Today we present you 50 among the records that caught our attention, minds and bellies the most this year, listed in alphabetical order (by artist). Each entry goes along a couple of intuitive tags to help you discover the general musical context for every recommendation, and also a brief comment to it. Of course, about the same amount of albums (or maybe ten times of that) would have deserved to be featured here or in any other ‘final year list’. So please consider our selection as it should be: nothing more – and nothing less – than a quick look at what WE have listened over these months. Have fun!
1) AA.VV. – A Disseminated Darkness on Inner Personality Status EP [Contort Yourself]
Listen / Tags: Industrial Techno, EBM
The Glasgow-based Contort Yourself label combines raw contemporary techno with original 80s/90s industrial/electronic/ebm sourced primarily from old cassette releases, expressing the sound of darkness and frustration through use of machines.
“Bulldozing into being, Novacom arrives into this world with the bellowing bass and distorted dirge of “Outsiders”. Downwards Records derelict JK Flesh (a.k.a. Justin Broadrick of Napalm Death/Godflesh/Techno Animal) keeps the beats boiling, drums and synths dipped in detritus and distortion. The flip is dedicated to legendary French brutalist act Le Syndicat. The grunting, shunting “Maximalist” from 1993 roars static and synthesizer strychnine scratch and burn before the bent and buckled 80s “Prothesis Pack Xtra 08”. Ekman (Panzerkreuz/Berceuse Heroique) is on hand to close. 303 jumper cables are applied to “Maximalist”, pound and squawk pouring salt into speaker wounds” [via]
2) AA.VV. – Disciples Of Chaos [Loveblast]
Listen / Tags: Electronics, Industrial Techno, Rome
“Healing to darkness, joining the united forces of Techno, “Disciples Of Chaos” is a twisting vortex of sickness conceived of five brand new tracks by Lamanna & Sirio Grimaldi, Fire At Work, Drvg Cvltvre, Valerio Moscatelli, Zone Démersale: produced by Love Blast together with Stirpe999, comes in printed sleeve, artwork by Claudia Landi. Limited to 300 copies” [via]. Farewell Chaos, for Order has failed.
3) AA.VV. – PCMSV016 [Pinecone Moonshine]
Listen / Tags: Ambient, Drum and Bass, Drumfunk, Jungle
Tracklist: (A1) Martsman – Capital-K (A2) Martsman – Zeezer (A3)Dissident – Stuck in Texture (A4) Indidjinous and Madam Bliss – Indidjibliss
“The 16th vinyl release on Pinecone Moonshine presents four Drum and Bass tracks with elements of jazz, dub, and ambient. Drums range from live percussion to sampled break beats featuring Martsman, Dissident, Indidjinous and Madam Bliss. Martsman returns to Pinecone Moonshine bringing his signature basslines and hinting at jazz and dub influences for two Drum and Bass tracks. Starting with pleasant jazz chords, a few guitar strums, and rolling percussion from sticks and light hi-hats, Capital-K switches to a stuttering, pulsating bassline. Zeezer’s squelching bassline and high pitch sound effects are offset by warm, echoing dub stabs. The drums mostly focus on a dominant kick drum and 4/4 hi-hats in a dub-techno style. The progression is guided by excerpts of break beats including the Amen break in the second half.
Dissident’s Stuck in Texture combines one break beat and sparse percussion to carefully control transitions in this ambient roller. The optimistic tone builds through the intro and focuses on repetition to create a calm, atmospheric vibe. Indidjinous and Madam Bliss collaborated on a unique Drum and Bass track with live flute and live didgeridoo. The bassline reinforces a steady half-time rhythm as the flute and didgeridoo alternate. Three minutes in, the half-time rhythm switches to the Amen break and an outbreak of didgeridoo note” [via].
4) Air Max ’97 – HPE EP [DECISIONS]
Listen / Tags: Bass, Digital, Future Bass, Grime
DECISIONS is a label focused on vinyl and digital releases that delivers music to move people on the dancefloor. It has been founded by Air Max ’97, a Melborne-based producer and DJ who’s embracing some old Nike / baggy aesthetic to be coupled with his take on bass music. Referring to the HPE EP, Boomkat.com says:
“His 1st shot of 2016 finds him trimming back the neon colours to a more greyscale tonal palette of tricksy militant percussion and scything dynamics; HPE gears up with limb-pronging, pointillist arrangement mutating thru tumbling cycles; Swelter follows with bellicose snare rolls re-coiling around bilious white noise explosions, holding a lip-biting tension that gets resolved with the flood of rolling techno bass and clambering abstract noises in Thrall; whereas Inside Outside explores gutted club construction with intestine-twysting syncopation helmed by churning subs and rinsed-out with hydraulic dynamics to a mutant grime coda. Levels are right up there. Tip!” [via]
5) Alex Buess & Daniel Buess – Skin Craft – RIND & NOL [Praxis]
Listen / Tags: Industrial, Rhythmic Noise, Electronics, 16-17
“Praxis 55 “SKIN CRAFT” – RIND & NOL: works by Alex Buess & Daniel Buess rearranged by CORTEX. [These are] two powerful compositions on vinyl LP with cover art by Darkam and layout by Lynx. RIND is a work using three large self-built cow skin frame drums, 1 horse skin container drum, metal plates and electronics composed and played live at Gare du Nord, Basel on 4-3-2010 by Daniel Buess, Daniel Stalder, Peter Conradin Zumthor, rearranged by Cortex (Alex and Daniel Buess). NOL is a composition by Alex Buess for a percussion trio from 1995 played by Daniel Buess, Daniel Stalder, Matthias Würsch live in May 2003. This release continues the collaboration with Alex Buess that goes back to the pre-Praxis days of the Vision label since 1987 and includes Praxis 31 by 16-17 and Praxis 48 by Cortex, both of which also included Daniel Buess” [via]
6) Andrea Belfi – Cera Persa [Latency Recordings]
Listen / Tags: Impro, Drums, Electroacoustic
Andrea Belfi comes back with a solo work, a 12” called ‘Cera Persa’ [Italian for ‘lost wax casting’] and focused on outstanding rhythmic patterns and atmospheric, intimate acoustic blends. Latency Recordings is the platform chosen for the occasion: the outcome, based in Paris and run by Sidney Gerard and Souleymane Said, already published ashtonishing abstract-electronic records such as ‘From One Mind To The Other’ by Joey Anderson, Kane Ikin’s Basalt Crush, Madteo’s Raveyard Shifts EP and many more.
“Two constantly shifting blends of Belfi’s multi-rhythmic snare-work with stately drones and shimmering electronica. Themes and traces continually loom and recede, rocking to a deep, pulsating bass drum, and tautened by a widescreen sense of drama” [via].
7) Brendan Dougherty – Sensate [Entr’acte]
Listen / Tags: Free-form electronics, Harmonics, Abstract
Brendan Dougherty is a Philadelphia-born, Berlin-based electronic music producer / performer, equally known for his work in theatre and performance art, having collaborated with Jeremy Wade, Liz Santoro Adam Linder, Ian Kaler, and many others. 2016 saw the release of Sensate on the Entr’acte imprint relocated in 2012 from London to Belgium; the work, recorded between 2009 and 2014 with prosumer music equipment, exploits the heavy-handed engineering of various hardware and software synthesisers, samplers and sequencers, and can be listed among the most interesting product of the past year in terms of mind-blowing electronics. Via Boomkat:
“There’s something enigmatic and intangible at work here which defies easy description due to the music’s mercurial, elemental construction, broaching the unknown with a singular quality that’s got as intrigued. [] It’s almost difficult to locate the core of these complex, dynamic structures, seeming to emanate and grow from uncertain points in the stereo field thru thickets of thorny, roiling distortion” [via].
Brendan Daugherty Live at Macao, Milan via URSSS.com
8) Butters – s/t [Boscow Records]
Listen / Tags: Hardcore, Punk, Tuscany
Check out the 4-piece debut record of Butters, a brand new band from the Italian region called Tuscany, out early September 2016. The play fast and raw hardcore punk music, with uncompromising strides and heavy vocals. The record is a little love present to y’all, some of them coming with a sticker inside done by the mighty Niccolò Nozza. Marco Falco is their Elvis.
9) Candor Chasma – Il Dipinto Ucciso [AZOTH]
Listen / Tags: Experimental, Drone, Harsh Noise, Improv, Musique Concrete
Two years after “The Key”, Corrado Altieri and Simon Balestrazzi are back with a new album inspired by Paolo Di Orazio novel. Here are the author’s very words about the record:
“Il Dipinto Ucciso by Candor Chasma placed me brutally face to face, in sonic format, with what I tried to say with the eponymously titled book published in 1993 by Granata Press. Unbeknownst to me, Candor Chasma took the novel, brought it to the operating room and dissected it: the noise produced, linear and spherical at the same time, created this wonderful album of periodic and aperiodic waves, round sounds and sawtooths’ sounds. Nine tracks, nine events of advanced psychedelia. For those who have never read the book, the musical fabric that the album extends into the mind – and the perceptions beyond the sound – is perfectly appropriate to the text that I wrote. It seems to be its voice, its skin. Indeed, it would be appropriate to say: its crust. A dark journey, distorted, in a parallel world of nine tracks (each bearing the title of the fundamental chapters) from which from which we look motionless at the conventional, external one. [] Nine landscapes of amniotic sounds, ancestral, between claustrophobia and half-life, near-death and cybernetics. I am honored that Candor Chasma have wanted to create a twin work in this very personal way, independent of my will. Because only in this way can the moon of the novel now show its true dark side”.
10) Cioran – Bestiale Battito Divino [Caligari Records]
Listen / Tags: Hardcore Punk, Emo, Italian Hardcore, Crust
Cioran are Francesco Schiavon, Riccardo Rossi, Giacomo Garofolin and Daniele Grolia, facing a subtle shift in the music played on Bestiale Battito Divino with respect to the previous release. The hardcore punk outcome express in this occasion in rather chaotic bursts of ‘esoteric / folkloristic -themed’ violence, showing the true nature of a creature ‘stuck halfway between bestial and divine’.
“The nature of a creature stuck halfway between bestial and divine, carrying inside these two poles and leaning toward one direction or the other. The coexistence of submission to some animal instinct and the seeking of something higher than mere reality. Spirit and science,progress and tradition,creative and destructive will. A walking paradox that uses eternal inner conflict as an engine,like a star uses nucleosynthesis to explode and shine; an entity that pulses,oscillates and writhes to domine its duality.”
Album cover: “Fioritura degli Eroi” by Marco Carli Rossi.
11) Delroy Edwards – Hangin’ At The Beach [L.A. Club Resource]
Listen / Tags: Electronics, Slowed Down Funk, 4 club use only
“Outta sight since early last year, LA’s Delroy Edwards gets back in the game with Hangin At The Beach – a 30-track, 52 minute mixtape/album of sand-in-the-machine funk and nostalgia for sun bleached ‘80s garage wave pop. [] The tracks are all so short, and with so much variation, that he’s almost comparable to a young Rodney Mullen freestyling with tapes, synths and drum boxes instead of a skateboard, nailing the vibe with a deceptively effortless, louchely personalised style that’s key to whatever he turns his hand to, whether its Slowed Down Funk or rasping’ ghetto house. [] Ultimately it’s best consumed in one sitting, preferably whilst Hangin’ At The Beach or at least in front of your computer with an exotic screensaver” [via].
12) Denzel Curry – Imperial [C9]
Listen / Tags: Hip Hop, West Coast, Raider Klan
“Denzel Curry is a Florida [Carol City] rapper who’s developing his own form of blurry-eyed, internet-friendly rap — a sort of down-south take on the whole A$AP Mob movement. (He came up under A$AP friend-turned-foe SpaceGhostPurrp, but he’s arguably a bigger deal now than SGP ever was.) Today [09/03/16], Curry surprise-released his new mixtape Imperial, a hazy, gurgling rap record that’s clearly the work of an active mind. References fly in all directions, melodies take weird turns, and Curry shows himself, again and again, to be a powerful presence. The album has guest appearances from Rick Ross and Joey Bada$$, but the guests never take attention away from Curry” [via].
13) DVA [Hi:Emotions]* – NOTU_URONLINEU [Hyperdub]
Listen / Tags: Bass, Grime, Digital
“Having made a name for himself on the grime scene with his DVA Music imprint in the mid to late 00’s with tracks such as the chainsaw-yielding bass of Kurb Krawl through to the cartridge shredding Bullet A’ Go Fly, Scratcha has always been a producer who evolves and pushes things forward with each release [], and on NOTU_URONLINEU he has produced the most crystallised, yet shadowy vision of the DVA sound yet. His name DVA [Hi:Emotions] [], first materialised on his Girl Unit remix back in 2010, [is used to] explore his increased interests in science fiction, virtual reality and the urban decay”.
The album, entirely recorded in the dark and meant to be listened to in the same way – or at least, in a similar state-of-mind – provides an abstract, sour portrait of the present time. “NOTU_URONLINEU is an album that appears to predict a future that is riddled with internal technological imbalance; and in many ways it’s a future we have already arrived at. Absolutely mind blowing material and from where we stand a ‘future classic’ in the truest sense of the meaning” [via].
14) Elucid – Save Yourself [Backwoodz Studioz]
Listen / Tags: Underground Hip-Hop, NY
Born in Queens and raised in Long Island, longtime Brooklyn resident ELUCID is New York’s best-kept secret.
“Heavy, soulful, complex, honest, spiritual: all perfectly describe the debut solo album from Armand Hammer MC Elucid which is entitled Save Yourself via Backwoodz Studioz. First thing you’ll notice about Elucid is the distinct vocal tone with its’ rich baritone rasp and NY grit, and the second thing is his proficiency at writing tightly woven narratives with rich layers. If you’ve followed his path as of 2013 with his work along A.M Breakups as Cult Favorites and then his teaming with billy woods as part of Armand Hammer these qualities aren’t exactly news, but what you’ll hear on Save Yourself is Elucid at his sharpest, most personal form ever” [via].
15) Exsiderurgica – Cosmetica [Blattodea Records]
Listen / Tags: Industrial Techno, Naples
After many self-released records, Exsiderurgica surfaced the Italian contemporary industrial techno scene with a couple of killer albums, one on the Rome-based imprint Ephedrina and a second one, which corresponds to this very recommendation. We strongly suggest you check out the 4-tracked Cosmetica EP published by the Naples-based Blattodea Records, an aggressive label promoting both raw industrial techno and harsh power electronics, started by Giorgio Cerrato, who is the guy behind this Exsiderurgica project (recalling heavy machinery and some reconverted post-war industry now dismantled) and also curates the mastering of the records.
16) FAKA – Bottoms Revenge [NON]
Listen / Tags: Diaspora, Gospel, Abstract, Black Raw Delicacy
The EP is a collection of Ancestral Gqom Gospel sounds the duo FAKA [Fela Gucci aka Thato Ramaisa and Desire Marea aka Buyani Duma] has created over the past year, self-producer and recorded at their home studios and mastered by Rabit.
Bottoms Revenge “is basically a year-long cleansing ritual documented through sound, a lot of our torment and triumph went into it, as well as all the other experiences that we could never express through any other medium. It was written spontaneously where it is written, but most of the lamentations, chants, and incantations were spur-of-the-moment occurrences that we recorded immediately on the spot. We felt that was important because it is quite intrusive to have a third party witnessing the vulnerability of our sonic divination. It also gave us the space we needed to shape a true identity for ourselves as new artists, one that would hopefully serve as a point of reference that will guide future collaborations.
The artists gain inspiration from their similar upbringings, with both kwaito and gospel being major influences on their sound. ‘We were both raised by very Christian grandmothers so our very first experience of music was gospel and that left a huge imprint on our vocal aesthetic, from the vibrato to the way we layer different scales to create a sound that nuances African choral music. We also grew up in the age of kwaito and we were really influenced by artists like Brenda Fassie, Lebo Mathosa, Bongo Maffin, Abashanti, Nestum'” [via].
17) Futeisha – La Via del Re nel Ritorno [Lonktaar]
Listen / Tags: Weird, Folk, Drone, Lo-fi
‘La via del Re nel Ritorno’ is a live performance of the weird-folk band Futeisha, occured and recorded in early 2015 in Turin right before a Father Murphy concert, then released on tape the following year. The line-up features Dedalo666 on guitars, Ottavio B playing biatonic button accordion, Oaxaca‘s Ivan at the percussions and Michelone (I residenti) using synths. They performed passional music, filled with analog electronics and synths; something like elegiac late-night psychedelics, enriched by wonderful interactions between diatonic organ lines and ravenous guitar tectonics a là mid-period Swans. The tapes comes with a magneficent artwork done by Lonktaar’s owner Michele Mazzani [you can familiarize with him via this Canti Magnetici production documentary].
18) GAM / coletivo vandalismo – Untitled LP [Eye for an Eye Recordings]
Listen / Tags: Industrial, Rhythmic Noise
“Pedro Abrantes and Valdemar Pereira intense and cold approach in the next release of E.F.A.E. would fit perfectly as the soundtrack to David Cronenberg’s film Crash (1997), guiding the listener throught a world of perversion and obsession. A raw experience, usually of violence, where the human nature is expressed throught old rhythm boxes and cheap guitar pedals, sounding dirty, fuzzy, with an healthy disregard for rules of fidelity or even functionality. GAM / Coletivo Vandalismo emerges like a sonic terrorist cell, out to implode traditional notions of “dance music” infusing a sense of dread and menace” [via].
19) Genital Warts – No Hop [Subincision Records / Viande Records]
Listen / Tags: Free, Improv, Cut’n’Noise, (No) Hip-hop
Genital Warts is a 3-piece ensemble from Naples, Italy playing a noisy kind of hip hop / bass music, inspired both by harsh noise and free form jazz. The line-up on the record sees Eks (Sampler, Multitrack Tape Recorder), LeDruidGuillome (Piezo Amplified Drum, Voice), Mario Gabola (Feedback, resonance, lights). Also featuring: C_C, DJ Die Soon, DJ 2Phast, Olivier di Placido, Walter Gross, Abstral Compost.
All the material appearing in the album were taken out of live impro sessions that the crew played happly together, recorded between July 2015 and February 2016 at A Spirale Basement Studio (Naples). The 10 cut out tracks features a weird mixture of unrelentless noise, broken rhythms and doomed beats. Yet to be clarified whether the record title stands as a funny ‘No New York‘ inspired pun for ‘No Hip Hop’ (incidentally, No Wave could allegedly be listed among the trio’s musical influences) or somehow refers to a most valuable and essential ‘No Hope‘ – or, yet again, none of the previous options. Mixed by Eks at KU Studio, mastered by by Max Newton for Strict Syndicate; artwork by Dj Die Soon.
20) Giovanni Lami – Opale [Dinzu Artefacts]
Listen / Tags: Drone, Field Recordings, Tape Manipulation
“Giovanni Lami (Ravenna, Italy, 1978) is a sound artist and musician who work within soundscape and sound- ecology boundaries. Presently working in the field of sound, his influence as a photographer lends itself perfectly to composing his sonic explorations. The infinite universe of sound is as long and broad as the visual possibilities available using images, working on field recordings and real time signals processing (analog or digital)” [via].
Each side of the record we refer in this entry “presents a slow build, culminating in a retreat of one source at the benefit of another. The two pieces also work as one, with a gentle segue connecting the sides. Parts of “Secondo Solco” sound like a loom, conjuring images of Sleeping Beauty. As the plot begins to thicken, the sounds grow harsher, like the soul of the witch. In the closing minutes, it’s all hiss, a fairy tale rewritten, a happy ending denied” [via].
Giovanni Lami’s own statement about the tape: “The research I’m carrying on from years is a sort of investigation of sounds in-between sounds you can get if you put your focus on small sound-areas, details you can reach during the play, far away from the simple surface of sound. It’s like “explode and explore” an instrument, a substrate, a device, or a mix of them, but first of all it’s a matter of practice in itself. The magnetic tape is a substrate for rough, dirty and indefinite sound surfaces that evolve while time is passing, I just need to create the conditions to let it happen and to accelerate this process. It’s like a garden, where everything grows by itself and you need to make just a few things, to see what is going to happen most of the time” [via].
21) Gufonero – s/t [many labels]
Listen / Tags: Hardcore, Sludge
The Italian-punk veterans Andrea Bertagnolli [Attrito, Annoying Records] at the drums and Marcella Spiaggiari [The Fucking Clinica] at vocals / guitar, joined early 2016 to play as Gufonero, a violent, noisy outcome playing raw and lo-fi sludgey hardcore punk anthems, their name derived from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks catchphrase “the owls are not what they seem”. Recorded in Trento, Italy at Freezer Studio by Lorenzo Piffer and mastered by Danilo Battocchio at Deepest Sea, the self-titled album features a drawn artwork by Francesco Esperimento depicting a black owl [which is English for ‘Gufonero’]
22) HARAAM – The Sacrifice Of Will [Yerevan Tapes]
Listen / Tags: Dark Ambient, Industrial, Noise
“Haraam (Arabic for forbidden, the opposite of halal) is Copenhagen-based noise artist Martin Schacke solo project. Going on since 2014, he has released a handful of tapes on underground labels as Fallow Field and Cønjuntø Vacíø as well as on his own Moral Defeat. On October 17 Yerevan Tapes [released] Haraam latest effort The Sacrifice Of Will. Largely inspired by the refugee crisis and changes in the political environment in northern Europe, these six tracks are a perfect blend of bass heavy rhythmic noise, lo-fi industrial techno with a great focus on atmosphere, droning noise and concrete soundscapes from the Middle-East” [via].
23) Holiday Inn – White Man [NO=FI Recordings]
Listen / Tags: Synth, Acid, Punk, Suicide (the band)
“Holiday Inn is a brand new Duo from the so called Roma Est, the infamous Borgata of the Eternal City. Their sound is a punch in your face and might be also described as acid minimal synth punk. The combo is made up by the collaboration between Gabor (Aktion / Metro Crowd) on voice and Bob Junior (Trans Upper Egypt / Bobsleigh Baby / Hiss) on synth and drum machine. Holiday Inn bears the shapes and scares that unauthorized buildings have imposed to the Roman suburbs, which once were promised a gleaming growth. It’s nostalgic and nasty, and will not have a bright future. This onesided LP contains 4 killer tracks for 20mins of pure rough pleasure, it has been recorded at Fanfulla in Rome by Leo Non (WOW! / Trans Upper Egypt) and mastered by V.Fisik at Hombrelobo studio (Roma)” [via].
To see video excerpts out of Holiday Inn live show at Musica Nelle Valli #17 #ONGAPALOOZA May 2016: click here and here.
To see video excerpts out of Holiday Inn live show at INVISIBLE SHOW @ Musical Zoo July 2016: click here and here.
24) Homemade Weapons – Negative Space [Samurai Music]
Listen / Tags: Drum and Bass, Half Time, Deep, Samurai Music
“Negative Space is the debut LP from Seattle, USA resident Andre Delgado, known to most as Homemade Weapons. A producer with a long history in Drum and Bass, his career hit a powerful stride around 2012 when a stripped back, militant, half speed version of the genre began emerging. Andre was in the leading charge of producers perfecting this new minimal approach. Using classic jungle break edits as rapid-fire emphasis tools on top of mood-soaked, half-time, kick drum driven rhythms, the Homemade Weapons style quickly became recognised as one of the most unique and effective approaches to emerge from this experimentation.
Following on from a slew of successful singles for Samurai Music and his own label Weaponry from 2013-2016, ‘Negative Space’ is the result of a refinement, an individual artist perfecting his craft. Eschewing the ‘filler’ approach often taken by dance music artists approaching a full length LP, ‘Negative Space’ is 12 tracks of what Homemade Weapons does best – essential dance-floor weapon’s for those tuned in to this new strain of Drum and Bass” [via].
25) Ina Ynoki – Himmelsmechanik [Dromoscope]
Listen / Tags: Electronics, Breaks, Abstract, ‘anti-digital series’
“While moving Dromoscope’s Antidigital needle one step ahead, Himmelsmechanik symbolically introduces to the most powerful of the alchemic elements which the album is spontaneously inspired by: Fire. Strongest destructive, yet renewing force, archaic vehicle for the methaphysical reflection, Fire is the energy that most of all moves from the bottom to the top, pointing at the heavens where it takes place as a ruler in the Celestial Mechanics. Likewise, the intense debut album by Ina Ynoki flares up as a convulse ritual hymn to the glory of Kosmos, taking shape since its first notes as a strong musical statement. Himmelsmechanik is a gem in the overwhelmingly prolific (but still hidden) production by multiinstrumentalist, dj and visionary electronic producer Roberto Dolcetti. As a clear tribute to his main musical experiences, Himmelsmechanik builds a concrete bridge between punk-hardcore intentions and abstract electronica, resulting in one of the brightest post-dada collages by Dolcetti’s unique and fully unconventional art of sampling.
Without any will to take part at the usual diatribe that counterposes Analog to Digital, the Series name is rather inspired by a specific direction in the musical research of the works involved. Curated, produced and handmade by Daniele De Santis as a systematic start for Dromoscope Editions, the Antidigital Series (AA) takes shape as a sequence of musical portraits depicting the activity of four musicians spontaneously engaged in a keen re-discover of the Analog sphere. Driven by this awakening to the natural science ruling the purest substance of sound, the Series symbolically crystallizes its main structure in the cycle of the four alchemic Elements. Gradually unveiling a four-ways path into a possible modern instrumental dialogue between complex software elaborations and recycled musical technologies, the project explores the cassette media itself as instrument and symbol of the ‘Antidigital’ process” [via].
26) Inner8 – Tetramorph EP [Holotone]
Listen / Tags: Industrial Techno, Broken Beats, Dub Techno
“Apart from his work as a half of Dadub and his mastering output with Artefacts Mastering studio, Daniele Antezza produces personal and spiritual musical experiments under his Inner8 moniker. Recently, the producer has founded his own imprint called Holotone, which refers to nothing less than the holographic principle from string theory. Antezza isn’t just pulling in some already established artists or limiting himself narrowly to genre. Instead, with Holotone, he has created a space for musical ideas outside current club trends, embracing experimentation, innovation, and outstanding sound design skills. For a closer look at Holotone’s musical direction, you can have a listen to Inner8’s new EP Tetramorph”[via].
“Tetramorph EP from Daniele Antezza’s Inner8, consolidates and expands upon the gains previously made by that project, as well as those made by the acclaimed Dadub production team. Like all previous Antezza productions, it is distinguished by its exactly proportional mix of fluid and ephemeral sound phenomena with rain showers of colossal beats: an alchemical mix which brings us the three-dimensional atmosphere suggested by the Holotone label’s name. “Tetramorph” is no mere reprise of previous recordings, though: with this new work, Antezza again challenges himself to see how his signature style works when it is underpinned by a new set of theoretical or critical ideas, making for a listening experience that is both a thorough examination of existing musical dynamics and a suggestion of a new way forward. Mix and mastered by Daniele Antezza at Artefacts Mastering Studio, Berlin 2016, artwork and graphics by Martina Scala (Cubert)” [via].
27) Kablam – FURIOSA [Janus]
Listen / Tags: Heavy electronics, Nu Metall, Bass, Abstract
“Sweden’s Kablam commits the 5th Janus instalment; a five-track dislocation and distillation of current club music. In the wake of Janus Berlin issues from Lotic, DJ Hvad, and Bekelé Berhanu, Kablam’s offering employs a similar, collaged palette of non-binary, cyborganic tics in serrated arrangement to render a fractious, impressionistic perspective on club music, feminism and questions of cultural diversity.
‘Crisis’ kicks off with gyroscopic dynamic, meshing hardstyle bass drums with wrenched vocals and ploy metric counter-rhythms in a mercurial manner that grasps the tension of panic mode media, whilst ‘Arch’ angles off kilter R&B coos into the mix and ‘Nu Metall’ identifies 2016’s prevailing trend for twisting and reclaiming the most unfashionable meat of late millennial culture into something strangely elusive, affective. ‘Choking’ is perhaps the best example of Kablam’s taste for reggaeton/hardstyle collisions, replete with a twist of goat-cackle vocal processing and gasps that link her music back to the outsider traditions and feels of Scandinavian BM – but miles away from any fascist or masculine connotations – in a manner followed thru on the baroque chorals of ‘Intensia’ ” [via]. Cover by James Whipple, and mastering by Jeremy Cox
28) Katzagōn – Ideas For Sculpture [Enklav]
Listen / Tags: Electronics, Future Club Music, Glitch
The Italian electronic label Enklav, based in Venice and run by Dario aka Chevel, reached its 25th release late 2016. The year was a particularly prolific period for the outcome, having put out no less than 7 records [Hatcp, Quatremont College, Wavefold, TSVI, Von tesla, Katzagōn, a Various Artist, all of which is available for listening following this link]. The one we chose out of the variegated lotto is ‘Ideas for Sculpture’, recorded and produced by Andrea Cazzagon aka Katzagōn who put on record a single, 35-minutes-long, raw unmastered recording. Within the same gigantic piece appear many different glimpses of unprocessed sonic intuitions, proposed on record as if its author were to craft a sketch out of the set of pure sounds floating on his mind – hence the perfectly-fitting title ‘Ideas for Sculpture’. This 24th overall record on Enklav since its foundation back in 2012 comes with an abstract artwork by Christian Olofsson, aligned with the label’s minimal graphic aesthetic.
29) Lettera22 – Control The Ground [Haunter Records]
Listen / Tags: Noise, Sound Art, Sound Collage
“Lettera 22 is a creature of the worldwide noise underground. Composed of Second Sleep founder Matteo Castro (also known as Kam Hassah, Endless Sea and Mercury Hall) and Riccardo Mazza (recently responsible for a technoid outing on Ideal Recordings as RM), the duo has set to make use of sonic slag and explore polluted aural ambiences in their own personal way from day one.
Their sound-sculpting techniques incorporates direct physical interaction with tape recorders and contact mics as well as digital effects and field recordings. Their main focus though, is the constant construction and deconstruction of a virtual space for sounds to interact in, manipulating reverb in a way as akin to musique concrete as to freakish dub-wise abstractions. Control The Ground is their first release for Haunter Records, recorded in the summer of 2015, inspired by war bulletins, radio transmissions and ghost stations” [via].
30) Maoupa Mazzocchetti – Laugh Tool [Mannequin Records]
Listen / Tags: EBM, Industrial, Vocals, Wave
“After some acclaimed productions on Unknown Precept, PRR!PRR! and Mannequin Records, we are really excited to announce ‘Laugh Tool’, the debut full-lenght of Maoupa Mazzocchetti, pseudonym of Florent Mazzocchetti, young and talented French producer based in Brussels. Maoupa Mazzocchetti is finally bringing back to life the earlier days of electro-industrial, in a mixture that is very close to the late 70’s/early 80s period of Fad Gadget, Throbbing Gristle, Portion Control, Cabaret Voltaire and Front 242, crossed with the more fresh and innovative deep electronic experiments of Beau Wanzer and Charles Manier. Strongly addicted to a DIY ethic, and so to a punk ideology and anticonsumerism, most of Florent’s releases are recorded in his bedroom without any professional equipment, using analog synth and sequencers, modified drum machines, tape loops and a load of pedal effects.
Florent started to experiment with the rhythm since his early age. Developing a passion for the drums at the age of 10 years, soon after he was moving to rock records and guitar, which became his instrument and one of the keystones of his perception of music. Florent approach with rhythm and drums was never traditional, making him feeling more a researcher than a musician. To an audience of contemporary electronic music consumers, who had only closely followed techno, electro and disco, the sounds of ‘Laugh Tool’ will appear unearthly, entirely unexpected, withering comets of strangeness. A 10 tracks album ready to change their minds” [via].
31) Maurizio Abate & Matteo Uggeri – Beyond Time [Time Released Sound]
Listen / Tags: Guitar, Experimental, Electronics, Filed Recordings, Neofolk
“This collaborative release is an electronically treated, guitar centric affair that incorporates field recordings, voiceovers and a general neofolk ambiance that takes you back beyond simpler times to a simple place from whence we all came. Mysteriously elegant beauty with a particular Italianate feel, and a timeless love of the artist’s pasts and history with all it’s nostalgic appeal and overwhelming memories. “Beyond Time” will leave you dreaming of personal histories of your own!
The first, limited fine art version comes in an edition of only 70 copies. Large sheets of elegant, vintage wallpaper are sized, folded and sewn into a three pocket, 6 panel envelope of sorts. Each of these hand stamped, cut out and manipulated beauties is collaged with and contains details of 80 year old Italian art prints, an iridescent silk panel, lovely photos from a book on Italian fountains through which thread is flowing, vintage pastoral photographic prints, old watchmaking catalog photos and an envelope of dried leaves. Each of these folded envelopes comes wrapped in a page from a 150 year old book on Roman coins, and in contained in a banded outer translucent envelope ” [via].
32) Metrist – This Is For Sore Is Just There [Opal Tapes]
Listen / Tags: Techno, Glitch, Experimental, Bass
“Metrist AKA L. SAE AKA Joe Higgins brings the noise in this tech-punk sound-clash straight outta’ Hades. His background in bass music of all moulds can be felt throughout but the round edges of dubstep have been fragmented into harsh shards, prismatic in approach, each track swaggers and pumps under it’s own mad weight. Jabbering speak & spell voices lead into tape busted kicks and sinusoid crow calls. Seismic filtered drums and a broken mirror landscape of screech synth and dull tonal slope. The record is a vivid nightmare, absurd and chilling” [via].
33) Monica Hits The Ground – The Backwoods Preacher [Veleno Viola]
Listen / Tags: Industrial, Noise, Dark Ambient, Techno
Monica Hits The Ground presents an 80’s industrial tape inspired release. Subliminal messages and an unique sense of suffering are highlighted by his own vocals. Wicked bedroom recordings, watching a decaying world through a little window.
“After three years of putting out quality industrial techno, we still don’t quite know the name behind the Monica Hits The Ground moniker; we have our suspicions, but the two EPs that came out via the Horizontal Ground label are still yet to be claimed by someone. No matter; we love the MHTG sound, and we think the young and foreboding Veleno Viola label – translated from Italian as ‘purple poison’ – is the perfect home for it. The Backwoods Preacher is made up of five disturbing slices of distorted power electronics starting with the unsettling noises of “3:55”, which fall into an echoing pool of sonics at “4:32”, and which start to take some sort of techno shape through “4:19”. On the flip, “6:18” heads back to the doghouse thanks to a cold, ear-shattering cacophony of noises; a sonic climax that reaches its peak with the grainy, molecular beats of “5:21″. A chilling and brooding experience. Not for the faint-hearted” [via].
34) My Dear Killer – Clinical Shyness. Anniversary Edition [Under My Bed Recordings, Boring Machines, Old Bicycle Records]
Listen / Tags: Guitar, Feedback, Top-of-the-lungs, Tears
“My Dear Killer was born in 1999 from the worries of Stefano S, a scientific researcher who earns his living trying to discover the biophysical secrets of photosynthesis. Since the early 90’s Stefano was part of several bands of the italian underground scene, since then, his work has led him to a life in the Albion. My Dear Killer was for a long while a purely theoretical band based on a fragile architecture of dreams, wishes, suppositions and hypothesis. For a number of years he produced songs comprised of undigested habits and whispers, spread by the methods of ancient secret societies. Passing demos from hand to hand and via the record label he co-founded: Under My Bed recordings. When talking about the Italian ‘bedroom’ scene, the role of Under My Bed in discovering and supporting bands that might have, otherwise, remained confined within the four walls of small rooms, cannot be overseen. These bands represent fruits from the fertile soil of a community of sensitive musicians and songwriters not inclined to compromises. The My Dear Killer discography is long and complex, a constellation of songs in which the depth and strength of sentiments are underpinned by the soft and mellow tones by which they are narrated. The reserved temperament of My Dear Killer has kept him away, during all the years of his activity, from the temptation of overexposure either in a movement or otherwise, so that he conserved his pureness and independence. It has taken almost seven years in order to get together a small syndication of record labels, and independents who fell in love with his piece of work and decided that his cynical observations in form of songs could not remain unheard. That is how Clinical Shyness was born, a project that has been long pursued and has finally come to see the light.
[] The record is a collection of songs mainly written in 2001, some of which appeared as alternative-takes in several EPs and compilations, either on tapes on CDs. The most significant material recorded during the last few years, under the code name “Clinical Shyness”, has been rearranged and manipulated by My Dear Killer, during the winter of 2005. The result is a pearl that lasts only thirty minutes and sticks together, with biadhesive tape, Nick Drake and the Sonic Youth. The combination might sound vastly improbable but the landscape of feedback in which My Dear Killer’s arpeggios and whispers are drowned, suggest of the stratified guitar layers of Ranaldo/Moore, trying to suffocate the fragile song-writer. The record has been essentially left as recorded and produced by My Dear Killer, without any form of embellishment. All around the fragile voice, razor-sharp guitars disturb the devastating intimacy of the lyrics, while background saturation feedback bounces off the walls of the bedroom in which these little portraits of loneliness have been compiled. My Dear Killer is the missing link between the human being and the indie-rocker” [Original Boring Machines statement, 2006]
35) Ossia – Control / Information / Version [Berceuse Heroique]
Listen / Tags: Dub, Experimental, Electronics
“Ossia aka Daniel Davies is a Bristol-based artist, label owner and Young Echo collective member who’s involved in a number of high-quality projects, including No Corner, Peng Sound, Hotline, Young Echo and FuckPunk (as DJ Oa$is). As a producer, he turns technical flaws into potent atmospheric tools in time-honoured dub tradition. He pulls ghosts out of rattling reverb springs and noisey channels, creating loaded ambience that creeps and lurks in the language of mutes, FX sends and faders. At best, all we’re hearing is the decaying tails of overworked effects, fading to near silence before striking interjections of drum, synth or sample excite them all over again.
The two versions on Control / Information / Version illustrate this. A sub, a tom, a couple of hi-hats and a clipped vocal are the only elements in “Control (Version),” but Ossia’s effects work creates a high-tension environment where even a dusty scratch seems full of portent. The final few minutes strip things back even further, allowing more room for the sounds to become lunging, rabid shards of feedback. The originals are less sparse and more colourful but only relative to their versions. “Information” disappears into empty hiss around the two-minute mark, before a gnarled, mutated bass detonation clears the air for a sub line to step into view ” [via].
36) Pankow – Throw Out Rite [Artofact Records, 1983 ‘Electric Eye Records’ repress]
Listen / Tags: Industrial, Dark Ambient, Electronics
” Pioneering Italian electronic act Pankow released their first mini-album, Throw Out Rite, on the Electric Eye label in 1983 on cassette — and to the surprise of many collectors and fans, this incredible document of the band’s early years was never released on vinyl — and also never released on any proper Pankow CD album. Leading off with a sublime version of the classic das Wodkalied, the tape is a sonic masterpiece, mixing as it does the weirdest elements of early Throbbing Gristle compositions with the exciting urgency of acts like Einsturzende Neubauten and Clock DVA. Blixa (of Neubauten fame) even makes a cameo on Rendez-Vous dans Un Bois, a weird track that serves to foreshadow the direction of the rest of the album. Later on, the echo-chamber of Destiny sounds like something Coil would do a few years later. And the closing piece I Am Food For You is what Severed Heads would be if they were actual aliens and didn’t really love synthpop.
The entire mini-album is genius, recorded using only analogue Roland gear (RE301, TR606, TB303, 100m) and a perfect artifact of the spirit and experimentalism of early-80s electronic music. The six tracks of Throw Out Rite are remastered from the original tape (not cassette!). The CD also features 4 bonus tracks recorded by Pankow in the same year that Throw Out Rite came out (1983). The artwork has been lovingly restored by Maurizio Fasolo and is presented in deluxe digipak with special silver ink layers, as well as a beautiful booklet” [via].
37) Pessimist – Paian [UVB-76 Music]
Listen / Tags: Drum and Bass, Experimental, Deep, Techno
“With his amazing 12” for BEB’s A14 series in the rearview, Pessimist cold-foots back to UVB-76 Music, the label he runs with Gremlinz and his Ruffhouse bandmates. Left to his own devices, Pessimist conjures a dank, lights-out sound worthy of his moniker, pressing in with two D&B tempo rollers recalling the aforementioned Balaklava killer for BEB in the serpentine agenda of The Empty House and Aurora’s drily reverberating spatial settings. However, the other two cuts are techno tempo in line with Shifted or Felix K’s recent forays into that zone, yielding the turgid bass rumble and empty stomach clank of Retrouville and Paian’s chokingly dense, subaquatic pressure system” [via]. Mastered and cut by Lewis at Star Delta Mastering, vinyl manufactured at Record Industry. Illustration by James Hewitt.
38) Peymont – Cibernetica [Intervallo, 1971 Repress Canopo]
Listen / Tags: Experimental, Italian Library Music, Soundtrack
“Back in 1971, when this real gem of electronic experimentation was released, the term “cybernetic” was used to refer to the future. Or, at least, to an obscure science in the hands of a few experts, conducting experiments in rooms filled with huge electronic calculators. Automated controls, auto-regulation, information theory… those were abstract, uncommon and rarely used concepts which would change the world in a few years – and, in our case, deeply influenced an album which, almost half a century later, remains a mystery. The greek origin of the word used as a title (kybernetes, which indicates the pilot of a ship) is not very helpful and we still don’t know who is hiding under the Peymont alias. For many years it was commonly believed that Peymont was Piero Umiliani in disguise, but some of the most respected theories explain that the nickname was used to hide the identity of Luigi Malatesta – composer of film scores, music libraries and, oddly enough, the hymn of the italian political party Democrazia Cristiana – or the world famous Egisto Macchi (a more fascinating and plausible thesis).
The 13 tracks featured on Cibernetica, indeed, bring to the mind the most abstract and experimental compositions of Macchi; but if we fell into the pitfall of living this listening experience as it was a treasure hunt, we’d make a huge mistake. Indeed, this music is constantly a means to research and explore: we can almost see the author and the musicians – whoever they are – locked in a research lab (“Laboratorio di ricerche”) while assembling thermoionic valves (“Valvole termoioniche”) and artificial kidneys (“Reni artificiali”), using an oscilloscope (“Oscilloscopio”) or an electronic calculator (“Calcolatore elettronico”), discussing about analysis and distillation (“Analisi e distillazione”), electronic impulses (“Impulsi elettronici”) and automatism (“Automatismo”). If you are careful – and we’re certain you do – you can also listen to the noise of a teletypewriter printing these notes, in a future perfect time” [via].
39) Primorje – Body Text [Second Sleep]
Listen / Tags: Sound Art, Concrete Musique, Noise
“Second Sleep present Body Text – the first proper album for Primorje, the duo of Giovanni Donadini and Matteo Castro [the label’s founder and manager, also half of Lettera 22]. After a couple of tapes and a split with Exoteric Continent, the Italian duo have finally found their shape, removing all the instrumentation and focusing only on the possibility of the 4-track recorder. Body Text offer six tracks made only by tape loops. Playing with speeds and pauses, the duo play a mix of mechanism and field recordings, tails of beats and degraded tempos creating quiet and sinister compositions. Edition of 200.” [via].
40) qebrμs & Qebo - Earth And Egnamis Alliance [Detroit Underground]
Listen / Tags: Detroit Techno, Digital, Abstract, Breakcore, Sound Design
“▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘▄┘┐█▄┘─▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─_█_█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─▀┐─▄┘─█┐─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─▌█▀┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─██▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─██▄┘─█▌██▌█▀─██─▀─▌█▀┐██▌█▀─█_█▌█▌█▀─██▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐──▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐──▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄──█─▀─▌█▀┐█┐┐─▄──█─▀─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─▀┐─▄┘─█┐─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─██▄┘─▀┐─┐─▄┘─██▄┘─_█▄─▌█▀┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█▄┘─█┐▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─██▄┘▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─_██▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█_▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█_▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█▄┘▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─_█_█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─▀┐─▄┘─█┐─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─▌█▀┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─██▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─██▄┘─█▌██▌█▀─██─▀─▌█▀┐██▌█▀─█_█▌█▌█▀─██▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐──▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐──▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄──█─▀─▌█▀┐█┐┐─▄──█─▀─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─▀┐─▄┘─█┐─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀”┐[via]. Cover design by Dortus Gunst.
41) Restive Plaggona – Covered With Contempt [Moral Defeat]
Listen / Tags: Industrial Techno, Noise, Greece
Moreal Defeat is a Copenaghen, Denmark based label activated August 2014 2015 and focusing on the declining of morality via harsh outings of dark, athmospheric techno coupled with obscure artworks. The second full length out on MD is Covered with Contempt by Restive Plaggona aka Dimitris Doukas from Corfù, Greece, artist who in 2016 already released, together with the C30 Without Principles on the same Moral Defeat outcome, four other records on label such as Collapsgin Market, DVNTT and Several Minor Promises [discogs] as ‘Restive Plaggona’, and 3 more as ‘Plaggona’ on Underdub Records and Labrynth. The full length we refer here, as much as the mentioned releases, provides 40 minutes of excellently executed slow paced industrial techno perfectly suited for the average week desperate-mood day.
42) Richard Davis – Methane Sea [Spanish Mission Records, 1978 Deep Sea Repress]
Listen / Tags: Avant-garde, Ambient, Vocals, Electronic Funk
“I am my own faith. I am my own destiny. [] I am my own god. Across the black maelstrom [] I have planted my seed, and I have evolved my progeny as it pleased me to. “
“Juan Atkins once described Richard Davis, his partner in Cybotron, as “a real loner.” In his own words, Davis experienced ‘the worst shit in Vietnam’, and after finding some success with Cybotron, was left destitute in a VA hospital. He witnessed the 1967 Detroit riot at age 16 and went AWOL while training for the Marines, but when he heard of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, he turned himself in and was promptly shipped to battle aged 18. When he returned to the States, he used his discharge pay to buy an ARP Axxe and dedicated himself to electronic music.
Methane Sea was recorded two days after the Jonestown Massacre, and it’s hard to discount the fact considering Davis’s narrator speaks of planting his seed in deep space, evolving his progeny into superhuman beings and ruling the universe. If Conrad Schnitzler was more into Funkadelic than Fluxus, he might’ve made something like Methane Sea, but unlike the German, Davis aims for an explicit narrative. His sounds have a strong programmatic function: when Davis describes the wind brushing his cheek as a “200 degree kiss,” sizzling filter-pings emphasise the imagery. And when the piece reaches its peak with a cry of “proton bombs!,” we’re crushed under a deluge of nuclear-force synth detonations” [via].
43) Rotadefero – Discodefero [Zen Hex]
Listen / Tags: Noise, Musique concrète, Sound collage, Industrial
“More than two decades ago a Roman metal/hardcore outfit named Concrete began its course, which led the band – with just a handful of records yet through hundreds of shows in the whole European continent – to become one of the most important, seminal acts in the Italian punk/hardcore subculture; fast forward 22 years in the future, and you will find all of its members still involved in various musical and/or artistic projects, revealing a never soothed interest for sound and visive exploration.
Rotadefero is the latest project by Cristiano D’Innocenti and Tommaso Garavini, and absolutely feels like a consequential evolution and a mutated abstraction of those soundscapes, emphasizing the experimental performative side and new found personal handicraft interests. Primitive and pounding percussions emerge from noise-laden atmospheres, buzzing grindstones and drills, leading to a climax of corrosive non-music experience: it’s evocative and disturbing, physical and muscular. Well aware that would be nearly impossible to properly encapsulate the calculated chaos of a live performance, this “record” stands out as an impressionist snapshot of the whole project, two sonic sculptures cut up and synthesized from more than 40 hours of recorded material, combined in parallel with two videoclips to render a proper peek on Rotadefero’s art.
Unique handcrafted acid etchings on the A-side and lathe etchings on the B-side. Videos by Michele Manfellotto (Nord), Francesco Prosperi and Gabriele Spadini (Sud)” [via].
44) Sebastiano Carghini – Delicate Droplets [Hideous Replica]
Listen / Tags: Sound Art, Collage, Arduino, Loops
Sebastiano Carghini is a young sound artist and performer born in Cesena, Italy in 1987 focusing on modular synthesizer and physical objects recordings they get then post-processed and crafted into stand-alone sound compositions so far already released in two distinct occasion on Matteo Castro’s Second Sleep. The third 2016 work for Sebastiano comes on the experimental UK-based Hideous Replica label mainly producing professionally pressed CD editions, catalogue number HR13.
‘Delicate Droplets’ is a fine 31-minutes-long collection – published on a CD edition of 100 copies and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi – of mechanical noises, pitch shifts and synth floors recorded and edited via cassette loops, multi-track looper and digital recorder. To provide an in-focus description about the record and Sebastiano Carghini’s overall work, nothing better than his own words [via tumblr]: “looping trajectory through the loophole \fantasy of the realism \ credence \ intelligent design \ physical intelligentsia”.
45) Traxman VS Japanese Juke – Trax of the Rising Sun [Midnight Cult]
Listen / Tags: Juke, Footwork, Japanese Juke
Prolific Chicago juke producer Traxman was one of the most influential figures in inspiring Japan’s own juke scene, having toured the country early on and appearing on releases by artists such as Paisley Parks [TRAXMAN JAPAN TOUR 2014 at Daikanyama UNIT]
“Midnight Cult outcome’s first release features Traxman, the living legend of Chicago Juke/Footwork music, and Japanese Juke/Footwork artists. The 21 track album includes 10 original tracks by Traxman and 11 remixes by Japanese Juke artists. Through his past tours in Japan, Traxman has influenced the Japanese Juke scene heavily, and has built a strong bond with the rapidly growing scene. With its unique interpretation of the style, the Japanese Juke scene has been gaining global attention. For this project, he has provided 10 original tracks, mostly previously unreleased, and Midnight Cult has gatherd the best of Japanese Juke artists to remix them” [via]
46) Unknown Artist – Grey Area Volume II
Listen / Tags: Experimental, Techno, Deep D’n’b
Grey Area is a label collaboration between Samurai Horo & Auxiliary.
“Contrary to popular belief, tempo doesn’t exist. Multiple speeds exist within a single BPM—it just depends how you listen and subdivide time. If you have a track that’s 170 BPM, like a drum & bass tune, and subdivide the rhythms into triplets, you can seamlessly mix in another track at 128 BPM. The second Grey Area release invites you to try. The EP’s four moody rollers use clear triplet pulses that open the door to creative polyrhythmic mixing. Although the theory might sound a little dry, the functional role these tracks play embodies the cross-genre ethos of the labels behind the project—namely, Auxiliary and Samurai.
What’s important here isn’t so much the individual character of the tracks, but how they facilitate genre-hopping. The clear hi-hats on the A1 and steady kick on the A2 make them the easiest tunes to work with. The B2 is the black diamond run, but also the most rewarding to mix. Of course, you might traumatise the dancefloor if you don’t pull it off right, but getting your hands dirty with Grey Area Volume Two can reveal a rare side of rhythmic theory” [via].
47) Vincenzo Pizzi – Para (Incl. Georg Bigalke, Worg Remixes) [Pyteca]
Listen / Tags: Ambient Techno, IDM, Rome
The young Italian techno artist Vincenzo Pizzi; already an active member of the local electronic scene in the musical scene for the last few years. After graduating at Nut Academy in Naples obtaining an electronic music diploma, he’s now persuing his Bachelors degree in Sound Design at IED, Rome. His productions is a balanced yet unpredictable mixture of IDM-ish ambient techno, also focusing on experimental vibes and incorporating outsider influences such as a certain kind of Mediterranean romanticism.
Para, whose artwork’s been made by Michela Maria Pizzi and figures a couple doing some old school acrobatic dancing, is the third outing on Vincenzo Pizzi’s own imprint Pyteca, after Mamma Loves 4/4 and Amelia both produced by Vincenzo himself. The four tracks featured on this digital release also comes with 2 remix versions by Georg Bigalke and Worg.
48) Von Tesla – 20-22 Gate EP [Bindu Sound]
Listen / Tags: Future Club Music, Glitch, Broken Beats, Modular Synth
“In October 2016, after the amazing Futeisha’s ‘Last Nihilist’ album, the Berlin-based young tape-label Bindu Sound put out its eigth release this year and settled in among the most interesting imprints in 2016; ’20-22 Gate Audio’ sets the quality bar at pretty damn high levels for Von Tesla, and all of it comes with a super-gaudy package you can take a look at here. If we were to pick a single tune out of the lotto we’d instead go for the double-killer ending tracks ‘Second Etch’ and ‘Sistim 20’, the former featuring heavy-manipulated rhythmic patterns, glitchy sounds and sudden synth breaks, and the latter offering an unespected glimpse of VT’s peculiar tear-jerking melodies” [via].
To listen the mix Von Tesla recorded for us few months ago, click here [GUESTMIX#10: Von Tesla].
To see Von Tesla perform live at ONGAPALOOZA in Turin @ Magazzino sul Po, click here.
49) Xiu Xiu – Plays the Music of Twin Peaks [Bella Union]
Listen / Tags: Soundtrack, Badalamenti, Art Rock, Experimental Rock
“Plays the Music of Twin Peaks is an album by American experimental band Xiu Xiu. Composed of cover versions of the music from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, it was released exclusively as a Record Store Day release on April 16, 2016 by Polyvinyl in the United States and Bella Union in Europe. It was produced by former Xiu Xiu member Jherek Bischoff and mixed by Deerhoof member Greg Saunier. The covers were originally commissioned by Queensland Gallery of Modern Art for a 2015 exhibition, “David Lynch: Between Two Worlds”. Following the live performances at the exhibition, the band decided to record the covers in the studio. In accompaniment to the album, Xiu Xiu also embarked an Europe tour in April 2016. The band released a shared music video for the tracks “Into the Night” and “Nightsea Wind”, directed by Diego Barrera” [via].
“The music of Twin Peaks is everything that we aspire to as musicians and is everything that we want to listen to as music fans. It is romantic, it is terrifying, it is beautiful, it is unnervingly sexual. The idea of holding the “purity” of the 1950s up to the cold light of a violent moon and exposing the skull beneath the frozen, worried smile has been a stunning influence on us. There is no way that we can recreate Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch’s music as it was originally played. It is too perfect and we could never do its replication justice. Our attempt will be to play the parts of the songs as written, meaning, following the harmony melody but to arrange in the way that it has shaped us as players” [Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu]
50) Zanias – To The Core [Noiztank]
Listen / Tags: Electronics, Body Music, Dark, Wave, Industrial
“Nothing lasts but nothing is lost – Terence McKenna
First solo EP by Zanias after her Keluar and Linea Aspera projects. This evolution culminates in a mature but radical project. Radicalism has never relied completely on the means to deliver it. It also requires a relationship to society, to culture, at any given time. A solid background must be included in the formula as well. Once certain stability is reached, there is no other way more than taking additional risks in order to produce new work of interest. Finding different mechanisms to corrupt the methodical linearity that underlies artistic production. Corrupting means finding possibilities to create an accident, possibilities to contradict; to prove anomalies within the frame of reference of that new thought is actually possible” [via].
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PAYNOMINDTOUS is a non-profit organization registered in December 2018, operating since late 2015 as a webzine and media website. In early 2017, we started our own event series in Turin, IT focused on arts, experimental, and dancefloor-oriented music. We reject every clumsy invocation to “the Future” meant as the signifier for capitalistic “progress” and “innovation”, fully embracing the Present instead; we renounce any reckless and ultimately arbitrary division between “high” and “low”, respectable and not respectable, “mind” and “body”; we support and invite musicians, artists, and performers having diverse backgrounds and expressing themselves via variegated artistic practices.