Urlaubshits

I’ve been quiet over the last few months, but that’s for good reason this time -  I have recently taken up a new writing position over at the excellent Juno Plus. I’m honoured to be part of it and am particularly proud of what we’ve achieved over the last few months as a team. I’ll be putting some kind of section on this site’s homepage where I will link to the stuff that I do over there – obviously there’s a formality to that stuff which you won’t get here, and it led me to think about how I can get back to blogging here and make it a bit more sustainable for myself, and of course fun to write. The last thing I wanted to do was fall into the classic “use your blog to get what you want and then let it die” trap.

Working at Juno I’m in the fortunate position of having lots of new records land on my desk every week, and being right next to a stockroom where I can pick out anything I want to listen to. This, coupled with a generous staff discount has pretty much guaranteed that I’m coming home with several great records a week, the kind of thing I never would have bought previously simply because I have more time to devote to listening to new things. So, what I’m going to do, quite simply, and partly inspired by my friends, the Secret Danger Society, is list up my purchases for the week and tell you why you should care, as well as giving you a taste of the beautiful design that goes into some 12″ releases. As this is the first it’s selected highlights from the last few months, but as it goes on posts will probably be shorter.

First up is the new release from Dutch producer Dexter. He’s been going for a while, and has released records on pretty much all the Amsterdam labels worth their salt. I’m not overly familiar with his previous output, but it’s fair to say it’s been house music, albeit with a fluid, futuristic sheen. On Great Northern Diver, recently released on Clone’s Basement series, (which has been exploring the moodier strains of house/techno hybrids) he takes this approach and applies it to a bass music template. All the tropes are there – sludgy sub bass frequencies, rolling rhythms – hell, T.H.I.N.G. even samples Amerie – but there’s something going on that you’d never get from any of the UK producers doing the same thing. “Great Norther Diver” is a fantastically liquid piece of machine funk with fluid rhythms that recall Objekt’s fantastic productions, but the track I’m obsessed with is “Bo-Dyned”. It’s the kind of thing that Hessle’s output has been moving towards in recent years, a 123ish BPM house track where dusty organs and disembodied vocals float over a gradually pulsating bassline. But it’s the percussion that really makes it – rhythmically complex snaps, bells, cymbals, snares and kicks that move in deceptive ways. It can get crowded, but that’s what makes it work. Upcoming releases on Clone Basement from Untold and Blawan only seek to highlight the sharing of ideas between Amsterdam and London – can’t wait to see what else crops up on the imprint in the future.

Dexter – “Bo-Dyned”

On a similar tip is the new Kevin McPhee single Sleep on Bristol based label Idle Hands. McPhee is a Canadian producer, but there’s something undeniably British about his sound. It’s house music through and through, pitching itself at about 120BPM, but with an undeniably fluid quality that clunks and hisses along, while fractured samples add texture, much like Dexter’s “Bo-Dyned”. However, the EP is most similar in my ears to the compressed and jaunty rhythms of Lukid and Actress. This kind of sound is something that I’m particularly excited by at the moment – it really feels like the influences of dubstep and other bass forms on house are really starting to bear the most interesting fruit. It’s no coincidence that McPhee’s material has seen release on Idle Hands – Bristol’s rich scene seem to be leading the way with this kind of thing at the moment (with the obvious exception of the Hessle and Hotflush labels). I enjoyed this so much I went and bought McPhee’s first release on Dublin label [Naked Lunch]. It’s also really good – more soulful than Sleep, and actually reminds me of, dare I say it, early James Blake. There’s a kind of lounge quality to it, which combined with its percussive mastery makes for something that resembles R&B more than it does house.

Kevin McPhee – “Sleep”

On a loose Bristol connection, one of my absolute favourite releases of the last few months has been a split EP between relative unknowns Visionist and Lorca, on a great new label called Left Blank. I can’t recommend it highly enough – it does all the 808 revival stuff and R&B sampling in a way that makes it feel fresh again. I did a full review over at Juno Plus which you can read here. Their first release is also exceptional, the Nylon Sunset EP from Bristol based Vessel. It comes backed with a Peverelist remix which is exceptional, but a lot of reviews I’ve read have really focused on that rather than the original stuff, which is frankly unfair given how different their styles are. The opener, “Ton” sounds more like a more rhythmically complex version of Border Community’s kettled euphoria, especially Nathan Fake’s “The Sky Was Pink” or, the pastoral glitch of James Holden’s “10101″. “Blushes” meanwhile is a slowed-down house track filled with hazy atmosphere. It can be so difficult to make stuff that speed sound like it has any kind of groove, but the attention to detail on things like drum reverb is just perfect. “Nylon Sunset” meanwhile is a tense and urgent piece of lo-fi techno weirdness that has echoes of Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada. It really is excellent and with releases like this already Vessel and Left Blank deserve to have a bright future ahead of them.

Vessel – “Ton”

It seems that simple house music is having a hard time these days – all the kids are too busy rediscovering Underground Resistance to have much time for the classic strains of Chicago. But if anyone can bridge the gap between the feel-good mood of Chicago house and it’s funkier offspring, then it’s Braille. Better known as Praveen Sharma, one half of the superb Sepalcure (along with Travis Stewart aka Machinedrum), he dropped a superb single under this new moniker on Rush Hour earlier this year, and he’s followed it up with A Meaning on Hotflush Recordings. It may not hit the same ecstatic highs of “The Year 3000″ or “Leavin’ Without You” on that early record, but that’s almost a good thing – this EP is more reined in, keeping the concentration on the rolling snares and muting his palette just slightly into murkier copper tones has given us a record that feels more unified than the first that was, and closer to the dusty appeal of the tracks he samples.

Braille – “A Meaning”

Also on a garage tip from a few months ago is George FitzGerald’s recent EP on Aus Music. Aus have been cherrypicking the best producers for one-off releases for a while now, and they always seem to get exceptional tracks from them (Midland’s “Through Motion” also recently out on Aus, is undoubtedly one of his best), and FitzGerald’s Silhouette EP is no different. It’s easy to write him off as a Joy Orbison knock-off, but I think that there’s a youthful enthusiasm present in FitzGerald’s material which Orbison has largely abandoned, and it suits him well. “Silhouette” and “Reset” are particularly lush garage/house hybrids with a keen sense of forward momentum. Furthermore the EP contains a fantastic remix of “Silhouette” provided by John Roberts that takes the original’s bright synths and creates a clunking, elastic, bass-heavy house version which has to be heard to be believed. It’s nothing like the original, and nothing like Roberts’ previous work.

George FitzGerald – “Silhouette”

As for albums, the big one for me is Cosmin TRG’s debut long player, Simulat, out now on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label. I’ve had nothing but love for the man since I first heard “See Other People” last year, and hearing everything released since and delving into his back catalogue has been a joy. His trajectory from releasing dubstep/garage hybrids as TRG on Hessle, through housier terrain on Rush Hour has led to this, his fully fledged outing as a master of techno. There’s more weight to these tracks than anything he’s done before, whilst keeping things surprisingly delicate, especially on the fractured sublimity of “I Want You To Be” and “Lillasyster”- it’s a surprise after the relative excesses of A Universal Crush, but like FaltyDL, he’s proved that there’s room for every single one of his constantly shifting musical identities without compromising any of his artistic integrity.

Cosmin TRG – “Want You To Be”

Finally there is eagerly awaited new release from Huntleys & Palmers Audio Club. If you haven’t heard the infectious “Oh My Days” from Goa via Glasgow producer Auntie Flo then you’re in for a treat. But while that’s been caned heavily from everyone from Pearson Sound to Oliver Seaman, I find it incredible that the equally as fantastic B-side “Choosing Love” from South African kwaito producer DJ Sdunkero hasn’t had the same amount of love, despite having been floating around the internet for a while -  nice to see it get a physical release here. I’m not going to claim to be the world’s biggest authority on South African dance music, but I enjoy this as much as DJ Mujava’s “Township Funk”, and that’s saying a lot. It’s simplicity belies what is actually a deeply complex tune emotionally. Superb artwork also, provided by one Anna Kraay.

DJ Sdunkero – “Choosing Love”

Of course this isn’t everything. The last few months has seen Four Tet release a potential career best with his Locked/Pyramid 12″, a serious contender for album of the year from Machinedrum, and Mosca deliver what I think is the final word on 90s UK garage revivalism (seriously, everything on “Bax”, from the razor sharp stabs, tight beats to the inbuilt rewind absolutely shits over everyone else in that scene – people will have to up their game if they want to compete on his level), but these have been covered extensively elsewhere. Still, if you haven’t heard them, then you must, especially “Bax” – it’s a definite contender for track of the year.