Boomkat – new VAZZ / LA BAMBOLA DEL DR CALIGARI, REGIS, etc.

This latest release on the excellent Forced Nostalgia imprint is by some distance its most illuminating release to date – a split LP that features an astonishing rediscovery from the early 1980’s synth-pop era. That album is ‘Whisper Not’ by Vazz – a duo consisting of Anna Howson & Hugh Small, and is redolent of so much classic, deeply cherished music from around the same period (think Crépuscules, Antena, early Cocteau Twins on the one hand, and The Cure’s ‘Seventeen Seconds’ on the other), as well as acting as a kind of blueprint for so much of what was to follow (Stereolab, Pram, Moonshake etc) – that we can barely believe it has been tucked away in the archives for all this time. But more than that – the production on “Whisper Not” really is completely out of this world, using electronic sounds and treatments in such a way that there really is little else from the period that comes close. Imagine if Chris Carter produced Antena’s ‘Camino Del Sol’ album and you start getting an idea of the majestic, utterly innovative, unforgettable essence of this amazing album. It was recorded at the legendary Hellfire Club in Glasgow in 1982 and was eventually released on limited edition cassette, before the band were signed up to appear on the 2LP compilation “Antelopes & Alligators” on Operation Twilight – a sublabel of Belgium’s infamous Les Disques Du Crépuscules. For one reason or another the compilation never materialised – but the reference to Crépuscules should give you some idea of where Vazz figure in the scheme of things. We grew up with all of this stuff, so we don’t say this lightly, but unlike so much of what passes for crucial archival music, “Whisper Not” is easily among our favourite albums from that uber-distinctive period, around 1982, that brought to life so much music we consider indispensable. The B-side, meanwhile, is also something else – featuring Italy’s La Bambola Del Dr Caligari and 5 tracks recorded between 1983 and 1986. The band were a short-lived minimal synth trio from Bologna, Italy, consisting of the exotically named Judy Asquith (voice), Aurelium Spitty (sound engineer, synth, drum machines, effects) and J.R. Ewing (keyboards, effects). They recorded their first demo tape in early 1984 and sporadically played live in 1985/86, eventually arranging the soundtrack for an installation at the art gallery Number Zero (Bologna) in Feb 1986. Several self-produced tapes were recorded over the years but were never properly released. In 2005 Roberto Napoli mastered all the recordings from the analogue tapes and kindly assisted in editing the selections made by Forced Nostalgia. The result features some of the finest lost-and-found musical gems from the ’80s gloom-pop era, finally available for public consumption 25 years after they were recorded…

For those who missed Regis’ lovingly hand-crafted ‘Adolescence’ compilation, Downwards thankfully breaks the set down into 3 discs over the coming months. The first, ‘1994-1996’ covers his earliest Techno productions. Of particular note is the previously unreleased ‘Point Of Entry’, and alternative studio versions of ‘Keep Planning’ and ‘Translation’ from the ‘Gymnastics’ LP, but of the 16 tracks we’d be hard pushed to pick a favourite. There’s always the razing pillage of ‘Ital’ for consideration, or equally the sneering funk of ‘Surface’ and the glancing metallic blows of ‘We Said No’, but we seriously urge you to neck a few and find out for yourself if you’re not already familiar. At the risk of getting all hagiographic, this guy is nowt short of one of the UK’s most influential, and inspirational electronic artists, so if you’re not clued up, don’t f**k about: buy this.

A very welcome return for Carl Huntgren and Windy Weber, with their first album proper since 2008’s Songs For The Broken Hearted. It begins cautiously, with the acoustic folk lament ‘For Rosa’, before things take a turn into more obviously immersive and emotive W&C territory – all chiming, Robin Guthrie-style guitar patterns, dreamy synth washes, amorphous vocal layers. In terms of combining such rich atmospherics with genuinely heartstring-yanking harmonic structures, W&C at the top of their game have few equals – Emeralds, perhaps. They’ve really honed their own sound to perfection but remain exploratory in their approach, essaying Basinski-esque drift of ‘Looking Glass’ and chilly, dub-wise ambience on ‘The Frost In Winter’, with its looped notes gleaming out at you like bright sunlight on snow. The best is saved for last: 18-minute closer ‘Fainting In The Presence Of The Lord’ is as expansive and awe-inspiring as its title demands, all the more affecting for the weariness at its core.

Two hours of stunning music from Uwe Schmidt, rescued from the Sahko tape archive and now available on 2xCD and digital. Recorded for the Ambient City radio project at Helsinki’s Museum of Modern Art in 1994, back when he was working as Atom Heart, Cold Memories reminds us of Schmidt’s peerless mastery of post-techno electronic musical modes. You get two hour-long, very eventful compositions for your buck. ‘Cold Memories pt.1’’s more sedate, gently undulating passages variously recall Budd and Eno, Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze, and the precious drone abstractions of Eleh, but there are forays too into meaty, beaty ambient techno a la Aphex’s Selected Ambient Works. The drums persist throughout ‘Pt.2’, though this time they describe more linear, sparse and bleepier structures, inevitably bringing to mind Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen’s various Sahko projects, and enclose some truly haunting ambiences – drifting, swirling melodies, like a Leyland Kirby from frozen space. This really is terrific stuff, highly recommended for any fans of deep techno, PROPER ambient and isolationist electronica.

Styling Funky, reinforced house and bruk techno excursions from Doc Daneeka and Benjamin Damage, new on Modeselektor’s 50Weapons label. It’s a moody affair, more so than you’d expect, and beautifully produced – opener ‘No One’ sets a high standard, a vapourish, Burial-esque intro giving way to a tough, foursquare house groove, coming over like Maurizio with a Croydon makeover. Abigail Wyles’ impressive vocals feature on three tracks, notably the spectral breakbeat techno cut ‘Battleships’ and the ambient centrepiece ‘Halo’. Still, the threads of melancholy and sophistication running through the album don’t get in the way of some good ol’ ‘floor-smashing – from the flexing warehouse minimalism of ‘Juggernaut’ to the jagged syncopations of ‘Elipsis Torment’, via the Shed/2562-ish swagger of ‘Deaf Siren’ and slinked-out UKF of ‘Creeper’. Damage and Daneeka’s real achievement here is to have a built a collection of tunes that’ll wreck clubs but satisfy at home too – a fine balance that’s nowhere better achieved than on lush, synthed-out closer ‘Bleach & Penicillin’.

**One of the most compelling outings on NNF yet. Limited edition of 500 copies with insert** Cuticle’s 100% Silk 12″ was surely one of 2011’s most beguiling outer-disco episodes. Making the short step to Not Not Fun for their solo debut proper, Cuticle unearth ‘Mother Rhythm Earth Memory, a glowing space-dance-pop soul, deploying vocoder and more warped, sickly synths for an even odder follow-up experience. From the melancholy, moonlit robo-ballad intro comes the slinky but malfunctioning House groove ‘Parallel’ and the water-logged Boogie glyde of ‘Liquid Crystal Drink (Pour My Dream)’ and another pair of poky cosmic oddities. Flipside we melt into the eye-fluttering off-world disco simulacra ‘Night Of Romance’ while the lo-fi lysergic Matthew Dear-isms of ‘Trickle’ perks up before the trance-panther gait of ‘Without Form’. For those who like their cosmic neo-disco with a liberal dousing of strange, look no further.

*Deluxe 2LP edition – available for the first time in 8 years, housed in a thick gatefiold jacket* Sunn 0)))’s incredible ØØ Void has been out of print for over 8 years and has now come back home to its proper resting place at Southern Lord with new artwork from Stephen Kasner and package execution via Stephen O’Malley. ‘ØØ Void’ (also known as Double-O Void) was the second album recorded by sunn O))) circa 2000. At that time the guitarist & core members: Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson were joined by guest bassist collaborator Stuart Dahlquist (Burning Witch, Goatsnake) plus contributions from both Petra Haden (Violinist/Vocalist) and Pete Stahl (vocals). The album is widely considered to be a landmark of “Power drone” music, lulling you in with an immense wall of of drone that’s as deep and immersive as anything ever laid down by the band. Four long tracks clocking in at 15 minuts a piece – and for our money some of the best material ever released by Sunn 0))). Highly recommended.

*Fourth and final EP making up the “Elemental” set, ltd to 1000 copies and pressed up on coloured vinyl* Demdike Stare sign off their grandest statement with the concluding fourth chapter of the ‘Elemental’ series, entitled ‘Iris’. Across the previous three plates we’ve witnessed the sound dilate with uncanny physicality while their focus has become clearer than ever. Their ears have adjusted to the gloom of a dank and foreboding aesthetic, permitting them to navigate more freely between scattered sonic symbols and sampledelic apparitions. Enticed by the terrifying cello of death march processional ‘Dauerlinie’, the track rolls to its resting place, an abandoned warehouse space where a desolate 4/4 throb and demented, depleted bleeps just can’t give up the ghost, before the beat recedes and leaves ‘Dasein’ lingering, longing for unknown pleasure in petrified, icy stasis. B-side, the majestic ‘Ishmael’s Intent’ lends closure; clanking conveyor belt rhythms on an unstoppable trajectory into the oscillating jaws of LFO horror…

Downwards present two killer tracks from the very first Regis twelve – at long last available on wax again. Both tracks were recorded 29/11/1994 onto a Philips pocket memo, and have been recently re-mastered for optimal bite and scratch. A-side is the steamrolling rhythm and jagged synths of ‘Speak To Me’, still packing a sneering wallop like few others. B-side is the darkly sexy, haughty thrust of ‘Model Friendship’ for the dancers with something to prove. Oh and the first edition comes in a really nice reverse-board, coarse-printed jacket.

*One-sided black-label pressing housed in screen-printed jacket* Essential drop from NYC’s Preserved Instincts imprint. This fourth release from the clandestine Chasing Voices collective is a slo-mo rave bomb attuned to the deepest underground frequencies. With an uncompromising analogue aesthetic, ‘Valley Of The Dry Bones’ taps a pumping vein of “death march-disco for the ever-present sunburn of daily scourges and musical apathy”. Radar-evading synth strikes and bulbous narco-jack rhythms cruise into formation across inky black metropolitan skies, offering a jaw-clenching payload of dancefloor intensity guaranteed to become an anthem in the right quadrants. Don’t sleep. Ever.

“The opening salvo from Will Bankhead and Joy Orbison’s new label, this EP is a cracker: a rainswept blend of hip-hop, house and techno; a diverse, tense and enthralling survey of Madteo’s own world of muffled, deep, body-rocking bass and layered, worked drama. After sterling releases on Workshop, Meaukusma and co — the best yet from this Paduan In New York…”

Ifan “Not James Blake” Dafyyd lives up to the inescapable yet respectful allegory on this new twelve of high-end electronic soul. Ushered out on the youthling Push & Run imprint, these two tracks present a hugely endearing talent with masses of potential. A-side is ‘Treehouse’, a daintily 2-stepped R&B seducer sprinkled with magically spacious keys and warbly chords creating a sensitive backdrop for Ifan’s myriad, pitched vocal personas, from a strong warm jazz voice to stranger, alien flickers and unnaturally low purrs. B-side ‘To Me’ catches blue threads of folk, jazz and R&B with a crystalline electronic web. The pace is slower, sub-heavy and sensuous, but with a sprightly electro-acoustic diffusion allowing the layers and fragmented ideas to glisten and glide without friction. Already tipped by evryone from Jamie xx to Oneman and Gilles Peterson, expect to hear a lot more from this fella.

Luckyme bring the best out of Travis Stewart on his 2nd Machinedrum single for the Glasgow institution. Following his scorching ‘Alarma’ 12″, the ‘SXLND EP’ comes with a slightly more refined, sexier sound running classic Chicago, Italo and current UK sounds to his exacting specifications. The tracks were originally written in 2010, around the time of his ‘Many Faces’ EP, but have been recently re-engineered for 2012 ‘floors. He comes with deeply infectious, futurist R&B tribalism on the title track, all snagging vocal hooks and bashy drums with a sweeter tilt, while ‘No Respect’ sounds like a more optimised, heavyweight version of his Sepalcure sound. Our percy has to be the barking, Italo-sampling ‘Van Vogue’: a dance-owning swinger with cruising sub strafes and super-glossy arpeggios, but then again the stylish House grover ‘DDD’ is another strong contender. Ach, it’s all good!

Overdue but welcome return from Aramac’s Sticks “N” Stones Recordings, presenting the first vinyl release from NYC-residing Sierra Leone ex-pat, Lamin Fofana. Last we heard from Lamin was on the wickedly diverse ‘What Elijah Said’ single for DJ/Rupture’s Dutty Artz posse over two years ago. He comes back in 2012 with a darkly sweet Funky sound, dropping shoulder-rolling polyrhythms on A-side ‘Dubious Prey’ and a more tender piece of dubbed-out keys and laidback Hip Hop/Dubstep on ‘Brokedown City’. Flipside label head Aramac gets involved with a remix of the latter, taking it downtown for a deeper effect enforced by hypnotic pads and a sinister, sexy sense of dancefloor voodoo. Fans of Beneath, Swing Ting, Cooly G should check.