From Lance C McGannon Sent Mon, May 25th 1998, 06:22
From Lance C McGannon Sent Mon, May 25th 1998, 06:22
Sorry for the delay. Here are some reviews. More coming later in the week... . Pole: Raum 12" (Din) Stefan Betke with his second release of beyond-Basic Channel experimentations this time on the excellent Din label. This 12" features two tracks which are basically remixes of each other. The a-side, Raum Zwie, is a long spacey dub track with loads of poping/clicking surface noise over a bed of very-autechreish complex percussion. The b-side, Raum Eins, has more of an ambient feel with less surface noise but it still has the great dub lines with a few extra autechreish effects. This record sounds like a combination of Burial Mix, Autechre, and Musik Aus Strom. Another beautiful example of how the Basic Channel sound can still be given an original slant. Amazing stuff. 10/10 . Rue East: Summer of Blood 2x12" (Pure Plastic) Mark Broom and Dave Hill with their second Rue East release this year. Here they deliver their first album featuring eight cuts of minimal & abstract techno. On the first 12" the a1&2 and the b1 are all average minimal techno tracks - not bad just nothing special. The b2 is a cool abstract cut with a nice acid line running through giving the track a very trelik-like sound. The c1 is a cool abstract techno piece with lots of complex layers of synths & percussion. The c2 is a boring disco-flavored minimal cut. The d1 is an average abstract techno track and the album finishes with an electro-flavored techno cut. This is a decent album but it doesn't really do anything exciting. I just expect something much better from Mark Broom. 6/10 . Susumu Yokota: Blood of the Angel 12" (Sublime) The ever consistent Japanese tech-house producer Susumu Yokota (aka Prism, 246, Ebi, Plantation, Frankfurt Tokyo Connection, and Yokota) is back with an excellent 4-tracker including a remix by Ian Pooley. The ep starts with an funky deep-houser that would right at home on the Paper or Glasgow Underground labels but with horns and a vocoder line in the background. The a2 has a very deep basic channel sound with arabic-sounding horns in the background. The b1 is a remix of the a1 by Ian Pooley. On it Ian strips down the original to make it more of a funk tech-houser that would sound right at home on the Ferox label. The last track is a techno-funk cut big horns, scratches, jazzy synth lines and lots of drum fills. I like all four tracks but i think the Pooley remix is the winner here. 7/10 . John Tejada: The Scene's Just Not What It Used to Be 12" (Palette) LA producer, John Tejada, with his sixth record on his own Palette label. This 4-tracker starts with a very detroit-sounding techno track with beautiful melodic synth lies and sci-fi sound effects. The a2 is a melodic downtempo techno track with a hip hop percussion and jazzy synths. The b1 picks up the pace again with a deep tech-house cut with lush chords over two jazzy synth lines. The b2 is nice pounding tech-houser with a deep shifting bassline. I like the a1 & b2 best. Another excellent ep of some- what varied sounds but probably one of his better releases to date. 8/10 . Theorem: th1 12" (M_NUS) Detroiter Dale Lawrence delivers with the first record in a four part series of 12"s for Richie Hawtin's new M_NUS label. On this three- tracker Dale ventures into the deep deep techno. The a-side features a bed of warm synth drops and minimal jazzy percussion over a lush synth line. The b1 is an experimental minimal techno cut with weird oscillating & gurgling sounds over muted pounding percussion. The final cut is somewhat like the a1 featuring a bed of warm strings and deep bassy percussion. This is a very deep emotional ep that leaves me eager for the other three 12" in the series. 9/10 . Push Button Objects: Unauthorized 12" (Chocolate Industries) The first Push Button Objects ep on Schematics was great hiphop inspired electronica highlight from 1997. On this, their second ep, Push Button Objects seem to shy away from the hiphop flavor of their previous ep in favor of a more autechre/musik aus strom/skam sound. The favorites on this one are the melodic funky a2 with it's plodding percussion and the b2 which is the 'heisted' gescom remix. The remix is a sample heavy, cutup hiphop/d&b number with oddly unique time signatures. This is a decent ep for fans of skam-like electronica that is worth the domestic (US) price. Pretty grey marble vinyl, though somewhat thin, and cool Designer's Republic label art too. 7/10 . Metic: Sixto Novaton 12" (Shematic) Romulo Del Castillo and Paul Lloyd with their second Schematics label ep under their Metic guise. This 4-tracker starts with a crunchy breakbeaty percussive number with dark haunting synths. The a2 has more crunchy polyrhythmic percussion over distorted synths very much in the early jega style. The b1 is a slow distorted hiphop/d&b track with light synths and a funky little electro-tinged bassline. A neat oriental-sounding melody kicks in towards the end of this track. The ep closes with a very electro-flavored d&b track with hollow- sounding synths in the background. Another decent ep for fans of crunchy, distorted electronica. This one is also on nice grey marbled vinyl. 7/10 . Delarosa: Sleep Method Suite 12" (Clock wise) Atlanta, Georgia dj/producer Scott Herren with and excellent lp of experimental electronics on the new Atlanta-based Clockwise label. On his previous Delarosa 12" Scott collaborated with Johnny Herndon of Tortise but on this one he goes solo supposedly using the most primitive of music & recording equipment. The "rhythm" side, which has 7 tracks overall, starts with a beatless synth track them melts into a warm lazy dub track. After a short track of sfx, the dub track develops into a smooth-jazz triphop track. Then it turns into a funky soulful triphop number. The next track is a piano, guitar and drum driven indie rock/electronic piece. From there the next song is a unique dub/electronics piece with really odd percussion and rapidly looped samples. The second last track on this side is a really dubbed-out trip-hop number. The final track on the rhythm side is another dubbed out trip-hop cut with light sitar melodies and spacey synths. The "non" side is one long beatless track that continually shifts and morphs into different forms that range from spacey echo-like sounds to long droning oscillations to slow looped synth melodies all mixed together. As a whole, this is an excellent album of lazy lo-fi electronics of all styles - funky trip hop to spacey experimental - that is well worth checking out. 7/10 BTW: Don't forget our Inaudible netcast every Wednesday from 9-11 pm Eastern Standard Time. Hear John C (Bent Crayon) and I spin two hours of the music we speak so highly of... The show will be accessible by visiting http://www.wcsb.org every Wednesday from 9-11 pm EST. The show will be broad- cast in the AudioActive format (which is actually much better than RealAudio). You can download the Audio Active plugin for free at http://www.audioactive.com/player/ During the Inaudible show we will be giving away promo 12"s and cds so yet another reason to tune in. -->-Lance--- p.o. box 450715 westlake, ohio 44145 united states