★★★★☆ Judging a book by its cover usually gets you nowhere, so keep an open mind when taking on Italy’s Opilec compendium. It starts as an electro celebration of keyboards from times passed. There’s never a bad time to delve into the synthetics of Italo-pop, and no worries if your mind is instantly switched to [...]
★★★☆☆ Kitsuné’s Gildas Loaëc selects the latest French shades and Gallic-styled changing of the avant garde, keen to keep giving you the complete synthesizer symposium. Kitsuné Parisien II features pure ’80s exhibitionism from Juveniles promoting pop in hyper-color, offering a rush above the examples of Parisien intelligence and artiness. For every level-headed Owlle and exacting [...]
★★★★☆ As if his ever-swelling profile needed an additional thumbs up, now Cocoon’s marathon man Sven Väth has given the ultimate blessing to Maetrik (a.k.a. Eric Estornel). The two uniting was never going to be anything less than a win-win result – deep house with an edge of expectation where you can feel yourself being [...]
★★★★☆ The Southport Weekender mix series has already bagged Kenny Dope, Joey Negro, Gilles Peterson, Dimitri from Paris and Joe Clausell as headliners and returns with two DJs who are more kindred spirits than you first may think on Vol. 9. Mr Scruff, the zany fish-focused sampler, goes through his record box with a vintage [...]
★★★★☆ “Deep rave” is not a contradiction. Its peddlers, Welsh duo Benjamin O’Shea and Mial Watkins, mix up mournful lingers with stinging counter attacks of arena rumbling, cold-clocking tech-house. That arena sized component becomes Damage & Daneeka’s oeuvre, even during moments of humbleness, working to a venue sealed air tight so every breath of air [...]
★★★★☆ You can’t get more unique than providing a soundtrack to Georges Méliès’s seminal 14-minute silent movie from the 1900s. While perhaps difficult to appreciate the scale of the tie-in (especially if you’re under the age of 110 or weren’t a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight”), Air’s Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel honor [...]
★★★★☆ Fabric Live is on some can’t/stop won’t stop business, following quality 2011 mixes from Jackmaster, Ramandanman and Four Tet. Bristol UK is once more the epicenter for FWD movement when Rob “Pinch” Ellis quickly puts on his stomping boots and bonds house, techno and acid with stone cold bass that easily wipes out the [...]
★★★★☆ Whereas the arcade boom-bapper Skulltaste was all about the calculated seek and destroy within computerized Minnesotan mazes, Planet High School (sadly not an adaptation of cult cartoon Galaxy High or anything to do with The Jetsons) is like Mux Mool has finished off the last end-of-level boss and can finally look around at his [...]
★★★★☆ The Burden Brothers kick off their own commemorative remix party, another chapter in an illustrious 20-year history, to follow their vinyl issue Revisited series, with uncompromising forward-thinking tech-house/techno sound-offs “Dema” and “Meridian.” Think Octave One and “Blackwater” is always in close attendance, and it’s Alter Ego who are given the keys to unlocking the [...]
★★★★☆ Freestyle, busking electronics with Asian intonation, Burnt Friedman is back. Nine-minute long “Uzu” and the sync-keeping “Tom Tom Keppo,” with its Indian percussion scurrying over irregular rhythms, exude a feel for making patchworks from the cogs and springs of Bollywood soundtracks, and represent the prolific German (de)constructor asking his usual question as to whether [...]
★★★☆☆ Chillout and post-cosmic disco with a bluegrass slide this is the sound of a duo taking flight. Jamie Paton and Nigel Hoyle nestle in a hutch of guitar-strummed easiness and reassuring nostalgic so you’re comfortable, at one with the world, enjoying the scenery. When the beats get more leaden, such as with the psych [...]
★★★★☆ Techno with its edges rounded, turned into a steaming, glass-raising funky house Mardi Gras, doesn’t tell the whole story. Not by a long chalk. Looking at Lucien Nicolet’s tracklist you’d think that his printer is all over the place, with titles finishing then reappearing while jostling for position with three/four/five others in the same [...]
★★★★☆ You know the story: you’re cleaning out your studio or apartment, and just happen to rediscover an album of 10 unreleased drum ‘n’ bass cuts lying around…whatdyamean that only happens to rebel dance music producers? The forgetfulness of Luke Vibert, he of many multi-directional electronic experiments under a slew of codenames, is the gain [...]
