Friday, February 27, 2009
Welcome Back
Alongside, the likes of Transmat, Warp and Underground Resistance, R & S is one of a handful of dance music labels truly deserving of the title 'legendary'. Just scrolling down their list of releases on Discogs takes an age in itself but when you start to dig around to see what's in there you really start to remember what classics they were responsible exposing to the world. Sure, the real stars are the producers themselves but the label's owners are no doubt more than a little proud of providing the homes to such greats as Beltram's Energy Flash, Jaydee's Plastic Dreams and CJ Bolland's awesome Horespower as well as classic albums from Model 500, Derrick May, and Aphex Twin plus of course not forgetting their In Order to Dance compilation series and whole host of other quality stuff.Anyway, after having being largely dormant for the past few years, 2008 saw them come back to life by not only remastering some of their classic albums but also unleashing brand new material on the world with a 12" from Radio Slave and some remixes from the likes of Redshape and Audion for a new compilation.
As well as planning to put out more new music, 2009 sees the label finally go digital and will ultimately reissue its entire back catalogue on mp3. Given the amount of tracks to encode its perhaps not surprising that this is going to be a phased release and to help entice people on board the label is offering a free download to people joining its mailing list with promise of more offers in the future.
No doubt there was some debate within the R&S camp as to which track to select from such a quality list as the one that was going to entice people to sign up for their mailing list and while their are numerous worthy candidates, it's fallen to Aphex Twin's Xtal to provide the honey pot.
Aphex Twin - Xtal // R & S Records
Labels: Aphex Twin, Audion, Beltram, Derrick May, Jaydee, Model 500, R and S Records, Redshape, Techno
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Heart Strings
A brand new album popped into my inbox from the Uncharted Audio label, home to Electronic/Indie artist Line. Line is a convenient anagram of one Neil Wells a multi-instrumentalist who resides in Nottingham and looking through his press release has been in more bands than I've had hot dinners.'Heart' is his debut solo album and it unleashes (real) Electro beats mixed with melancholic lo-fi vocals about love and loss. Neils vocal style is very reminiscent of Tom Vek and feels raw and under-produced which contrasts with the sharp electro backing of his production skills.
Line - Lenk // Uncharted Audio
You can stream the rest of the album and order a copy over at the Uncharted Audio website.
Labels: Line, Uncharted Audio
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Ghostly Force
Rob Rives is probably best know to most people through his Floppy Sounds alias. However, like many producers he records under several names and as Phantom Power, his debut long player, Patterns came out at the end of last year. It's not really an album in the true sense of the word though as all of the tracks have been released previously on 12" between 2001 & 2007.Given the age of some of the tracks on offer, it's relatively unsurprising that most of them have a fairly old school (techno) feel to them and while a few of the cuts do sound a little dated there's still plenty of fresh sounding tracks that will provide enjoyment to anyone new to this body of work. Most of the tracks are largely dancefloor oriented and Panawave, Can-D/Chew-Z, Mace In Your Face and Deconditioning are the ones that found particular favour with these ears.
Phantom Power - Deconditioning // Clicktracks
Labels: Floppy Sounds, Phantom Power, Rob Rives, Techno
Monday, February 09, 2009
A Different Dub
Following on nicely from Langer's genre blurring dub excursion I'm going to keep things on a similar line for today's post but while The Dubtec Mix was characterised by a sense of dark foreboding, Brendan Moeller's Beat Pharmacy project takes dub in a largely different direction.Instead of the usual laid back style of either traditional or techno infused dub, Beat Pharmacy's Wikkid Times LP presents the reggae grooves in more unfamiliar house style territory. All bar one of the album's tracks features a guest vocalist and duties are provided by familiar names in the likes of Spaceape and the living legend that is Paul St Hilaire but while the silky vocals carry their usual resonance the end product is more of an uplifting vibe than usual.
Strangers is definitely one of the album's more downbeat numbers and if truth be told, I think the more atmospheric side of dub-tinged electronics is where my heart really lies...or maybe it's just that the template set out by Rhythm & Sound was just so damn good!
Beat Pharmacy - Strangers (feat. Spaceape) // Deep Space Media buy
Rhythm & Sound - King Version // Burial Mix buy
Labels: Beat Pharmacy, Paul St Hilaire, Rhythm and Sound, Spaceape
Monday, February 02, 2009
The Dubtec Mix
It has been quite a while since I contributed any kind of mix to the blog so I wanted to showcase the increasingly blurred lines between the Techno and Dubstep scenes. I put together this mix way back in September 2008 for Soliton Research and it brings together a lot of my favourite tunes that made it it into my 2008 Hot List.It is now time to unleash it to a wider audience and to spread the word of the 'Dubtec' sound.
The mix was put together in one take with no rehearsals. Enjoy.
Langer - The Dubtec Mix // SRM06
Tracklist:
01 | Andy Stott - Massacre
02 | Substance - Relish (Shed Remix)
03 | MLZ - M-Brane
04 | Pan-Pot - Crank
05 | Substance & Vainqueur - Libration
06 | Rhythm & Sound - Dem Never Know (Sleeparchive Remix)
07 | Appleblim & Peverelist - Circling
08 | Martyn - Vancouver
09 | The Village Orchestra - Afanc (2562 Remix)
10 | Peverelist - Junktion
11 | 2562 - Techno Dread
12 | Martyn - Suburbia
13 | TRG - Broken Heart (Martyn's DCM Remix)
14 | Zomby - Spliff Dub (Rustie Remix)
15 | Skream - 2D
16 | Moderat feat. Paul St Hilaire - Let Your Love Grow
Labels: Dubstep, Dubtec, Mix, Mixes
