VARIOUS ARTISTS
Boogybytes Vol. 4 mixed by Ellen Allien
BPC171
BPitch Control 2008
15 Tracks. 66mins00secs

After the success of her recent Fabric mix, Berlin DJ Ellen Allien here takes over the controls on the Boogybytes series to deliver a tightly scripted disquisition on the micro-techno scene. With most DJ sets, there is a need to balance coherence with variety, and the new with the pleasingly familiar. Here, though, Allien aims for a sound whose consistency of beat and texture varies in slight details from one track to the next. It is a bit like listening to the slow and delicate shifting of tectonic plates – with the calamitous possibility of the quake lingering somewhere in the distance.

Because of the clinical, almost surgical cleanliness of Allien’s style, calamity and event are rarely brought into the mix in any obvious way. Instead, melodies float beneath scattergrams of sonic pulses, allowing rhythm to dictate the album’s intricate soundwaves. The sound that results is effortlessly now – as BPitch, her label, proudly avers – a soundtrack of urban facades and cityscapes. Continue Reading »

BOCHUM WELT
R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy)
CAT192
Rephlex 2008
31 Tracks. 110mins00secs

Alongside bedroom boffins like Mike Paradinas, Luke Vibert and Chris Jeffs, Gianluigi Di Costanzo - or Bochum Welt – was one of the early reasons Rephlex was able to branch out from simply being an outlet for the prodigious output of Richard D. James. And yet he failed to go on to have anything like the success of some of his fellow label mates. Indeed, after 1997 and the release of Desktop Robotics and Feelings On A Screen, he seemed to disappear from the Rephlex line-up altogether.

Over a decade later, Robotic Operating Buddy marks his return, although it is as much a retrospective as anything else. The majority of the double album is made up of hard-to-find material lifted from the 1997 releases and 1996’s Module 2. According to Rephlex, putting this music back on general release will save fans a packet splashing out on the internet. And the label bosses may well be right: a quick look at discogs.com, for instance, reveals that the three old releases that make up disc 2 would cost the completist a cool £85 in hard-earned pocket money. Continue Reading »

BALMORHEA
Rivers Arms
WV051
Western Vinyl 2008
14 Tracks. 59mins00secs

A train passes slowly from afar, the stars are out, the fire’s flames are dying… it’s an enchanting image, and one readily conjured up when listening to this, the second release by Texas duo Balmorhea. Shunning the instant satisfactions of the electronic age, Balmorhea take a piano and guitar and leave most of the rest to the elements. The album is as crisp and light as clear morning sky, its acoustic aesthetic bracing the listener with its majesty. But the very merits of Rivers Arms are also its latent flaws, for this is an album rooted in a certain mood, and if you don’t buy the concept, there’s little point in sticking around. Continue Reading »

CYLOB
Late In The Day
CSR005M
Cylob Industries 2008
06 Tracks. 21mins57secs
Format: Digital

It’s a common criticism labeled at electronic music, that sounds produced by machines sound too clean and inhuman. Often enough, of course, that’s part of the point, but beyond that, one could counter, no machine is perfect. Picking up and exploiting the weaknesses of electronic instruments is a full-fledged phenomenon, be it in circuit bending toy instruments, removing the batteries from a sequencer and using a memory crash to create new sequences, or coding your entire setup from scratch like Chris Jeffs (known on stage and record as Cylob) does. Representing this labor of intense, creative love, Cylob’s music, whether more toward the electro or ambient end of the spectrum, has always retained a unique and imperfect aura.

Late In The Day, the latest EP release from Cylob, is the sound of passively violent degradation. Almost every synthesized sound here is detuned to some extent, while the percussion loops sound perpetually ready to disintegrate into bits. Continue Reading »

THE BLACK DOG
Radio Scarecrow
SOMACD67
Soma Quality Recordings 2008
17 Tracks. 68mins57secs

Since The Black Dog has become a fully functioning tri-headed cell again, it has delivered new and reconditioned material with insistent regularity, sourcing in the beast’s rich past the necessary fuel to move forward and adapt its visionary electronica to a different era through a series of classic EPs and the underrated 2005 Silenced album, while some of the long unavailable back catalogue dating back from the original Black Dog days got dusted off and polished to once again spread their wings and regain their .

Radio Scarecrow is a much more ambitious and confident affair than its predecessor as Ken Downie and brothers Richard and Martin Dust move away from the introvert ambient textures of Silenced and venture into more substantial terrains. Continue Reading »

NEON NEON
Stainless Style
LEX067CD
Lex Records 2008
12 Tracks. 42mins58secs

Boom Bip, AKA Brian Hollon, and Super Furry Animal front man Gruff Rhys team up once again three years after they first collaborated, on Boom Bip’s second album, Blue Eyed In The Red Room. This time round though, they have embarked on a totally different adventure on board their Neon Neon vessel. Partly drawing on SFA’s fuzzy funky pop and Boom Bip’s recent electro incarnation, Neon Neon also encompass eighties Italo disco and power pop with hints of hip-hop here and there for good measure.

Following the pair’s debut single, Trick For Treat, released last year, and the absurdly catchy second offering, Raquel, Stainless Style proves an incredibly eclectic, colourful, sexy and cheesy affair, which, at times, sounds like Prince and new wave diva Cristina frolicking on a marshmallow bed. Stainless Style is based around the life of American car engineer and playboy John DeLorean, who is widely credited for developing the Pontiac GTO and who also worked for Chevrolet before founding the De Lorean Motor Company in 1975. Continue Reading »

MOVE D
Quit Quittin’
UZURI002
Uzuri Recordings 2008
04 Tracks. 27mins12 secs
Format 12″

‘The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.’ So begins Samuel Beckett’s grim and funny book Murphy. And the nothing new is often what the modern listener comes across when they pick their way through the morass of new music pumped into our radios and on to our TV screens on a daily basis. At the same time, it sometimes feels like electronic music, while still a relatively new endeavour, has been playing out on repeat ever since the Detroit legends dropped their first twelve inches in the early eighties. And the same thought comes to mind when listening to this, the second release on the fledgling Uzuri label. Continue Reading »