MUSIC RECOMMENDATION

Launaea lives now in Berlin, and sometimes looks at the Colombian sun…

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Once upon a time, a young boy named HTC, originating from a lost place, fell in love with a beautiful spiritual girl, named Colombia. He wrote her many cheezy love letters and every day, was sticking his pink cheeks on the fogged window, waiting for the postman to get an answer. On the first of November, the miracle happened. HTC received a 20-chapters-long love message and breathed a “sigh of relief”…

We don’t have any better interpretation of the VA’s title, but we can at least mention that love doesn’t end there: “Sigh Of Relief” is the third charity instalment from Launaea’s label, dedicated to Fundación Rediseñandonos, which works for the reintegration of homeless people in Colombia, as well as to other indigenous organisations.

There is definitely lots of love in this sunny tribal release…

TRIBAL TECHNO

With “Drishti”, we are moving further south in Latin America to meet the Argentinian label “The Code“, born earlier this year out of the eclectic mix series “codecast“. Our tour guides are two artists that we both discovered on Secuencias Temporales: Alpak from Israel and Noah Lyas from The Netherlands. They are way too talented for young producers, even if Alpak has some background as a sound designer for a video production company. Very inspired, they enjoy mixing music with philosophies, as noticed in their intelligent music.

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

Think of a chic art gallery in New York; this is where label owners Soramimi and Cory James met and began their musical love story. Soramimi is at a crossroads between South Korea and America, between Oslated and Monday Off. Cory James has a long background in atmospheric house, giving him certain expertise to design complex percussions, along with his old friend Jordan Poling. While James and Poling have been producing together for nearly a decade, learning from each other, they just created the project “Imagery” recently. For the album, Soramimi painted the artwork while the two lads got lost in a timeless jam, that she would rightly qualify as “expansive, sublime, futuristic and surreal.” (untitled 909, 2018)

The label also enjoys playing around with video installations, such as this one to illustrate the second track:

RITUALISTIC TECHNO

Moving now slightly towards the northwest to “where it all started”, Detroit, to visit a label well-known by Soramimi, who made a release on it: the good old DETROIT UNDERGROUND. Established in 1997, the massive imprint has more than 200 releases in its catalogue, from glitch to industrial techno to dark ambient music. A few hypnotic techno artists collaborated with it, such as Exium (here) and Oscar Mulero (here; although it’s a rare album from him made in the electronica genre).

Then we have Stitxhes also from Detroit, who has been producing for a couple of years. During this time, he seemed to have sought for himself artistically. He made his debuts with classic techno that however already had a hint of originality, followed by more and more cinematic works that made him dive deeper into darkness. From his experience with industrial techno and broken beat in particular suddenly came “Lost In Translation”, an unexpected fabulous three-tracker, well-controlled bomb, whose blast still propagates in our incredulous minds. We hope that it marks the birth of his sound signature…

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

Look at this well-affirmed release from our dear Cauê! After his notable appearance on Affin and the present EP, we can finally say with a tear in our eye: “That’s it boy, you became a man!” Cauê has been producing for one year only, while his work already shows great maturity, very pleasant to witness. We are happy that he made the step from DJing to producing, since he perfectly understands the codes of the hypnotic techno language, which he speaks with scandalous ease and charisma.

Dekeyden on Axis Records:

DANCEFLOOR-ORIENTED

When we created our community back in 2017, three names were popping up as the best DJs of our scene: THNTS from Berlin, NTOGN from Bålsta and Wrong Assessment from Milan. It was in the same year that the latter created his label AWRY, firstly to release his own music and then to invite his friends, such as Ruhig, Temudo and Claudio PRC. Wrong Assessment is very discreet, while having mixed with big names such as Richie Hawtin, Dixon, Len Faki, Joseph Capriati. Without any fanfare, he also succeeded to sign Dekeyden, an artist from Jeff Mills’ legendary label Axis Records.

Back after a first release on AWRY in 2020, Dekeyden is more confident than ever in “Subconscious Choices”; a mature work with efficient grooves and touching melancholic atmospheres.

An introduction to Noh Masks:

DRUM’N’BASS

We smile from witnessing the number of releases accelerating on Samurai Music, with a VA coming up only one week after Sam KDC and Flaminia’s marvellous EP. We also cry from seeing Horo on hold, ASC’s one-year-old Defiance being its latest project. Let’s however remain positive, as the series “Samurai Hannya” celebrates the artists of the label. We interviewed some of them for Orb Mag, in our biggest article ever written on the Drum And Bass culture, and are happy to see them reunited again.

The VA is conceptualised around the Japanese Noh Masks, as a symbol of the metamorphosis from the light to the dark forces, driven by intense jealousy, sadness and/or anger. Japanese tradition, mental injury, tattoo-based artwork, it is certain that we evolve into the deep inner being of label owner Presha, through impactful warrior percussions painted with deep moods.

If you are looking for deep yet less angry Drum And Bass, Zodiac Music released a new mesmerising VA (here) and a dope single by Kiri is also out on Kurnugû (here).

ELECTRO

“Artefakt” is one of these names like “Ness” or “Mike Parker” that have been following us from day one in our incursion into the hypnotic techno movement. If we usually prefer the “Mantis” series on Delsin Records, which designs the hypnotic techno of the future, we however remain humble in front of the work of artists such Artefakt, well-inspired with a homey feel. We know in advance that we are in good hands to experience deep trips which, with the Dutch duo in particular, transcend genres and ages. “Brain Dripper” is an invitation to let go and ride…