Live at Fluid, Friday 15th August

I'll be playing a more techno-focussed set than usual, but naturally with a few wild cards thrown in.

Hysteria, Basement, 578 Kingsland Road, Dalston. Free from 21.00 to 22.00, £5 after. Running until 03.00. Set time: 00.00 - 01.30

Review: Container - Adhesive (Liberation Technologies LTECH007)

Artist: Container

Title: Adhesive

Label: Liberation Technologies

Cat: LTECH007

Format: Digital / Vinyl

The latest release on Mute's developing Liberation Technologies label presents the work of American producer Container (Ren Schofield). The label seems like a natural home for an aggressively experimental EP that seems to acknowledge the influence of other, now historic, producers.

Opener Glaze has an almost poppy beat offset by harsher noise textures. It also recalls the work of Nova Mute artist 2^nd Gen and also has a trace of the early electronic spirit of Mute.

Slush is harsher and more abrasive track with an aggressive, punky sound full of nagging details. In contrast, Complex is quite Punky in spirit, featuring raw textures and a strange niggling sound that might be a flanged voice sample. Whatever the source, it's been successfully designed to grate and to prevent things getting too linear.

The title track is based around a harsh, scouring pattern with sudden blares and bleepy details. It's a very rough and urgent track, as reflected in the media overdose theme of the video:

Review: AnD Kundalini (Electric Deluxe)

AnD Kundalini

Electric Deluxe

12'' // Digital Download EDLX034

Dimitri from Manchester duo AnD has a very clear mission statement: "It's all about getting hard man, harder and harder and harder." While for some artists a move to Electric Deluxe might signal a softening or a move away from dancefloor brutalism, AnD retain their hard, uncompromising edge while also opening out their sound to new textures.

Kundalini punches in hard from the start. 'The Jellyfish' is the most conventional or linear track. Featuring a heavy kick and harsh details, it splinters and fragments dramatically in the last section before the kick punches back in at -2.32. Played loud, this colossal moment will knock the unwary off their feet. Euphoric devastation.

The bleepy sequence that structures 'Dysekt' only slightly softens the massive, potentially internal organ-rupturing kick and detuned rave elements. When the kick returns at 4.53 after dropping away for a while it's hard as hell and even more massive.

'Dtadtmat' has a relatively subtle introduction but is soon dominated by heavy, rolling, bass and strict beats. These are later joined by harsher metallic elements. In contrast, 'IcDbYc' is an ominous bleepscape, quite similar to the dark industrial visions of Australian artist Black Lung, and a worthy sonic successor to his work.

After the storms, the (relative) calm. 'DTR' is a very filmic 10 minute track featuring an eventually almost overpowering bass frequency. It has a very industrial atmosphere but a more contemporary-sounding percussion gradually creeps in. Despite its rough, abrasive textures it's an atmospheric track of great depth and precision.

It's really too soon to describe this powerful set of tracks as one of the releases of 2014, but if it doesn't turn out to have been one of the best of the year it will have been a truly exceptional year.

Review: V/A Sulla Giostra Nell’Ombra

Artist: V.A.

Title: Sulla Giostra Nell’Ombra

Label: Violet Poison

Cat: VPN005

Release: 23rd-Jan-2014

Format: 12” Vinyl Only (Transparent)

Although only on its 5^th release, the Violet Poison label is already attracting strong interest. The fifth release is a suitably uncompromising compilation. While even some techno listeners will find these tracks too extreme, they sacrifice neither force nor subtlety.

O/H is Richard Oddie of Orphx and Dave Foster of Teste. Their track 'Delirium Tremens' kicks in hard from the start. Its pulsing analogue basslines have more than a trace of Pan Sonic and are offset by harsh noise frequencies, shaking loose all manner of sonic debris.

Irish producer Sunil Sharpe offers the pleasingly-titled 'Ground Skull' which is not quite as brutal as its predecessor, but equally dramatic. Built around atmospheric alarm bell frequencies, it also features a very dirty acidic noise sequence and a very abrupt ending.

'Function' by Belgraders Ontal initially sounds like it's going be a all-out assault, but while there's no shortage of fiercely dragging industrial percussion and noise, it doesn't punch through as expected, but keeps to a steady on/off beat marked by mechanical rasping and half-joyful, half-ominous chords.

CSA's 'Overture', may not be quite as confrontational or fast as the others, but it's a very intense and ominous piece – a blend of churning noise, twisted high chords and orchestral ambience with definite industrial overtones. A suitably uneasy ending to a very intense slab of vinyl.

10 from 2013

Ten of the most intense and storming tracks from the year, there could have been another couple of Perc tracks and mixes but I've tried to make the list more balanced. Honourable mentions for Dadub, Zeitgeber, Dettmann, Coal, Oscar Mulero, Shifted and Inigo Kennedy amongst others...

 

Review: Giorgio Gigli & Obtane - Perception Through Dissonance (Prosthetic Pressings PP039)

This is a release by two of the most interesting Italian techno producers, following on from their 2012 release A Sad Wandering Dreamer Trapped In Contemporary Memory Architectures which I reviewed for Trebuchet. Here the work is not quite as widescreen in its approach but more focussed.

Industrial Assaults is a rather deceptive title for a typically lenghty Gigli/Obtane track with a chugging bassline accompanied by mournful drones. The mood it creates is akin to some of the atmosphere of darker Plastikman tracks of the late 1990s, but it's a little colder and more formal than its predecessors.

The Rrose Remix also has a trace of Plastikman's Consumed era sound, but is more dancefloor-oriented and less bleak. Ascending and descending sequences are tightly filtered and tweaked becoming increasingly acidic as the track develops. The remix isn't quite typical of either remixer or artists and delivers something unexpected and satisfying.

Surprisingly, it's on the functionally-titled final track Ambient Drama where the two old collaborators' formula works most effectively. It's bleak yet anthemic, based around a slow but resolute bassline that pushes it forward, a great track for starting or finishing a mix and highly immersive on headphones or at high volume.

Slovak Techno set at Mor Ho!, Red Gallery, Shoreditch, November 8th.

A special 'Slovnaft mix' to round off this night of Slovak and British electronic music...

By the end of the 1990s European techno had moved from the underground to the mass market and a certain blandness was setting in. Techno DJs and listeners were starting to search for more radical and intense sounds. It was just at this point that rumours began to emerge of a club in a nuclear bunker in Slovakia where they played some of the hardest and most industrial techno yet heard. The club was Bratislava's U Club (now the Sub Club) and it would become the nucleus of a small but influential scene.Codex Europa's Slovnaft Mix is a celebration of the energy and dynamism of the Slovak techno scene and an attempt to re-construct the legendary U Club atmosphere in London. The mix will showcase the work of Slovak producers such as DJ Boss, Olga + Jozef, Loktibrada, Rumenige and more, plus remixes from their international allies. 90 minutes of some of the most rigorous, mechanical, brutal and unrelenting techno ever produced...

LINE-UP: 

Helm (UK) 

Bios (SK) 

Ink Midget (SK) 

Shibuya Motors feat. Ddkern (SK/AT) 

Codex Europa (UK) 

VJ-ING AND SITE-SPECIFIC ART by Mikaela Lilhops 

£7 pre-sale /£9 on the door drinks: BYOB

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