers of Eastern European cinema and Gallic surrealism. Bosteels has been at this for a while too, and has his scraping soundtracks perfectly in check – they never get overwhelming or drift into self indulgence, instead constructing small vignettes, odes to puppetry and the Grand Guignol. There is a sense that Bosteels may have grown up just around the corner from a carnival that’s seen better days; his creepy horns and scraped steel strings could almost hold up an old Big Top, with the wretched abominations that weave their way throughout ‘Bara Bara’ stepping out from the wreckage of its sideshow. The album could almost be linked to the clamorous pre-industrial stylings of German pioneers Einsturzende Neubauten; their deep, influential signature works as a sort of anchor for the material. ‘Bara Bara’ never gets too electronic, or overly processed, but the themes are there and the echoes of industrial music are unmistakable, emphasising its Dadaist soul, coughing up piece after piece of dilapidated, rusted scrap. We are blessed with the task of picking up the pieces, enjoying another slice of essential, beautiful and slightly creepy weirdness from Miasmah. Recommended.

Classical crunk, who’d a thunk it? Michachu, that’s who. Her and The Shapes collaborated with London Sinfonietta to create ‘Chopped & Screwed’ live in front of an audience at Kings Place, London in May 2010, providing Rough Trade with their first ever classical release. The concept itself is pretty far flung, merging the disciplines of codeine-laced cough syrup-drankin’ early ’90s Houston HipHop legend, DJ Screw, with the rarified sound of one of the world’s leading contemporary orchestras. But, considering Michachu’s background studying at Purcell, Britain’s oldest specialist music school, and her idealistic debut album ‘Jewellery’, produced with the UKs pre-eminent experimentalist, Matthew Herbert, it’s not actually all that contrived. While the Sinfonietta ably handled their own instruments, Michachu took the innovative approach of hand making her own instruments to be played by herself and the Shapes, as she explains “Our own instruments sound a bit percussive, a bit like samples, a bit different. When I write songs on a guitar I find my hands falling into the same bar chords all the time, but if you have something new in front of you there are no rules. No one else has ever played one before so you can approach music differently just make it up as you go along”. The end product is truly outstanding, and probably total anathema to orthodox classicists, but in all its bewitching dissonance and crooked articulation, a total pleasure to more adventurous ears. Trust us, you’ve never heard owt quite like it. Highly recommended!

Private press-style Kosmische explorations from “21st century face melter” Daniel D. Smith. ‘Dark Days’ is his vinyl debut for Belgium’s Aguirre imprint, preparing us for “the Technocalyps” with four long tracks recorded entirely on a Nord Lead 2 in June 2010. Parallels can be drawn between his mesmerizing style and that of Emeralds’ John Elliott, certain strains of the OPN sound or Caboladies, as he clearly operates in that fantasy synth zone, but there’s an accent to his melodies and a blissfully glazed disposition all of his own making. White label vinyl comes housed in hand-stamped sleeve.

**Includes bonus cassette’** Seattle’s Secret Colors present their debut vinyl LP of lo-fi and starry-eyed Neo-Kosmiche for Belgium’s Aguirre Records. ‘Lunar’ follows a lone tape transmission for Digitalis Limited last year with two sides of space sounds oscillating between cosmic chaos and astral serenity, quite often at the same time. A-side ‘Stretching Out’ is broadly broken into three sections, swimming through a sea of spectral guitar noise in the first to reach a more magical New Age shore, all gently twirling light shows heard through clogged ears, and onto the higher, shoegazing altitudes of the final section with some rumbling bass frequencies stirring way below in the mist and murk. The trip gets much stranger on the second tract of ‘Zoning Out’, jamming out primitive techno rhythms before a sprinkling of glassy-eyed synth magic resolves the tension and they begin to come down with a section of sombre, subdued chords and becoming trapped on an endless carousel of ever-muddier drone.

*Mindblowing assembly of experimental and utterly visceral analogue experiments from former member of DAF, Frieder Butzmann – DO NOT MISS* Frieder Butzmann is a veteran of the Berlin underground, a former member of DAF, and Din A Testbild alongside Gudrun Gut, and collaborator with Genesis P. Orridge, Thomas Kapielski and Wolfgang Müller. ‘Wie Zeit Vergeht’ is his contribution to Pan’s increasingly essential canon of experimental material, following incredible releases by Keith Fullerton Whitman, Evan Parker, and Joseph Hammer, among others. Influenced by aspects of Stockhausen’s work and the influence of dadaist avant-garde composition which he first encountered nearly 40 years ago, Butzmann manipulates sounds created using the infamous ‘Black Box’ modular system made at STEIM in Amsterdam in 1995, together with cut-up and dismantled lyrics excerpted from Stockhausen’s ‘Telemusik’ and ‘Kurzweien’ to create an intuitive and naively raw collage of acousmatic sound, electronics and vocals. His work eschews technical finesse in favour of articulating his ideas through eccentric sounds. Both sides travel a diverse topography of cut-up concrete sounds, noise blurts and disorientating acoustics conducted with a knowingly unhinged aesthetic. The LP was mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press colour jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened PVC sleeve with artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas. Utterly unmissable.

Hyperdub’s head honcho serves a first taster of his forthcoming ‘Black Sun’ LP with two mystikal entries featuring Space Ape and Cha Cha. Furthering his new, up-stepping sound from the ’09 single ‘Black Sun’, A-side ‘Otherman’ sails in on signature, wheezing melodica surrounded by melting synth drones before Tech-stepped swing drums and cone-imploding subs suck the air from the room, perhaps explaining Spaceape’s breathless, distanced vocal. Flipside, ‘Love Is The Drug’ introduces Cha Cha, an MC/Singer from Guizhou, China and in possession of a superbly sultry, spectral delivery, over a sleeker, heavy rolling riddim matched with melancholy synthlines twisted into mournful cadences. It’s standardly moody Kode 9 business and a class tease for the album (which is absolutely ace, as it goes). Really into this – highly recommended.

The 2nd SSSSS release heralds the much anticipated return of Ramdanman’s fictitious Chicago alter ego, Maurice Donovan. He recently cropped up on a slick remix of Julio Bashmore’s ‘Everybody Needs A Theme Tune’ but this time he’s fully in control. On the A-side we get the horny holler of ‘Babeh’, a big, bad swinger with ass-pummeling bottom-end bobulations and teasing crescendos to give you a rush you’ll remember. Flipside, ‘Satisfied’ takes Lil’ Louis’ girl and gives her something to moan about while churning up robust toms and ass-slapped snares to make you go for it. Bad-to-the-bone!!!

Following his all-taking ‘Everyone Needs A Theme Tune’ session, Señor Bashmore drops two uplifting ‘floor charmers, delivered through Martyn’s boutique 3024 imprint. ‘Batty Knee Dance’ is a warm and fluid deeper House groove with added plump-bummed bass and ‘floor sating vocals, but ‘Ribble To Amazon’ is the one you need, elevating any space it’s played in with surging disco filter tricks applied to a criss, cowbell-lead electrohouse rhythm, kinda like a loved-up inversion of Instra:mental’s recent outings.

*Vinyl version from Optimo Records* Killer new release from Factory Floor backed with a smart Optimo remix. The last year has been the groups most productive, seeing the release of an essential 10″ + DVD and successive remixes from Chris Carter and Stephen Morris, all on Blast First Petite. On ‘(R E A L L O V E)’ theres no massive transformation, just a few tweaks to the formula, making for an even more dancefloor friendly thrust, Niki’s vocals walking through walls of tempered industrial dub guitars and ethereal atmospheres all powered by a motorik bassline arpeggio. The Optimo remix remains very faithful to the original, reworking the mix balance to give more precedence to the flying, flanging hi-hats for a more grooving, technoid sensation. TIP!