55TH SELECTION – A new one every Monday.
Want to stay up to date with the most recent music, for instance for your DJing? Each Monday, we list and comment on our favourite releases of the moment. This week:
Javier Salazar – Naucodie [Oslated, 2023-03-27]
ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO
No, Javier Salazar is not a contraction of “Javier Marimon” and “William Salazar” (Launaea). It’s neither Call Of Duty’s famous character nor the award-winning director with the same name, nor a Sheriff from Texas. The project however brings a little of all these figures in its music, respectively percussive, challenging, playful, cinematic and “trippy” (“Sheriff/narcotics”, got it? Yes, we’re geeks). “Javier Salazar” is the French duo behind the promising rdg tribe. “Naucodie”, on Oslated, is magnificent, with deep remixes by emblematic artists of the label.
Accents Records – Various Artists 007 [Accents Records, 2023-04-03]
VARIOUS ARTISTS
“No Doctor”, this 007 is not a spy but a monument of our culture!
An average of 6 tracks for the first four VAs, followed by the fifth and sixth VAs which contained nearly 20 tracks, and now 25 with the present one: Accents Records spoils us more and more over its seven years of existence and we love it!
This 007 has for sure a license to kill, with 25 guests that are not “just great artists” but among the current most talented ones. Therefore, it’s with great care and humility that we hit play on this museum piece of art, “only for your ears”…
Forest On Stasys & Vanoni – Split [Danza Nativa, 2023-03-27]
The second track contains a sample from “Alphaville”:
TRIBAL TECHNO
Vocals in the second track, translated:
“A glance, a word, because I love you,
Everything moves,
To live, only advance!
Aim straight for those you love,
I went towards you, endlessly towards the light,
If you smile, it is to enfold me all the better,
The rays of your arms pierce the mist.”
(Translated excerpt from a collage of poems written by Éluard between 1946 and 1951 and recited by Anna Karina in the 1965 Godard movie “Alphaville”)
We bet that if Forest on Stasys is not a French speaker, he didn’t choose these French verses randomly, as they convey the melancholy, passion and notion of movement highly present in his art. Next to Danza Nativa‘s (co-)owner, we have Vanoni, based in Buenos Aires as well, who contributed again to the label, also with smart tracks built with love’n’care, as sensed from their profound complexity.
Paleman – Exalted EP [30D Records, 2023-03-27]
DARK TECHNO
30D Records, it’s basically all the variations of techno loved by its owner 30drop, from TR-909 rhythms to space-out synths to dark industrial. Some sub-labels have been created to provide order in this versatile spectrum, and “Exalted” joins the project “30D | EYES HAVE IT” dedicated to dark noises. The sublabel’s name refers to Fulci’s giallo films, often showing harsh “injury to the EYE” sequences. Paleman, with his obsessive dark rhythms (and iconic eyes), is for sure at home with “Exalted”, a great sequel to “Veiled” on Sublunar.
Saphileaum – Intrapersonal Experience [Good Morning Tapes, 2023-03-27]
DOWNTEMPO
📢 “Warm welcome aboard Saphileaum Flight to Heaven, an aircraft with six timeless exits. Ensure your seat belt is well-fastened, to protect yourself from your “intrapersonal” turbulences. Since the journey is particularly trippy, smoking weed in the cabin is unnecessary. We are now going to dim the lights for take-off. If you are scared of the dark or that the Bogey Man will get you, don’t worry, he only flies on 30D Records Airlines.”
ØSC – Aubrey [Khoros Records, 2023-03-27]
ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO
Not sure if it’s rooted in Messina’s history, marked by numerous revolts and earthquakes, but the music of the local Sicilian artists rises the outdoor temperature above 55°C!
Take for instance ØSC and Ancestral Landscapes, also known as SAAM: the two lads are – say – more on the deep/introverted side yet they produce insane amplitudes! They unleash Scylla, the mythic man-eating monster living across the whirlpool of “Charybdis” in front of Messina… (Yes, that’s where the label Charybdis took its name from; off topic but at least instructive, hopefully 😵💫)
Azidax – Kojoeng [KVLTÖ Records, 2023-03-31]
Azidax is also a great DJ:
ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO
For our last choice, we struggled between two releases equally good, until we found out that one of the two authors subscribed on Fiverr as “a ghost producer”. It proves that evolution CAN go in reverse, and we’re happy to support the other artist, our dear Azidax from Belgium.
The last time we heard about him was on his own label Deflection Music, where he produced two EPs in the same vein: nice peaceful tracks with fairy “sonic fireflies”, crystal clear, as he’s also a sound engineer, and psychedelic, inherited from his roots in psytrance. “Kojoeng” shows his rising evolution, which we’re happy to witness.
SPECIAL GUEST
Donato Dozzy said about him: “I liked him the moment I met him”. In 2002 in a club/restaurant where our guest was playing, he got introduced to Dozzy by a common friend. The two artists, happy to share the same musical language, started to improvise B2B mixes, developing instant complicity, and their nascent friendship led them to collaborate on Elettronica Romana. In 2009, our guest founded Zooloft with Obtane and dropped some releases on Prologue. The three labels being defunct, he evolved into other projects, from Speedy J’s Electric Deluxe to Marco Grijsen’s Planet Rhythm, diffusing his futuristic deep techno sound. He never stopped collaborating with other artists, which partly illustrates his natural sense of sharing. From his long experience, we are honoured that he accepted our invitation.
GIORGIO GIGLI PRESENTS
DJ AND PRODUCER
Booz – Antenora EP [Space Textures, 2023-03-30]
In the same vein on Edit Select, in 2020:
DANCEFLOOR-ORIENTED
Giorgio Gigli: It’s not easy to listen to high-level electronic music these days, for many reasons, ranging from taste to technical implementation.
This EP, sadly not on vinyl, caught my attention lately for several reasons. I’m a lover of atmospheres but also of rhythms, when well-designed and expressed in coherent and dynamic ways. All the tracks are interesting, but my favourite ones are “Suspended” and “Stato Alterato”, which somehow match my own style of production. In a period where – musically speaking – only a few artists know how to create some storytelling, this EP does it in an intelligent and elegant way in my opinion. Producing requires a serious approach during the creative process, because the music tells who we are.
* Page’s cover picture: Oye Kreuzkoelln in Berlin, a record shop from a member of our community.
