Boomkat – new Twells And Christensen, Mark Fell, Sun Circle, etc

**Vinyl-only release, initial copies come on strictly limited red vinyl* Some two years in the making and evidently so, ‘Coasts’ is the compelling collaboration between John Twells (Xela) and Matt Christensen (Zelienople) for Digitalis Industries. The two like-minded souls have been recording their sessions in various forms for years, but the substantial nature of ‘Coasts’ meant it just had to be released into the wider world. These two tracks were recorded over a weekend in Chicago in 2008 and later mixed at John’s Seventh Door studio outside Boston, rendering two long-playing sides of foggy, ethereal drone and heavy-listening atmospheres with a petrified and spectral sensitivity. The opiated ambience of indistinct synth tones and hovering strings slowly seeps into bowed, bleak, lonely guitar notes on ‘The Crate’, dilapidated layers of ghostly crackle dry-foaming on the surface and dispersing with the the slow convective flow of electronic tones washing over the surface. The mood is ultimately calm and sublimated, almost freed of noticeable human intervention to sound like the pair just documented some immaculate aural phenomena. Their presence becomes far more apparent on ‘Burning Bridges Together’, not least for the ghostly vocals but also the tangibly expressive, cinematic chords and hand-sculpted ambient shapes looming in the inky expanses overhead. It’s just an incredible set of recordings – easily making this one of the most impressive projects either artist have been involved with. Highly recommended.

**More untouchable smudged and trashed pop variants from James Ferraro – comes with with free download coupon redeemable from the label* Jim Ferraro has emerged from his dream dungeon (probably his mum’s basement) long enough to give Olde English Spelling Bee (officially the coolest label in the world right now according to Fact mag) a proper album of songs and that. ‘Night Dolls With Hairspray’ tacks the tackiest assortment of dual-deck cassette cut samples and flushes ’em in the most adulterated ectoplasmic gunk this side of Egon Spengler’s bedsheets. Entering this album you’ve gotta leave your super soakers and ten-gallon gatorade at the door if you wanna totally submit yourself to his malted zones and allow yourself to be intoxicated on the fumes of his slowly fermenting buckets of trash culture. With track titles as vividly evocative as ‘Buffy Honkerburg’s Answering Machine’ and ‘Killer Nerd’ and even a lyric sheet with lines like “In The Locker Room The Coach Is Having A Blast/ Sniffing The Undies Of His Last Class” this is a must for anyone who wishes their parents had fed them more drugs during Saved By The Bell. Fans of his ‘On Air’ hit, sign up now! Highly recommended. *

Mark Fell albums are like busses – you spend ages waiting for one, then two come at once. ‘UL8’ arrives just a couple of weeks after the fantastic ‘Multistability’ set for Raster Noton and, dare we say it, takes his sound even further into the outer reaches of glacial, rhythmic experimentation. With SND, Fell has tended to explore the hidden complexities of stripped rhythms, juxtaposing them with disorientating tones and digital noise – here this theme is taken to the next logical stage as his pounding percussive patterns transform slowly over their duration, flipping their pitch and rhythm with little fanfare. Fell exhibits an impressive ability to pull apart early Chicago house rhythms and acid house forms and transform them into something wholly alien. The percussion is edged into almost Autechre-like realms of abstraction but never loses its particular sonic signature. Similarly, when experimenting with acid sounds, Fell takes the well-weathered analogue squelch into territories rarely heard. Florian Hecker (who is slyly referenced on ‘Acids In The Style of Rian Treanor’) might have taken the form to even more uncompromising extremes, but by dialling back the complexity, and leaving in a trace of sonic provenance, Fell’s explorations acquire a multi-fuctional quality that’s pretty much unparalleled in modern electronic music. He re-wires dancefloor music while nodding to his academic forefathers – without even a whiff of pretension. The album ends with Fell’s most full-bodied production since SND’s “Circa 1666” was released on the second Clicks and Cuts compilation almost a decade ago, and rounds off a diverse, hugely captivating listening experience with some style. 2010 might just have been the year of Editions Mego, and ‘UL8’ is the perfect conclusion to an extremely impressive run. Don’t miss.

Foster Manganyi’s ‘Ndzi Teke Riendzo’ is Honest Jon’s compelling follow up to the shocking ‘Shangaan Electro’ comp of a few months back. Recorded in 2008 and originally released on cassette, it’s the work of a pastor from Giyani, Limpopo, South Africa, and shares much of the Shangaan sound’s preference for, dry, skittering drum machines, melodic marimba percussion, whistles, and those unmistakably South African vocal harmonies. But there’s one fundamental difference; the intentions behind the music. While the Nozinja productions of Shangaan are purpose built for partying, Foster conveys spiritual, religious messages through his personal brand of Electro-Gospel. But, like most folk outside of SA, we don’t have a clue what he’s saying and can only run with what we know – this album sounds and feels amazing. Generally the pace is slower than the breakneck Shangaan sound, but you will find uptempo essentials like the title track, translating as ‘I’m Taking A Journey’, and the flighty ‘Ndzi To Tivisela’ (I Will Keep On Praying), while the slower cuts such as ‘Zion’ and ‘Amen’ are filled with licks of high-life guitar and offer a more transcendent vibe for Foster to really sing it like he means it. However, regardless of the production palette, there’s something unmistakably pure and beautifuly traditional in this music that can’t be ignored. Highly recommended!

Closing an immense year for Honest Jon’s, 35 precious selections from East Africa spanning the mid-1930s till the mid-1950s. Taking full advantage of unprecedented access to EMI’s treasured archives in Hayes, Middlesex, HJ’s drew from more than 400 sides in the HMV MA series: 10″ 78rpm ‘Native Records’, a set of recordings made in Africa, pressed in the UK and sent back to Africa, aimed at native Africans rather than the white colonialists or increasing Indian communities, all with the intention of raising record and gramophone sales. The tracks can be broadly split into three substyles, minstrelsy, percussion-based ensembles and taarab. Most fall into the former category, relating tales of punch-ups at rumba parties and covering subjects as diverse as sex, death and cut-off trousers, best exemplified in Ssekiomou’s strikingly urgent ‘Wireless’, a song about the arrival of wireless radio to Kampala and the flurry of excitement reflected in the rapidly bowed ostinato of his Ndingidi. Taarab was more popular with Swahili-speaking communities and those familiar with imported Indian and Arab Egyptian records, mostly defined by lilting melodies played on Oud, violins or Indian Harmonium with Arab-styled poetry. Influenced by an influx of Congolese musicians, the percussion-based ensembles account for a small but exhilarating section of the comp, including a spectacular big band Kenyan Calypso. As expected, the attention to detail and luxurious hard-cover book presentation is second to none, and the mind boggles at the amount of work gone into translating and compiling the extensive sleevenotes and accompanying photographs. All music lovingly restored at Abbey Road. Highly recommended!

**A Hypnagogic supergroup of sorts with a blast of hallucinatory and tropical rhythmic synth adventures – new on OESB! Comes with free download coupon redeemable from the label** Seductively heavy-lidded inter-species avian-eroticism from the hypnagogic allstars Spencer Clarke (Skaters), Lieven Martens (Dolphins Into The Future), Eva Van Duren (Orphan Fairytale) and James Ferraro (CEO Airhead Entertainment) on the ever-compelling OESB imprint. Monopoly Child Star Searchers is usually the reserve of Spencer Clarke but he’s opened his nest to a few buddies on this one, weaving their like-minded liminal talents into his tropical trance sequences over four extended tracks dedicated to his parrot, Belafonte. If that all sounds a bit kinky, that’s because it is. The foursome get involved in long and steamy passages of heavily repetitive rhythms and drowsily fluctuating drones, all filled with the sort of mood setting ambiance and fragrant tonality that any parrot would be helpless to resist, and most likely be very flattered with such a display of affection and desire. Birds with exotic beaks are our favourite kind and if you liked Dolphins Into The Future’s polynesian daydream ‘Ke Ala Ke Kua’ or Spencer Clarke and Ferraro’s feathery kNew-Age moments, this album is totally mind-melting. Essential wares.

One look at the tracklisting for ‘Bangs & Works’ vol.1 is enough to give even the passing Footwork fan a touch of the jukin’ jitters. Planet Mu’s most comprehensive and substantial overview of Southside Chicago’s younger brother to booty, aka Juke or Footwork, collates a good proportion of those deadly cuts you could only previously hear on youtube or if you were lucky enough, a p*ssy 128k mp3. Of course the quality of either format was never a hindrance to our enjoyment, but now properly pressed on CD and wax it all sounds heavy as hell (even if we do crave a bit of youtube compression every now and again). After LPs from Nate and Roc, this comp looks further out of the ring to producers like DJ Elmoe and the blissful, time expanding suspension of scene classic ‘Whea Yo Ghost At, Whea Yo Dead Man’, onto hugely sought after diamonds like RP Boo’s spine-tingling dread sci-fi killer ‘Eraser’ or DJ Yung Tellem’s horrifically effective ‘Freddy vs Jason’. We could rant about this set allllll day, but if you’ve acquired a taste for this sh*t it’s probably already topping your xmas list. If you haven’t, we couldn’t recommend a better place to start. ESSENTIAL.

‘Tapes’ is a double disc collection of odds-and-ends pulled from Greg Davies and Zack Wallace’s sprawling catalogue of out-of-press cassette-only releases, and instantly drags us into a hallowed place of peace and calm. It might not initially seem that way with blasts of distorted modular synthesizer ping-ponging from ear to ear, but give it a few moments to sink in and you’ll be drifting through outer space in no time at all. These pieces are all about the tiny changes, and as each piece ebbs and flows through the usual twenty-or-so minute duration it’s important to listen very carefully, probably on headphones. The small shifts eventually give way to larger ones, and a simple pulsing rhythm can, before you know it, be dissolved in a cloud of bowed strings and echoing voices. It’s only on repeat listens that I can even discernibly identify most of the instruments, what was once a voice now sounds strangely synthetic, and the most obvious of synthesized tones slowly reveals more organic sources. ‘Tapes’ is an album which revels in slowness, in restraint and in patience – I think we could all use a bit more of those things in our lives. Don’t bother buying your agitated loved ones ‘The Little Book Of Calm’ this Christmas, buy ‘Tapes’ instead – you won’t regret it.

‘The Sublime’ completes Xela’s current release cycle for Digitalis that started with ‘The Illuminated’ in 2008, and bowed at ‘The Divine’ in late 2009. Each edition is released in a run of 200 copies, accompanied some months later by a vinyl pressing on Dekorder, as with this concluding station. From the epithet “Inherited and misplaced by J. Twells Esq. 2009/10” to biblical quotes and a medieval map of the middle east on the sleeve, Twells provides clear context for consumption, but even without it, this is an astonishing set of music with a marked maturation from previous episodes. And we definitely wouldn’t call this New Age, either. There’s something far more ancient and arcane at play in these recordings, drawing on reference points from horror soundtracks and ritualistic drone techniques to darker themes from Christian dogma and mythology. He’s genuinely just given our day a darkly skewed slant with these potent vibes and although it might be a while before we’re ready for it again, you’re unlikely to forget this one in a hurry. Very highly recommended.

Capping a vintage year for Mr Mullen after his ‘Bongo Closet’ LP for Type everyone round these parts, Digitalis present the mystic space music jumble of ‘A Dust Futures’. Using his favoured Yamaha CS-50 and creating a delirious friction from assortments of tape loops, Mullen makes strange and wonderful arrangements full of sparse, cold space and spiralling plumes of abstract melody which just happens to sound ever so similar to the breakdown from Carl Craig’s ‘The Climax’ on the B-side (no shit!). This is the sorta stuff we can zone out to all day and comes with the warmest recommendations for fans of OPN, Arp, Dylan Ettinger, or Stellar Om Source.

The first half of two captivating collections from Honest Jon’s, including seventeen vintage songs from East Africa (Kenya and Uganda) recorded between 1938-46. Taking full advantage of unprecedented access to EMI’s treasured archives in Hayes, Middlesex, HJ’s drew from more than 400 sides in the HMV MA series: 10″ 78rpm ‘Native Records’, a set of recordings made in Africa, pressed in the UK and sent back to Africa, aimed at native Africans rather than the white colonialists or increasing Indian communities, all with the intention of raising record and gramophone sales. The tracks can be broadly split into three substyles, minstrelsy, percussion-based ensembles and taarab. Ssekiomou’s striking opener ‘Wireless’ exemplifies the time and sound of these recordings, relating a minstrel’s tale of the arrival of wireless radio to Kampala, central Uganda, and the flurry of excitement is clearly manifesting in the deliciously cacophonous, urgent Ndingidi – a small stringed instrument played here with a rapidly bowed rhythmic ostinato. As expected, the attention to detail and double gatefold presentation is second to none, and the mind boggles at the amount of work gone into translating and compiling the extensive sleevenotes and accompanying track-by-track pull out. All music lovingly restored at Abbey Road. Highly recommended!

The second half of two captivating collections from Honest Jon’s, including eighteen vintage songs from East Africa (Kenya and Uganda) recorded between 1952-7. Taking full advantage of unprecedented access to EMI’s treasured archives in Hayes, Middlesex, HJ’s drew from more than 400 sides in the HMV MA series: 10″ 78rpm ‘Native Records’, a set of recordings made in Africa, pressed in the UK and sent back to Africa, aimed at native Africans rather than the white colonialists or increasing Indian communities, all with the intention of raising record and gramophone sales. The tracks can be broadly split into three substyles, minstrelsy, percussion-based ensembles and taarab, with the former making up the bulk of this compilation. This is likely due to the nature of the minstrel, who served a purpose beyond mere entertainment, sharing news and views in their songs, usually accompanied with a simple, stringed backing, commonly a bridge-less lyre played like a banjo. Taarab was more popular with Swahili-speaking communities and those familiar with imported Indian and Arab Egyptian records, mostly defined by lilting melodies played on Oud, violins or Indian Harmonium with Arab-styled poetry. Influenced by an influx of Congolese musicians, the percussion-based ensembles account for a small but exhilarating section of the comp, including a spectacular big band Kenyan Calypso. As expected, the attention to detail and double gatefold presentation is second to none, and the mind boggles at the amount of work gone into translating and compiling the extensive sleevenotes and accompanying track-by-track pull out. All music lovingly restored at Abbey Road. Highly recommended!

‘The Sound of Siam’ is Soundway’s first foray into the cracked world of Asian music and thankfully manages to achieve the same head-expanding quality the label has become synonymous with. Tripping beween jazz, funk, easy listening, lounge and who knows what else, this nineteen track compilation is a daring, haphazard look into Thailand’s rarely heard underground music scene. The skeleton of traditional Thai music is there somewhere, but these tracks are notable for taking sizeable Western influences and bending them to suit their needs. Therefore when they play jazz (as heard on Chaweewan Dumnern’s ‘Lam Toey Chaweewan’) it only barely sounds like any jazz you could think to mention, sucking in influences from countless other Americanized genres. The finest moment comes in the shape of Ream Daranoi’s heartbreaking ‘Fai Yen’, which seems to echo 50s and 60s television themes in the accompanying music, while the unforgettable shrill vocals sound absolutely alien and totally beguiling. Recommending a compilation like this is incredibly easy – just take a listen and allow yourself to explore musical topographies you haven’t encountered before. We guarantee you won’t have heard a collection quite like it. Highly Recommended.

Chicago’s Gatekeeper follow last year’s debut with a brilliant, and far more substantial, EP for Merok (home to releases from Kingdom, Salem, Teengirl Fantasy). If you’ve not checked their first 12″ or awesome Fact mix, you really should sort it out. ‘Giza’ expands their style over six tracks, blending traces of Italo, Industrial EBM, and early Chicago house with VHS sci-fi soundtrack signatures and arcade game music. They’ve got a close contemporary ally for this sound in HIT’s White Car and to a certain extent Skam’s VHS Head, but Gatekeeper’s tracks have an innate cinematic narrative that’s quite hard to ignore and more like a cybercylic hallucination of the music they adore, than a rehash or cut-up. From the arcade biker themes of ‘Chains’, to the menacing Hellraiser vibes of ‘Storm Column’ , the leather-bound thrust of ‘Giza’ and the digital hallucinations of ‘Mirage’ this is a feast for any industrial dancefloor aesthetes. Highly recommended!

Gleaming freshness from Illum Sphere, capping a fine year of releases and remixes on Martyn’s 3024 label and inclusion at the Red Bull Academy. ‘The Plan Is Dead’ continues a clear narrative arc of releases for Fat City, which started with ‘The Incoming EP’ and now pauses at these diverse five tracks of futurist Hip Hop. Opening with the Bossa Nova-infused breeziness of ‘One For Dimlite’, there’s an upswing of ecstatic synthline-driven head-nodders in ‘Diablo Day Out’ and ‘Supercharged’, both winking to the proggy styles of Hud Mo and Rustie but conducted with a certain sense of Manc-learned melancholy. Flip it to find one of the best tracks in his catalogue, bar none, on ‘An Old Escape (Kill Them Kill)’, a dread dance wrecker built from tipping tabla drums and spine-tingling surge of darkside synthline energy. Put this in your rave and smoke it! ‘Aftermath’ closes this affair, going heads down with bittersweet synth tones indebted to classic BoC records. Serious.

Downliners Sekt dropped one of the most enigmatic and obtuse avant-dance records of this year with ‘Hello Lonely, Hold The Nation’. It’s taken them till the other end of the year to come out with this, ‘We Make Hits, Not The Public’ an assertive and pigeonhole-eluding four-track 12″. We now know that they’re based in Barcelona, but that makes no difference to their sound whose complex and contrary arrangements create a context all of their own. ‘From Under Spinning Lights’ sets out with restrained, airy halfstep/hiphop before billowing into Mount Kimbie-on-crack constructions with a well-heavy comedown, while ‘Incerta Gloria’ is much more jagged and rock-based, dynamically at least, with a surging loud/quiet aesthetic and boldly unique rhythm programming. The tumultuous, pitching, private rhythms of ‘White Dawn’ remind strongly of their awesome previous 12″, again with the camouflaged vocal samples, before ‘Selfish G’ picks apart some cybernetic R&B joint and rearranges it on a 3D grid of collapsing rhythmic inversions. F*ck knows what this is, but it’s brilliant.

**Full colour artwork with lyrics for ‘Julie’ on the reverse!**Another mega-anthem for an alternate reality from Sam Meringue aka Outer Limits Recordings. The devotional drone-pop smasher ‘Julie’ features golden lines like “Juleeeee/ You Don’t Have To Kill To Be Happeeee” and “Juleeeee/Smell The Fear Upon Me When You’re Scareeee” set to the most fugged-up swarms of tape noise and epically muffled drums with sticky synth secretions spurted all over the top. ‘Plastik Child’ comes from the same zone of brilliance as Autre Ne Veut, only amplified to the power of Nena and therefore disgustingly addictive. Highly recommended if you got the Greatest Hits 7″ or have been copping the output of James Ferraro, Games, or any of Meringue’s myriad other projects. F**king A, yeah?

Lyon’s Jay Weed has got big boots to fill, dropping the 2nd release on Onemans 502 label after Fis-T’s ‘Night Hunter’, but thankfully he’s got big toes. ‘Prism’ has been doing the rounds on Oneman’s Rinse show for the last few months, sounding like some blunted reduction of Kingdom’s beefed-up Funky style, but for us the big one here is ‘The Naos’, recently included on Mosca’s Fact mix and sounding like a DVA beat on some pedigree Moroccan squidge. Sorta. Peep the samples and you’ll know what we mean! With a 12″ forthcoming for Sinden’s Grizzly enclosure and plays from Douster and Mosca, it’s safe to say you’ll be hearing more from Jay Weed in 2011. TIP!