cooltunes

• A bootleg recording of Vladislav Delay’s set from DEMF last month, which can be downloaded here (also contains part of Jeff Mills’ and A Guy Called Gerald’s sets)
• A live performance of Monolake’s from Frigid in Sydney
• Rhythm & Sound’s DJ set from Paxahau’s 8th anniversary
• Pole - Steingarten
• Jan Jelinek Avec The Exposures - La Nouvelle Pauvrete
• Jan Jelinek - Loop Finding Jazz Records
• Andrew Pekler - Station to Station
• Kate Simko’s set from DEMF last month, which can be downloaded from her site here.

I’m a little behind in finally listening to the back catalogue of the ~scape label, there are quite a few gems there. Lots of forays into glitch meets jazz. They’ve also put out an interesting series of compilations where IDM/glitch-heads produce hip-hop. Staedtizism 3 is worth checking out for the tracks by luminaries Thomas Fehlmann and Daniel Bell aka DBX.

There’s a new Deep Chord release coming out. Limited to 500 copies, 2 X 12 + one 7″ single. Contains remixes from Convextion and Echospace (Rod Modell + SoulTek).

The discogs page for the release is here.

Surprisingly, things are looking great for the dub techno/detroit/basic channel fan these days. Allow me to list:

Scion is releasing records again, along with Chain Reaction artist Substance, on the new label Scion Versions.

A surge of activity from Convextion, with a re-release of his earlier track Miranda, his long-awaited full-length album, and an upcoming release on Arne Weinberg’s label, AW-Recordings.

I spoke to Rod Modell a few months ago and he assured me that he’d be in the studio trying to get some releases out by the end of summer; it looks like the fruits of those labors are starting to surface now. A 10″ on a new label, Hierophant Records, some production work as Spectral Network on the limited and obscure Octal Records, and a remix on the aforementioned re-release of Convextion’s Miranda. Also, for those who missed the extremely limited run of Mike Huckaby’s remixes of Deep Chord on the Synth label last summer, those records have now found distribution through word and sound and are available for purchase in Europe. I believe the now-defunct Watts Music was signed up to distribute those records in the US, no idea what’s going to happen there.

As a parting note, a promising polish(?) netlabel released an intriguing compilation, Mousiken Poiei Kai Ergazou. It’s worth noting that Sustainer makes his first appearance since his 2002 album on Italic in this release. An newcomer by the name of Furthr contributes the standout track on this album.

The new Convextion album, initially limited to 500 copies, is going to be repressed as long as there’s demand.

I’m glad they’re taking that approach, and that their reasons for limiting the first pressing were just financial. I get aggravated when labels limit releases for seemingly no reason (and then trumpet the rareness and scarcity of a record that’s not even out yet).

I picked Clubsessel’s self-titled album late last year but haven’t given it a close listen until now. It’s pretty good. Darker, subdued deeper techno, although more toward the IDM and downtempo spectrum of things as opposed to straight-up dancefloor material. It’s also pretty minimal, but not clipped, glitchy and cut-up like the kind of stuff Mille Plateaux is known for.

Anyway, Clubsessel is more popularly known as misc., under which alias they’ve recorded a butt-ton of stuff on Sender, and I pretty much can’t stand most of it. They’ve also recorded as Niederflur on M_nus, with some very … well, minimal work suited to that label’s aesthetic.

You could say that Clubsessel is the IDM/Downtempo component of the Niederflur alias.

Oh and in other news Richie Hawtin’s disappeared so far up his own anus that you can’t even refer to his label as Minus anymore, it’s M_nus. Christ.

Couple of updates on what Monolake’s been up to:

-He’s got a new single coming out this month (page has samples). Sounds okay, need a longer listen.
-He made a couple of random generative ambient tracks via Ableton and posted exceprts for download (one is 15 minutes, the other 60). Cool background music, and worth checking out. A remix he recently did for Depeche Mode and a live set from last year are also available for download on the same page.

I’ve been playing a lot of Uusitalo (aka Vladislav Delay) lately. I held off on checking out Vapaa Muurari for the longest time because I’ve only really liked one of his albums (Vocalcity). However, after getting ahold of his latest album and noting the similarity to his other work as Luomo, I decided to give it a shot.

I’m not as into Tulenkantaja as much as Vapaa Muurari, as it’s a bit quirkier and more of a standalone album instead of being a live rework of his previous material. Had I known Vapaa Muurari contained as much reworked stuff from Vocalcity, though, I’d have checked it out much sooner.

So if you liked Delay’s work as Luomo and would appreciate it in the context of a live set with more of an ambient flavor, I’d definitely recommend checking out Vapaa Muurari. Tulenkantaja, not so much. It’s a decent album, though, just not quite my thing.

Albums to watch for this year:

Layering Buddha, the previously mentioned album by Monolake.

Cosmos, the fourth album by Mexican minimal electronic/classical maestro Murcof.

The Cold In Between, on Plong!, and Nightwidth on Merck, by Swede minimalist Anders Ilar. No idea what the Plong! one will have on it, and I’m assuming the Nightwidth EP on Narita will be represented on the Merck release along with who knows what else.

Vince Watson seems to have a lot of projects in the works, with an older album destined for release on Transmat now set for release on Belgian label Delsin. He’s also working on an album for F COM and apparently will be doing some work for NRK. No word on whether those last two will be done before the year’s up, but the Delsin album is slated for an Autumn release.

Also, I’m behind, and I haven’t checked out Loscil’s most recent work, Plume. It was released at the end of last month.

felt like streaming and mixing some of the new records i’d picked up over the last month. i can never find a good track to mix out of the mataya one, so i bailed and started over.

mix 1 starts with some laid-back electro, moves into microhouse and light tech-house territory, then goes into some heavier, glitchier stuff. the mix of the last 3 tracks was shamelessly lifted from mr. c’s classic 2002 essential mix.

mix 2 is tech-house of the darker, deeper variety, with some basic channel stuff and aril brikha thrown in for good measure. ends on a floatier, housey note.

mix 1:

mesak - tufnu (klakson)
johan skugge - kyrkogaard (mitek)
subsound - electrobot (affected)
zvukbroda - kse zo (listen to reason)
omni a.m. & casey hogan - in my time of flying (euphoria)
le dust sucker - keine bewegung berlin (styles kickin’)
steve bug & richie hawtin - low blow (minus)
mataya - new game (listen to reason)

mix 2:

blue mar ten - numbers (deep structure)
second hand satellites - orbit 1.4 (hallucination)
maurizio - m5 (maurizio)
round four - find a way (vocal mix) (main street)
sanasol vs. ozzy - seveneleven (ozzymix) (thule)
aril brikha - on and on (transmat)
david alvarado - klugh (ovum)
juju christian - feel good (zeppelin)

Pan American - East Coast Bugs
Dub Taylor - Newmen
Round Four - Find a Way
Dean Decosta - Clack
Mark Thibideau - Install
Sanasol vs. Ozzy - Seveneleven
Rechenzentrum - Vertikal
Monolake - Remoteable
Kazooo - Multiplied Together
Maurizio - M6 (Edit)
Monolake - Reminiscence
Rhythm & Sound - Smile