ZWISCHENWELT
Paranormale Aktivität
CAT
Rephlex 2011
12 Tracks. 38mins50secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP Boomkat: CD | LP

Adding to the myriad of projects and monikers he has on the go at any one time, Gerald Donald, of Heinrich Mueller as he likes to be known these days, originally of enigmatic Detroit techno outfit Drexciya, returns to Rephlex with Zwischenwelt (which translates as ‘between world’), a band also consisting of Susana Correia, Penelope Lopez and Beta Evers. The fruit of collaborative exchanges over the web, Paranormale Activität is as cold and bleak as a nuclear winter, its minimal electronic formations never equating to much more than just a handful of sounds at any one time, over which hangs Evers austere vocals, delivered with robotic poise and precision.

Fueled with tales of paranormal activity, premonition and clairvoyance, this album distills somber themes on dystopian electronic backdrops, sounding like Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity experienced through the negative space of a black hole. Continue Reading »

808 STATE
Quadrastate
CAT808
Rephlex 2008
13 Tracks. 66mins57secs

When 808 State first rolled onto the British club scene in 1988, the acid house phenomenon was beginning to seep into the nation’s underground culture. After the innovations of Detroit and Chicago, it was time for the UK to give things a go, and 808 State were just one of many producers of the time to pick up the baton. Taking their name from a ubiquitous drum machine of the period, they went on to release a string of albums that took on the house sound and treated it to some subtle but serious refraction. And Quadrastate is just one of the results of that time. Merely an EP at the time of its release, cut-offs and alternative mixes are thrown into the equation here to bring us a spatchcock album that many will now be hearing for the first time. Its most obvious claim to fame, of course, is album opener Pacific State, one of the defining tracks of eighties house and probably the stand-out track of 808’s long reign in the field of electronics. But this is merely the starting point for a bracing journey around the formulas of the house sound. Quadrastate’s interest to us now is probably largely historical, but its re-release is a good chance to look again at an era of English house music that is all too easily forgotten – while the scene’s US masters are perennially revered. 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 »