cooltunes

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.

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.