Soma - Somabeta

Introducing their new offshoot label, Soma launch this compilation as a means of showcasing the new talent they're nurturing. You'll recognise the likes of Let's Go Outside from Soma's main imprint, and Sui Generis has previously emerged on Rush Hour, but all the acts assembled here are very much new on the scene, looking to make a name for themselves in some shape or other. Highlights come from the alluringly daft Mr Copy and Audiofillia who are permitted two entries: the bloopy micro-squawk of 'Easy', and 'Tu' with its bassline-driven hooks. "Soma proudly launch Somabeta, the imprint's offshoot tailored for new emerging talent. As part of Soma's continuing support of new music Somabeta will provide an avenue for fresh, upcoming producers to have their work released on Scotland's biggest exporter of electronic music, welcoming work from artists around the world"

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Gui Boratto - Take My Breath Away

From the start, it’s clear ‘Take My Breath Away’ is destined both for dancefloors and home stereos with the tracklist split roughly down the middle between Boratto’s standard (and excellent) deep techno tracks and cute electro pop numbers. Driving techno fans will lap up ‘Ballroom’ and ‘Atomic Soda’, electro aficionados might dig ‘Eggplant’, and ‘Take My Breath Away’ and ‘Opus’ will please those who like their techno to burn as slow as a candle. ‘Colors’, ‘Azzurra’ and ‘Les Enfants’ showcases Gui Boratto’s calmer and more joyful side by featuring broken beats, electric guitars and live drums. And fans of the hugely popular ‘Beautiful Life’ might get their euphoria fix from the vocals on ‘No Turning Back’.Overall ‘Take My Breath Away’ is an accomplished continuation of Gui Boratto’s colourful melodies.

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Claro Intelecto - Warehouse Sessions

This long awaited cd compilation marks the end of Mark Stewart's 'Warehouse Sessions', with all the tracks in the series re-mastered at Berlin's dubplates and mastering including a bonus, previously unreleased track, 'W6' available for the first time. The first 12" in the series was released back in early 2006, designed, honed and tweaked for the floor with a shift in focus towards more stripped-down and minimally constructed 4/4 variations with the headier end of the warehouse in mind. "New Dawn"rotates on a heavy slug of post-industrial genius taking the metallic clunk of Monolake/T++ slowed right down and married with the faint ghost of Rhythm and Sound. "X" domiated volume three and is perhaps the best known track in the series - delivering a gargantuan chug through a barely contained 4/4 spasm, underpinned by distorted stabs and a hollow line in thumping kick-drums. It's all fairly restrained until the half-way mark when things suddenly go deep under the influence - a live session of warbling dub stabs fed through a widescreen echo-chamber making for a low-end psychosis that's just devastating. "Only Yesterday" was written in homage to Mr Fingers, a slow, deep, pulsating House classic utilising a sick padded bass progression, caressed by pristine hi-hats and very little else. "Instinct" opened volume four with a percussive spine so crisp and spacious it almost threw us off our chairs the first time we heard it, while "Post" on the flipside pushed us a few hours deeper into the night with a twilight carousel of sparkling keys and another one of those endlessly cavernous basslines, venturing into a classic breakdown that brought those keys back. "Hunt You Down", meanwhile, deploys a shocking Maurizio style dub workout in 4/4 that makes use of a relentlessly sharp and deep signature, accompanied by stretched chords and metallic shards that subvert the track throughout its 11 minute duration. The final edit included on the compilation, W6, was taken from the last Warehouse sessions and is available only on this format.

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Andres Ilar - Sworn

It's been two years since Anders Ilar recorded his excellent Organza EP for Level Rec, and with Sworn he returns for a full-length outing. For this latest album, Ilar goes far beyond the ordinary parameters of music formatted around techno beats and delves into a far more involved electronica sound. Although tracks like opener 'Hillside' and the electroacoustically slanted 'Colours Of Rain' are keen to slap a kick sound on every crotchet, it could almost be an arbitrary gesture to signpost this music towards a comfortable genre classification. As with much of Vladislav Delay's more beat-driven work, there's a lot more to this than whatever's suggested by the drum programming, and some of Ilar's music shifts between adventurous abstraction and the kind of melodic elaboration most techno producers would consider to be surplus to requirements. 'September Nights' could be an old Arovane production but for its stringent 4/4 backbone. Otherwise the ornate, experimental approach to melodic development is straight out of the post-Autechre mindset. Importantly though, none of this sounds dated or out of place, instead carving out a rather unique corner of the electronic music universe that's all its own.

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John Tejada - Fabric 44

For his Fabric release, John Tejada leaves his mark indelibly on his selections, carefully and discreetly editing his way through tracks by artists such as Substance (as remixed by Shed), Donnacha Costello, Pigon, and LJ Kruzer, while throwing in a healthy supply of his own productions, both solo and in conjunction with long-term collaborators Arian Leviste and Justin Maxwell. The entire mix seems to uphold a peculiarly high standard of production, with insightful picks like 'Equalized001' by Eq'd revealing a discerning ear. The fact that Tejada's been so thorough in his sequencing and mixing really shines through too, and the whole playlist presents the aesthetic of a single, overarching narrative seamlessly evolving through the likes of Namlook's 'Subharmonic Atoms' and Donnacha Costello's 'Colourseries Olive B', segueing into the low-frequency robustness of WAX's 'WAX10001'. Tejada himself has billed the mix as being akin to an "electronic symphony", and as potentially daft sounding as that is, there's a defined sense of continuity and organisational meticulousness evident throughout.

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Dirt Crew - Soundwave

Dirt Crew's 'Soundwave' gets reworked by Quarion and Filippo Moscatello, backed up by original Dirt Crew track 'Blow'. The Quarion remix gets the EP underway with a nicely delay-saturated stab sound that maintains a kind of watery momentum over the course of its eight minutes, while Moscatello opts for a slightly rougher sound with heavy use of synthesizer lines and punchy kick sounds. Finally, 'Blow' introduces a looser feel with a solid house beat holding together spaced out edits and sample interjections.

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SCSI 9 - Easy As Down

Russia's premier minimal techno duo SCSI-9 have notched up some 25 releases for countless imprints from Craig Richards' Tyrant to Force Tracks to the indomitable Kompakt over the last 10 years. 'Easy As Down' is their fourth album to date and features a skillfully calcified sound which warrants the huge respect they've garnered from all corners of the minimal, tech house and techno scenes. 'Vesna, Lastic & Elliot' intorduces some considered synth chord sequences in harmony with an austere bowed cello to cleanse the techno-spirit, before 'Vesna, Lastic and elliot' takes your breath away with a lush and perfectly Kompaktian Pop ambient swooner. The spherical jazz harmonics of 'Nothing will change it' feature gorgeous vocals from Ryba and start to put this album in the post-club listening bracket but the run of tracks from 'Tu Eres' to 'Outtro' maintains an ambiguous function that can easily keep the party perked or reclined depending on your inclinations. A fine triumph for lush and ultra clean minimal techno.

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Cobblestone Jazz - 23 Seconds

A whopping triple LP outing for the Candian jazz/techno fusionists Cobblestone Jazz, which for the uninitiated, comprises Mathew Jonson, Danuel Tate and Tyger Dhula. Traditionally, Tate's keyboard work has given Cobblestone Jazz a distinctive live feel, but launching into the opening title track here there's no real evidence of that, instead everything has more of a programmed sound to it, albeit with a lively, analogue warmth. Elements of Rhodes and smooth chord changes start to appear in 'Slap The Back', and on the next side 'PBD (LP Edit)' features a bit of soloing, but the overall feel is one of silky movements within a fairly fastened-down techno framework. 'Hived Touch' is far more interesting, exhibiting some big bass and substantial, muffled beat production, yet this sort of minimalism is abandoned altogether for 'Lime In Da Coconut' which marks a departure for sunnier, more playful sounds. Even the beat seems to have a spring in its step. More overtly jazzy numbers crop up towards the end of the album, with the vocoder funk of 'W (LP Edit)' standing out in particular. Cobblestone Jazz have clearly honed and streamlined their approach to music-making since their debut 12" five years ago, and as a result the potentially quite jarring elements of live instrumentation and programmed electronics sound as though they've reached a natural balance on 23 Seconds.


Part 1
Part 2