Boomkat – new MATTHEWDAVID, LAWRENCE ENGLISH, CURRENT 93, etc

*Lawrence English’s epic masterpiece – finally available on vinyl for the first time. Strictly limited edition – Initial copies come on white vinyl* One of the most memorable and absorbing albums released by the wonderful Touch label in recent years, “Kiri No Oto” was first released by them on CD in 2008 and has spent much of the intervening time lodged in our minds as one of the finer drone/field recording albums to have been made this century. Kiri No Oto (a Japanese phrase meaning ‘sound of fog’) takes both instrumental and found sounds cultivated from English’s travels around Poland, New Zealand, Australia and Japan and submits them to filtering, harmonic distortion and other processes that would shroud or otherwise obscure the original signals. Consequently, the record sets out to study a kind of auditory fog, and the richness of sound that comes about from this misting achieves the most compelling results when there’s an essential quietness to the central sound mass itself: ‘Figure’s Lone Static’ serves as a good example of this, placing emphasis on the auditory details of the blur itself rather than the sound that gave birth to it, and it’s the peripheral elements and side-effects that are the real subject matter of this album. Over the span of Kiri No Oto you’ll encounter the towering, borderline fuzz of ‘Organs Lost At Sea’, the Popul Vuh-like tones of ‘Allay’, but also gentler moments, as on the pure vapour of ‘Soft Fuse’, or the dazzling, overloaded shimmer effervesced from ‘Waves Sheer Light’. Although this might initially seem entirely disconnected from the miniaturised sound world of earlier triumphs in the Lawrence English discography, these sound studies are no less detailed, no less experimental, and no less beguiling. A huge recommendation.

*Beautiful gatefold vinyl edition complete with Black Sun comic strip printed on the inside panel.* Five years on from their debut album, Kode 9 and The Space Ape present another riveting missive from the underground on ‘Black Sun’. Since the release of ‘Memories Of The Future’ in 2006, Kode has adopted the mantle of UK Bass shamen, with a cardboard box for a headdress and the most forward/backward/sideways record case in the world, besides heading up a celebrated DJ Kicks session and A&Ring the impeccable Hyperdub label. All this has fed forward into ‘Black Sun’, twelve tracks of nextisms spanning myriad tempos and incorporating the influences of Chinese producer/MC, Cha Cha and an outstanding collaboration with Flying Lotus. OK, so you’ve probably gathered we’re avowed Kode 9 fans but ‘Black Sun’ has just exceeded our already high expectations. From the doom-laced intro of ‘Black Smoke’ he’s tweaking our endocrinal system with acrid Bubblin’ synth licks, urgent lyrics and martial rhythms begging the question “fight or flight?”. Stick around for ‘Promises’ and the contrast is acute, menace dissipated and replaced with lusciously artificial cybeR’n’Bass vibes followed into ‘Love Is The Drug’, adhering to a formula of dissonant synth cadence and dismantled House patterns spawned by his original ‘Black Sun’ 12″ back in 2009, itself re-kinked here as the ace ‘Black Sun (Partial Eclipse)’. However, the best tracks are those which take up Timbaland’s rhythmic ideas (before he became a muscle bound pop goon). The synapse-triggering drums and paranoid tension of ‘Neon Red Sign’ is just exquisite, especially when Cha Cha and Space Ape find the same crease, while ‘The Cure’ uses similar patterns in a bleepier context, spliced with deft techno stabs for the dance, and then there’s the junglist tuck-and-roll of ‘Otherman’, the hip-synched wriggle of ‘Green Son’ or the Grime-jacked force of ‘Bullet Against Bone’. Sh*t, we’ve not even mentioned the brilliantly woozy harmonic tunings that really define this album, but this is getting long now and you’ve probably got better things to do. Take it on trust or find out for yourself, either way this album is just completely essential.

Another sterling discovery from the unstoppable musical magpies over at Finders Keepers, this time the glistening early electronic fusions of pioneering Pakistani film and pop composer, Sohail Rana. As the son of renowned Urdu poet Rana Akbar Abadi, Sohail was born into a respected family in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, 1938. Achieving his qualifications in Karachi, and following chance meeting with media mogul and soon-to-be longterm collaborator Waheed Murad, he found a job creating music for the Lollywood film industry. In 1969, funded by EMI Pakistan, Sohail had the rare opportunity to create a full 12″ disc (not common in Pakistan at the time) known as ‘Khyber Mail’, a concept album invoking the images and sounds of the high speed Karachi to Peshawar freight train. Distinguished by his whining and addictive electric keyboard and a motorik rhythm section of sitars and layered percussion it introduced a radical form of patchwork pop and mechanical music which kick-started the “plugged-in” Lollywood pop scene also inhabited by the likes of Tafo Bros and M. Ashraf who appeared on previous FK installments. The breadth of styles, moods and ideas contained in this record is quite staggering, ranging from frisky Western rhythm infusions to frothy electronic melodies and all captured with near-impeccable fidelity by the state-of-art EMI studio, many intended for oriental, bellydance and exotic LP compilations marketed to tourists and easy listening enthusiasts alike. At times it feels like we could be hearing a Raymond Scott or Jean Jacques Perrey composition, and then a sitar lick or surf guitar will transport us somewhere far more exotic! It’s not without good reason that both Sublime Frequencies/Sun City Girls’ Alan Bishop and Jazzman Gerald are avowed fans of this record. Recommended!

*Leaving Records boss Matthewdavid drops his debut album proper on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label**. California’s louche, post-modern psych-hop scene is in overdrive right now, and this collection of sun-stroked, lopsided beats from respected freak Matthewdavid is one of its most convincing offerings to date. Matthewdavid collaborated with Sun Araw on the breathtraking Livephreaxxx!!!!! cassette, and he certainly operates in a similarly dubbed-out and hazy field to Cameron Stallones; however, as befits his new home on Brainfeeder, our man is a little more inclined to the dancefloor. It means that Outmind is, at its best, a truly beguiling blend of post-dubstep and heady hypnagogia. FlyLo himself contributes to the marimba’d astral jazz interlude ‘Group Tea’, which comes over like Alice Coltrane, Roland Young and Dylan Ettinger sharing a brew, while ‘Today, The Same Way’ sounds like Dam-Funk’s good-times boogie fed through a cement mixer. As the album progresses, MD’s default setting of hyper-edited, glitchy trip-hop can tire a little, and for us some of the most memorable cuts are the most ambient and abstract – pay special attention to the gaseous, haunting ‘Floor Music’ and the prismatic, chiming closer ‘No Need To Worry / Mean Too Much’. Fans of heat-spoiled head music -from James Ferraro and Sun Araw to Gonjasufi and Mount Kimbie – get involved.

**Limited edition of 320 copies, mastered and cut by LUPO at D&M. Includes free download code for FLAC or MP3 redeemable from the label** John Chantler offers his most substantial solo recordings in over seven years. Housed in lustrous, silk-screened sleeve, ‘The Luminous Ground’ glows with a deeply instinctive feel for bewildering, alien harmonics and psychoactivated tunings arising from processes of modular synthesis. A pulsing and glimmering collision of oscillated tone, filtered textures and syncopated rhythm, John guides his captivating patterns with a playful but sincere intent, clearly fascinated by the sounds his machines make and with the compositional intuition to give them a semblance of human form, articulating pure abstractions as tangible, visceral emotions through the possibilities of patching. Experiencing this record, it’s understandable that he took so long to craft a solo release. This is once-in-seven years material, the kind of precious substance which must pass through many refinement stages of personal discovery and experimentation until it’s possible to almost blindly find his way through the wires. The result is a fresh palette of distinctly accented and flavoured tones which unfold in the most unforetold manner; acrid and bittersweet sounds which calmly alarm the senses. Fans of Keith Fullerton Whitman or Leyland Kirby’s searching electronics will find much to immerse themselves in. Highly recommended!

Another tiny package of joy from the proper on-form Ghost Box label, and this time around we find Trunk boss Jonny Trunk on the dials, eking the kind of sounds you’d expect to have found in 1963 on early episodes of Doctor Who from his jaw-dropping cache of samples. You already know that when you get your hands on anything from Trunk it’s gonna be special, but the gritty rhythmic pulse and discordant twang of ‘Le Train Fantome’ is instantly up there with the best the label have thrown out to date. Blending the light-hearted electronic experimentations of Delia Derbyshire with a near concrete sense of sample-laced weirdness that could place it alongside the fabled GRM studios, there’s not enough I can do to recommend that you hear this one LOUD. Flip the record over and we’ve got ‘Cardboard Boxford’, a woozy pizzicato strings ‘n rhythms cut that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Moondog record. Seriously good, seriously strange, seriously limited. Don’t sleep on this one, will ya.

Fresh outta Shed’s Berlin matrix, two optimized Techno-House killers! A-side whips dancers into shape with proper early ’90s Detroit styles, all cracking hanclaps, fizzing hi-hats and a Reese style sub for your behind. B-side is a bit more pumping and dubby, with deftly diffused dub chords and hydraulickin’ bass pressure. Like all the other wax sessions, this is pretty much an essential purchase. Sick twelve.

Seventh edition of Something In the Sky finds Jeff Mills digging deeper into his X-files cabinet. As with all previous SITS 12″s there’s no tracklisting, just a dope centre label and four tracks of stratosphere-scouting Techno. There’s two tracks on here which just demand attention: one stripped and tribalist timbered killer and a mystical pizzicato string number. make sure to check his ‘The Power’ album also out this week.

Dâm-Funk, Sweat.X, and Robert O’Dell pay tribute to one of the ’80s’ raunchiest funk/punk groups, Swexual Harassment. Going twos up, LA’s Dâm-Funk & Lil’ Kenny slide into the red on a cover of ‘You Are My Sexual Connection’, rubbing a febrile bass down low while Kenny pants and groans the vocal amidst splashing cymbals and spanking claps. From the other end of the world, South Africa’s Markus Wormstorm and Spoek Mathambo demand ‘I Need A Freak’ to a rough, uncompromising rhythmic grind and strangulated vocals. Flip it and Jimmy Edgar links with vocalist, G. Rizo for an energetic ‘Exercise Your Ass Off’ nodding to late ’70s NYC discofunk fusions and lubricated with the greasiest bass and synth licks, leading to Robert O’Dell’s money shot cover of ‘If I Gave You A Party’, assisted by producer Jeppe Loverman on a just-controlled frenzy of cowbells, pounding kicks and roughneck electro squirms.