Boomkat – DEMDIKE STARE, HEAVY WINGED, KEVIN DRUMM, etc

*Strictly limited copies of this third and final part in a trilogy of Demdike Stare albums for 2010. Spread over 50 minutes and featuring all new and exclusive material mastered and cut at dubplates and mastering in Berlin, featuring supremely righteous artwork by Andy Votel* “Voices of Dust” is the third and final part in Demdike Stare’s trilogy of albums for 2010. The album opens with an analogue tape drone that seems to suck the light out of whatever environment you might find yourself in, powering up Demdike’s machinery for the bellydance disco assault of “Hashshashin Chant” that follows. “Repository Of Light” takes another diversion, this time wading through the gaseous environs that made the MVO trio’s debut album so memorable earlier this year, before “Desert Ascetic” flips things over for a dusted, relentless assault on the souk. The album ends with the decaying loops of “A Tale Of Sand”, leaving you with a bittersweet aftertaste and absolutely no sense of closure whatsoever…

*Initial copies come on transparent red vinyl – strictly limited!* Type records break new ground with a blood red side of free-rock from Jed Bindeman’s Heavy Winged trio. Contemporary avant and heavy instrumental rock fiends will probably be familiar with the group’s sprawling, cacophonous mass of CDRs, cassettes and wax for NNF, Digitalis and Aurora Borealis, but unless you’re in the band yourself, you’ve never heard them playing quite like this before. The underground safety net of lo-fi recording techniques has been torn down in order to reveal electrifying sheets of distorted guitar noise and a heavy welt of blast drums with unsettling proximity the listener. There’s still enough grit in the recording to demonstrate that we’re not listening to a major studio production, but the new found clarity brings us closer to a “real” representation of the group, comparable to actually sitting in the room with them while they power through two extended tracks of transcendent, ritualistic and incredibly dark music. The intuitive balance of fidelity and dirt, harmony and discord makes this album worthy of comparisons with both Yellow Swans and early Mogwai or Sonic Youth, and if that means anything to you, then ‘Sunspotted’ requires your immediate attention. Highly recommended.

*Epic double CD set featuring the works of Konono No.1 and co remixed by Animal Collective, Shackleton, Mark Ernestus, Optimo, Sylvain Chauveau, Deerhoof and many many more* Crammed yield a frankly stunning array of remixes, reworks and cover versions of the influential Congotronics collection from a veritable who’s who of contemporary electronic, dance and indie music. It’s undoubtedly one of the most vital dialogues between Western and tradi-modern West African musical cultures in years, practically unprecedented in its scope and quality. The skillfully curated list of contributors includes (among others) Shackleton, Mark Ernestus (of Basic Channel/Maurizio fame), Michachu & The Shapes, Optimo, Juana Molina, Deerhoof, Animal Collective, and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, all treating the original music, predominantly from Kasai Allstars and Konono No.1, to wonderfully diverse and joyful revisions. Their infectious electrified traditional music is exported to all corners of the musical map, from the dread dubbed throb of Mark Ernestus’s ‘Maskikulu Dub’, to the pastoral breeziness of Aksak mabouls’ ‘Land Dispute’ version, blurring the distinctions between homage, remix and cover version in fine style. From the first few listens a few tracks really stand out; Wilco’s Glenn Kotche gives a sparkling rendition of Konono No.1’s ‘Traducteur de Transmission’, really taking the electro-trad sound to heart with a droning, sub-weighted and delicately psychedelic version, while Juana Molina infuses Kasai Allstars with her sublime naif vocals, and Animal Collective obviously relish the opportunity to re-imagine Kasai Allstars in the immersive ‘Quick As White’. A crucial project, beautifully executed. Highly recommended!

Sublime Frequencies present their third release of electric Islamic guitar celebrations by the fantastic Group Doueh, surely Western Sahara’s best-known musical export. As many will testify, on the 2009 SF European tour Group Doueh provided a truly mindblowing experience, usurping Omar Souleyman as the main talking point in many instances. Their performance was just so ecstatic, earthly and utterly compelling, vividly recreating the effect of their two outstanding albums for the label. ‘Beatte Harab’ was recorded in april 2010 at their home town of Dakhla, West Sahara by Group Doueh and Hisham Mayet with remarkably higher production values than previous albums. That’s not to say they’ve gone all Abbey Road, with Baamar Doueh’s guitar still hitting like a blistering sandstorm and the vocals of his wife Halima Jakani are still raw as hell, but they’re simply presented with far more definition. They also still sound quite like nothing else on this planet and for those reasons, among many others which will become apparent when you give this a listen, this album is just vital. Comes housed in typical SF gatefold sleeve with breathtaking photography – possibly one of the best we’ve seen all year. Highly recommended!

**Available on double gatefold, gold foil embossed vinyl for the 1st time!!!** Originally issued in 2002, Editions Mego have seen fit to re-issue this noise classic with lovely new Steven O’Malley artwork and an extra thirteen minute track (recorded at the same time as the album). It’s pretty good timing too, as noise music is finally, thanks to artists such as Wolf Eyes, Hair Police and Prurient breaking out of its cassette-based shackles into almost mainstream acceptance. Okay maybe I’m going a little overboard with that, but come on – Wolf Eyes on Sub Pop? Who would have thought that would happen, and have you been to a noise show lately? There are girls there and everything. I remember seeing Hecker on a Mego tour a few years ago and noise was strictly a bespectacled boy thing, now we’ve got all sorts lapping it up, and that can only be a good thing. Kevin Drumm started out as a guitarist, becoming an important player of prepared guitar in the Chicago scene, but quickly he began to turn his hand to radically noisier sounds, sounds which came to a head on this milestone work. Here the record opens with the ‘new’ track ‘Impotent Hummer’, which interestingly takes a notably quieter direction than much of the original album’s tracks. A drone piece fired through some kind of malfunctioning distortion pedals the most obvious comparison would be with the young Dutch upstart of harmonic noise Machinefabriek, albiet with a little more evil added for extra effect. However the album proper kicks off with ‘Turning Point’, as crushing a piece of noise as you’re likely to hear – loops of crunching guitar abuse and heavily degraded analogue synthesizer are layered on top of each other creating a truly visceral cacophonous racket. The album comes to a head with the twenty-four minute monster of a track ‘The Inferno’ (which incidentally features Boston noisy dude Greg Kelley on trumpet); a track which doesn’t so much make noise as becomes noise. This is the sort of track you need to literally give yourself to, losing control of your mind and becoming one with the pure, putrid stench of NOISE. As squealing, pulsating analogue synthesizers rise and fall over the oppressive crunch of Drumm’s guitar you are left with the metallic taste of blood in your mouth through your gritted teeth. An insanely good album and a cornerstone of the genre, it’s great to see this back on the shelves – just remember to handle with extreme caution. SICK.

After a bit of a pause, Andrea returns with an invigorated sense of funk and a bad case of scuffed shelltoes. A generation after Chicago House irreversibly infected the Northern club scene, Andrea soaks up and sweats out the latest footworking Chi-town developments with a distinctive melodic flourish and innate feel for the floor. ‘Retail Juke’ keenly latches on to that feeling of delirious suspension that marks the best productions from RP Boo, Roc, Nate or any of those agile young cats, matching their flighty rhythm programming toe-for-toe, while tweaking the vibes with a fine-cut pop sensibility. It opens up with an impatient metronome and sparkling Rhodes keys ushering in spasmodic sample edits and unregimented drums, honing that slow-fast thing that’s impossible to describe and so bizarrely effective. On the flip, ‘Write-Off’ sounds like an Ice Cream van taking a wrong turning and ending up wheel-deep in some hyperrealist dayglo forest without SatNav or a working sense of direction to hand. It finds that filigree balance of tension between rapid-fire sample textures, twinkling melodies and dragging bass undulations, keeping an implosive, centripetal sense of funk deep in the pocket and yet still quite melancholy in its own fidgety way. Highly recommended.

**Hand-numbered edition of 900 copies, housed in embossed, fold-out sleeve** Full release for the colossal ‘Poor Animal’ from Zola Jesus, backed with a different version of ‘I Can’t Stand’ from her ‘Stridulum’ album. We can’t avoid the fact that the synths/strings of ‘Poor Animal’ sound a lot like Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ but that’s hardly a bad thing, is it? Add those to rotund tribal toms and Zola’s haunting holler and we’re quite stunned, really. The effect carries through into ‘I Can’t Stand’, edited here for more succinct piloerect buzz, all sluggishly motorik rhythms and gothic synth flares like a beacon to all bedroom dwelling emo types. If you’re not smitten with her yet and this doesn’t hit your buttons, we can’t help you. Massively Recommended!

**Super limited 12″ with individual, hand-sprayed artwork from 2ndFade** Punch Drunk celebrate their 20th release in typically idiosyncratic style with a Radiophonic dub-scaping session from the shadowy Ekoplekz. Not much is known about this guy, apart from the fact that he’s from Bristol and has an exceptional taste for gorgeously spooked analogue electronics. These two tracks deploy vintage hardware and lo-fi cassette players in an improvised manner to make charmingly trippy little riddims, perhaps like Daphne Oram, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Carter got locked in the studio with a sack of stinky green. ‘Stalag Zero’ is the more bloopy of the the two, full of frothy, flanging metallic sonorities and sci-fi skank vibes also reminding of Jahtari’s Tapes, whereas ‘Distended Dub’ is a touch darker and industrial, sounding like a mad outtake from that Conrad Schnitzler live performance on Mirror Tapes. Big up Punch Drunk, and Ekoplekz, top release.

Werk Disc’s resident downbeat badman, Lukid, drops two totally unique grooves for the freshly minted Glum imprint. Everyone was suitably impressed with his recent ‘Chord’ album, but these two tracks are tilted towards a different listening experience, aimed squarely at broad-minded dancefloors. ‘Boxing Club’ instantly reminds of Mark Ernestus’s recent Konono No.1 dub with shuffling, low-end loaded Afro rhythms just about tethered together with frayed, smudged and organic syncopations with a mily synthline filtered through the fug. Flip it and ‘Blind Spot’ tumbles headlong into a vortex of swung rhythms which are neither House nor Techno, or anything that’s got a fixed name yet, using a similarly staggered kickdrum programming technique as NWAQ on his 154 album ‘Strike’, all coated in mirage-like compressions and mechanical whirrs. Props for the happy face/sad face artwork on the centre label too. Exceptional stuff – don’t sleep on this!

Fascinating 12″ featuring “recordings of raw output from 49 configuration of an EMS VCS 3 synthesizer” released through Russell Haswell’s Touch sublabel, Or. As many synth fiends will know, the VCS 3 was the first commercially available portable modular synthesizer, and renowned for it wide range of inherent electronic sound effects. But due to it being an early model, and with the accumulations of oxide which occur over time, the machine is also known for its melodic unpredictability and the microtonal fluctuations which this instability exaggerates. Theo Burt and Peter Worth of the Music Research Centre, York, recorded directly from the two independent outputs of the VCS 3, using unusual, incremental and violent changes to the modulation routing and configuration to produce “a variety of complex relationships between the left and right channels. Timbral, rhythmic and harmonic themes emerge, revealing unexpected properties of the machine.” This is a formal investigation into the inner life of the machine, producing results that could never be created with a computer and are worthy for this reason at the very least. If you’re a fan of Eleh – do not miss this.

*The four tracks reissued here were exclusive to the seminal Relics album release and this is the first time they’ve been available on a 12” pressing. All four tracks are landmark techno pieces and considered to be among Derrick May’s best output – comes in a matt varnish, die cut sleeve on a one-time run of 1000 copies only* Transmat and Rush Hour present a reissue of four timeless Detroit artefacts originally included on the Relics compilation. With the exception of a few cheeky booties, the tracks have been out of print since the early ’90s, appearing here as one premium 12″ for the 1st time. The A-side is given to the cosmic strains of Rhythim Is Rhythim’s ‘MS 6’, and the flip includes three versions of ‘A Relic’, featuring Derrick May at his seminal best. This is a one-off edition of 1000 copies, housed in specially die-cut, matt varnish sleeve. You’ve got a bit of drool on your chin there, mate…

Ramadanman switches to his Pearson Sound alter-ego for two killer Juke-infused roll-outs on Hessle Audio. ‘Blanked’ is the one you want, mapping percussive patterns somewhere on the cusp-of-‘ardcore-and-garage, and Chicago Juke styles with a stunning midway drop sounding like early ’90s Autechre pads. ‘Blue Eyes’ takes the flipside for a straighter revision of the Juke sound with brittle, splintered rhythms and succinct synth drops and that infectious female vocal snippet, but for the most part this is just a perfectly formed naked roller ready for mixing by able DJs. While the distinctions between his two sonic personalities are becoming blurrier, there’s a much-reduced aesthetic to these tracks that set them apart from pretty much all his recent material, making this a certified winner. Big twelve!

As the UK’s urban swing-o-meter veers towards a broken House flex, Rush Hour’s Direct Current series drops two foundational noughties riddims; Aardvarck’s ‘Nosestep’, also remixed by Cosmin TRG, and Nubian Mindz brilliant ‘Re-Spoken’ mix, which was recently included on Kode 9’s DJ Kicks mix. Aardvarck’s ‘Dam swaggering 2007 original will sit comfortably with your Seiji or Altered Natives riddims, while Cosmin TRG spices it up with some bubbling and acidic 2010 vibes. On the flip we get a previously unreleased, deep and rolling version of Nubian Mindz’ mix of ‘Re Spoken’ which is quite compatible with your Martyn or Recloose grooves. Heavy twelve.