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Review: Terrence Dixon Giant Robot EP
Label: Monique Musique

Listeners can infer much about Terrence Dixon's singular approach to techno from the fact that Actress—always the beguiler, never the beguiled—seems stumped about how to handle his remix commission for the Detroit veteran's new EP. Dixon's loops are severe and resistant to change, obeying some impetus from so deep within it may as well be from beyond. His splintery 2012 album, From the Far Future Pt. 2, is a bunch of heaped dervishes, paranoid cacophonies of samples that were probably organic in a distant past life, like the streams of human trash that will bob and thread through space after our planet explodes. Giant Robot's four Dixon originals, plus the Actress remix mentioned above, provide more glimpses of this rickety, cryptic futurism. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/26/2013

Review: Outboxx Outboxx
Label: Idle Hands

When XLR8R spoke to Bristol-based producer Jacob Martin (a.k.a. Hodge) back in January (as part of our Bubblin' Up Week feature on Bristol's new generation of producers), he described his work with Outboxx—the house duo consisting of himself and Matt Lambert—as "all pretty much jam based" and about "just having fun." It's unsurprising then, that it's precisely that vibe that comes across on the pair's debut album for Idle Hands. The nine-track collection is rough around the edges and perhaps a little unrefined, but at the same time, it's absolutely packed with deep and genuinely infectious grooves. The two producers play on the tried and tested moves of vintage house without ever descending into outright nostalgia, and they do so in a loose sort of way that yields results which feel natural and are—above all—immensely likeable. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/25/2013

Review: Geiom feat. Terrible Shock "2-4-6"
Label: Well Rounded

Nottingham-based producer Kamal Joory (a.k.a Geiom) has long been one of the most unfairly overlooked electronic artists operating out of the UK. For over a decade now, he's been producing tunes that generally manage to maintain a proper dancefloor edge whilst always cultivating an element of sonic peculiarity that has set him apart from prevailing trends in UK dance music. This latest release—for soon to be inactive Brighton label Well Rounded—is no exception. It sees him teaming up with vocalist Terrible Shock to create a full-on floor filler rooted in classic grime and funky, albeit one built around enough creative synth work and rhythmic weirdness to make it feel resolutely forward-thinking. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/25/2013

Review: Slava Raw Solutions
Label: Software

In the small but respectable discography which precedes Slava's debut LP, Raw Solutions, the Moscow-born, Chicago-reared, and now NYC-based producer has shown an affinity for operating in the undefined territory between a variety of genres. A raw take on hardware-born house holds a prominent position at the base of his work, but touches of footwork, cosmic disco, and sprawling new age have certainly found their way into his productions as well. While this genre ambiguity may have served him well on his shorter outings, when it's spread across 12 tracks, it makes for a debut album that sounds underdeveloped and often aimless. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/24/2013

Review: Alden Tyrell & Gerd Luv Thang
Label: 4lux

Luv Thang is further proof, if proof were needed, that the '90s house revival shows no signs of losing steam. To its credit, "Luv Thang (feat. Jessy Allen)" by two of the Netherlands' premier Chicago worshippers, Alden Tyrell & Gerd, genuinely sounds like a quick-and-dirty slice of house from another decade. The production is rote but punchy, with sashaying hi-hats leading a charge of warm, deep bass and a staggered cascade of drum hits. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/24/2013

Review: Gobby Fashion Lady
Label: UNO

Gobby is unburdened. He's not lazy or singularly egotistical, just calmly unaffected by the need to impress—or perhaps even express—through his music. His label, UNO, says that he uses his music "to ward off irritability and paranoia," and indeed, there's a healing sensibility subtly present throughout Fashion Lady. Sections of extended riffing on a single theme last just longer than expected, and the result is akin to being lulled into a Theta state, the unconscious mind opening slightly at the behest of Gobby's brand of rustic, pharmaceutical techno. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/23/2013

Review: Close Beam Me Up
Label: !K7

The accompanying press release for the lead single off Will Saul's forthcoming Getting Closer LP, a first offering under his freshly minted Close alias, is a curious one. "The new project sees him step away from the deeper house and bass sounds that have characterised his own discography," it states, noting a shift from his recent output on Aus and Simple. Given the trajectory Saul has taken alongside contemporaries during the past couple of years, one could at least approximate what a "step away" from those loosely defined genre tags wouldn’t sound like. However, upon listening to "Beam Me Up," that statement feels like a downright misprint; the track is so much a triangulation of the current convergence of deep house and bass—particularly when one factors in the track's title, its collaborators, and those artists recruited for remix duties—that it almost feels like Saul is fielding a fantasy UK house team for the forthcoming Ibiza season. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/23/2013

Review: Sandwell District Fabric 69

Pick
Label: Fabric

Sandwell District seeped into the techno world like smoke under a door, with a grip of deliberately oblique and undeniably compelling releases. Its dub poetics were some unholy fusion of post-punk's and dub techno's alternately grim and sublime atmospheres, all laid out over Cartesian drum-machine grids. Now technically defunct, the collective has splintered productively into its constituent parts, with marquee releases like Silent Servant's Negative Fascination and Function's Incubation elaborating different facets of the former unit. With the these affiliates' solo careers continuing to pick up speed, a Fabric mix is not the most expected epilogue to Sandwell District's unexpected moment. But needless to say, for the legions pining for another immersion in the aesthetic, Fabric 69 is a worthy companion to the crew's 2010 full-length opus, Feed-Forward. The tracks selected for the mix cut a familiar figure—from Fiedel's Berghain techno to Factory Floor's London squalor—while the mixing allows gaps and pregnant pauses to intervene when things get predictable. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/22/2013

Review: M.D.C. & Name In Lights Stockholm Stories
Label: Let's Play House

Let's Play House, the multifaceted New York label run by Jacques Renault, Nik Mercer, and James Friedman, has released music from an impressive array of international artists since its minting in 2011. From Hungary's San Laurentino to Portugal's Johnwaynes, the Let's Play House catalog bounces across the map, and its eclectic sonics—which take in all manner of modern variants on house and disco—tend to follow suit. As might be expected from its party-veteran founding trio, though, its releases are tailored with the working DJ in mind. Stockholm Stories surveys the Swedish group Name In Lights, who seem to epitomize this ethos. Read more » 

  • Filed under: review
  • 04/22/2013
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