Want to stay up to date with the most recent music, for instance for your DJing?
Here’s what you should currently not miss 🫶
Erd – Den [Initiate Records, 2022-11-11]
Teasing the project ALEA(s), with Boris Wilmot, FSTN and Erd:
BASS MUSIC
Entering Erd’s world is like visiting a gloomy labyrinth. You must first pass through the hundreds of cables that are plugged into his infinite collection of modular synths. You would see dope brands such as “Make Noise“, “Intellijel” and a dominating one: “Shakmat“. It’s normal, he co-owns it. He created it “because he felt that some tools were missing” (InDepth). Then, after the cables, new corridors: Erd is the type of dude who hides behind many projects, from the impressive audio-visual live act ALEA(s) to the dark electronica duo Palsembleu to the industrial project Bishop Dust to many more. He’s now making his debut as “Erd” and we hope that he’ll stop acting like “a ghost”, sort of, to finally embrace this very promising solo career. “Den” is a mirror of how genius he is, and a revelation for us, of his talent, but also of what Pattrn and Hesh succeed to do behind “Initiate“: innovating our dusty scene, with fascinating new sounds and concepts.
Nakayama Munetoshi – Court [Muzan Editions, 2022-11-18]
AMBIENT
After the striking previous release, we needed an interlude before returning back to more known territories. We found it in this very poetic album coming straight from Osaka in Japan. An “Interlude” evokes “a break”, and this is exactly what producer and hairstyler Nakayama Munetoshi aims to create: a bright artistic-oriented retreat in his salon; “an auditive experience”, intriguing and hypnotic, created with “five synths”, as he explains on his Soundcloud page. If you think further: he takes care of the hair and ears’ well-being together: someone had to think of it!
Feral – Crossroads [Hypnus Record, 2022-11-08]
TRIBAL TECHNO
We are now back on track with Feral’s eighth release on Hypnus Record. Anecdotally, he got to know label owner Michel Iseneld around 2015 thanks to a friend from his hometown, who introduced him to Michel: a certain Luigi Tozzi… Both artists are two spearheads of the label and it’s always a pleasure to hit play on their new creations. Feral is maybe more experimental than ever in “Crossroads”, and we noticed that the more we visit the EP, the more we enjoy it, for constantly discovering new elements and grooves. A must-have.
Sunday Bath – Sticoplastic [Circular Limited, 2022-11-16]
TRIBAL TECHNO
Hailing from Italy (yes, “therefore another talented artist”), Sunday Bath has always sounded pretty experimental from his first pieces around 2017, flirting with electronica and mostly with hip-hop, with some cool low-tempo abstract beats. This year, he seemed to look for himself in the electronic music realm, also under the moniker Scorgo Fonemi, before crafting the dubby tribal techno of the present EP, complex and impressive. We hope that the release marks the beginning of a musical direction that he will now adopt. It’s mind-blowing.
A.Paul and DJ Dextro – Placebo [Unrilis, 2022-11-11]
DANCEFLOOR-ORIENTED
The mind has been significantly put to the test in the previous releases, it’s time to let it go, because, well, under the head is a quite big organ called “the body”, which also deserves to be considered (doesn’t it?). “Placebo” comes with five efficient four-to-the-floor grooves, hot and spicy, perfect for the dance exaltation. A.Paul & DJ Dextro are well-known in the circuit, prolific separately and together, with releases on great labels such as Planet Rhythm and Suara. You are therefore in good hands to shake the booty and get lost in the music.
Biocym – Dama con l’ermellino [Different Exhibition, 2022-11-20]
DRONE-ISH TECHNO
No, “Different Exhibition” didn’t rob a Polish Museum to grab Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting “Lady with an Ermine” for the artwork: the Italian label just challenges its producers to find inspiration from these cultural images. It’s a pretty original idea that obliges the artists to integrate some storytelling in their music, which is alas too rare. We still have in mind Zemög’s rich interpretation of “La Morte di Socrate“, and today, Biocym, along with Polygonia and Unclear, chose the angle of “charisma” for this darker “exhibition”. It works, although it is worth reminding that “the Ermine” is set to represent “purity”, which has been maybe more expressed in Kontinum’s version, but it’s very subjective to say.
Aural Imbalance and ASC – Spatial Bundle 002 [Spatial, 2022-10-28]
A dope radio mix by ASC to celebrate the birth of “Spatial”:
JUNGLE MUSIC
Boom, three EPs released in one day on ASC’s sublabel “Spatial”, dedicated to his roots, the Jungle music of the 90s: Spatial 004 by ASC, Spatial 005 by his mate Aural Imbalance and Spatial 006 by ASC again. The complicity between the two artists is so palpable, with sounds creating a dialogue between each other, that we thought it would be great to reunite these EPs and boom, here comes “Spatial Bundle 002”.
“Spatial” has been created in 2021, and ASC explained the name in a proper interview for DNB Universe: “The name has a few meanings. The first being the space between the breaks due to the tempo the music is written at. Secondly, relating to the root word of space, meaning all things astronomy-related, and the dictionary definition, which is: the infinite extension of the three-dimensional region in which all matter exists.” This seemingly anodyne definition drops us in the Matrix, where space and time can be stretched down, and definitely allows us to see better through the Jungle beats…
Silent Society – Season of the Angels LP [Secuencias Temporales, 2022-11-17]
EXPERIMENTAL
Secuencias Temporales‘s owner Eafhm loves to give voice to new artists, as part of his research for unique sounds and personalities. Silent Society, from Romania, is however not exactly a newbie, not that he has produced a lot, but that he has crossed all the electronic music decades with a fine, passionate (obsessive?) observation of their richness. “Season of the Angels” takes us to the years of the musique concrète, with sounds that are not easy to grasp but whose authenticity touches the soul. At the same time, he updates the movement by bringing a deep cinematic dimension into a language that is maybe not so random, but that rather matches a certain vision. As a result, the LP is a very interesting piece of art, made to be visited and revisited.
* Page’s cover picture: Oye Kreuzkoelln in Berlin, a record shop from a member of our community.