MUSIC RECOMMENDATION

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Our “board” of charity releases dedicated to Ukraine has been refreshed with a new page of entries.

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

While the 1998 album “Consumed” has been a game changer in the hypnotic techno culture, Plastikman is back with an elegant reworked version, teaming up with gifted Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzales.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Nope, it’s not another bundle of past releases: Semantica’s new VA is a collection of fresh new tracks. When you see the line-up, you understand that it’s going to be a huge release, and unsurprisingly, that’s what it is: we invite you to hit play and be amazed by each track, one after one. Warning: we’ve lived some explosions of the brain in the office: “at your own risks”.

TRIBAL TECHNO

In Indonesia, near Sumatra, are the Mentawai people, one of the oldest tribes in the tropical country. They are also known as the “Flower People” for their tattoos and bodily adornments, made to celebrate physical beauty, as a way “to seduce the soul”, so that it is not tempted “to leave the body”. This is exactly what Saphileaum’s new album evokes; a tribal immersion and the celebration of beauty through the mesmerising music and Davout‘s artwork. The LP includes a fabulous remix by Master Valentino Mora.

DANCEFLOOR-ORIENTED

With also releases from Oscar Mulero and Reeko, Semantica sometimes reminds us that it also belongs to the Spanish School, with its minimal textured grooves. Sciahri & Desroi are both already known for their dynamic techno, Desroi being maybe slightly deeper, thinking of his DJ mixes and of his memorable album “Floating In Empty” for instance. Nevertheless, both artists complement each other well, delivering an efficient EP with well-designed textures.

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

In his new EP on the treasured British label, the Spanish artist walks on a very narrow path between digital and analogue sounds, in the middle of a vast misty landscape. As a result, the mind is transported by emotion between the admiration of the well-produced sonic setting and the pleasure to get lost in it. By going in different directions, the two remixes unfortunately don’t extend Doctrina Natura’s deep journey, which therefore ends a bit too fast, but at the same time, this is not an album.

DANCEFLOOR-ORIENTED

While being “versatile” on paper, German artist Murky fm has mainly two sound signatures for us: one made of psychedelic, jazzy synth music, particularly obvious in his early mixes but also in some of his recent EPs, and the other one evolving in darker yet groovier frequencies. It feels that in “NFR019”, Murky fm has somehow merged both sides, creating efficient gloomy tracks with nice evasive pads, reminding the work of Kontinum from the same Collective. Special mention on the mastering by the label owner and on the nice remix by Soren Aalberg, emphasizing well the direction taken by the EP.

DRUM’N’BASS

Meanwhile in Shinbu’s dungeon, it’s always dope…

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Launched in 2019, Cliche Morph’s label Postdynamic already contains a great number of releases in its catalogue, enough to group together some tracks for a compilation. The Belarusian artist however came up with a creative idea, by requesting his friends to remix the selection of tracks, giving them a fresh new life. The reconversion has been well-executed, bringing globally the pieces into deeper territories, with special attention paid to the quality of the drones, enriched with some dubby transformations.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Versatile, the release explores various moods, sometimes dreamy, most of the time dark and heavy. The artists took some risks, going out of their comfort zone, responding well to the challenge of the label, which requested the artists to translate their current inner-being musically. The constraint evokes Boris Vian’s metaphor: “Anything can be artistic as long as it is surrounded by a frame”.