The debut release from R-A-G, the M>O>S supergroup of labelhead Aroy Dee, G-String and Marco Spaventi, offers more neo-Detroit satisfaction than surprises.
chris miller
Various Artists, Sandwell District Sampler Single One/Two
July 22, 2010 – 10:01 AM
With two new multi-artist sampler singles, apparently appetizers for their forthcoming collective album, Sandwell District reveal even more depth to their artistic vision.
Talking Shopcast with Underground Quality
July 19, 2010 – 12:01 AM
For the eighth edition of our Talking Shopcast series we visited Bridgeport, CT, home of Jus-Ed and his Underground Quality label. We also provide an exclusive mix by Anthony Parasole, Deconstruct Label boss and one of New York’s finest DJs.
Joe, Claptrap/Level Crossing
July 12, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Joe. With such a short and sweet name one might expect his music to be similarly simple, but these presumptions are turned upside down by his tunes.
LWE 2Q Reports: Top 10 Downloads
July 6, 2010 – 12:01 AM
While this list is far from comprehensive and certainly from only one person’s perspective, these are ten of the best mixes I’ve heard so far this year, hopefully offering some signposts to where you can find some soon-to-be favorites for yourself.
BBH: Newworldaquarium, Heavy Metal
June 22, 2010 – 10:01 PM
When I stumbled upon Newworldaquarium’s Heavy Metal EP, released on Peacefrog in 2003, I snatched it without hesitation, something one should always do when confronted with Jochem Peteri’s records.
Curator’s Cuts 08: Chris Miller
June 21, 2010 – 12:01 AM
LWE’s Curator’s Cuts podcast series features our reviewing staff mixing together recent favorites and providing explanations for their selections. Assistant editor and writer Chris Miller mixed together Curator’s Cuts 08.
Jus-Ed, Next Level
June 17, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Although his top flight turntable chops make clear why Jus-ED is better known as a DJ than a producer, the consistently engaging ideas and execution on Next Level assure listeners that he can sit at the mixing desk with the best of them.
Ellen Allien, Dust
June 10, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Given how well Ellen Allien has worked within the pop and rock spheres in the past, her attempts to incorporate these sounds with her abstract tendencies on Dust fail to form a coherent, engaging whole.
Instra:mental, Let’s Talk/Vicodin
June 3, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Let’s Talk/Vicodin, Instra:mental’s latest for Irish label [Naked Lunch], further expands their sound and is quite possibly their best single yet.
Wax, No.30003
May 25, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Cut from the same cloth as antecedent Wax singles but woven into more functional patterns, No.30003 lacks the revelatory edge which make so many of Pawlowitz’s releases must-own items.
Addison Groove, Footcrab/Dumbsh*t
May 6, 2010 – 11:45 PM
Addison Groove’s “Footcrab” follows in the footsteps of Joy Orbison’s “Hyph Mngo” as an addictive and pervasive track whose proliferation is as hard to contain as an oil spill.
Floating Points, People’s Potential
April 28, 2010 – 10:01 PM
By now the name Floating Points probably rings a bell even for those living under rocks. Within a year of arriving on the scene he’s been feted by music fans and critics of all stripes, storming best of lists with four spectacular releases for R2 Records, Planet Mu, and his own Eglo Records. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Sam Shepherd’s first record of 2010 has admirers drooling. People’s Potential first appeared as a single-sided white label earlier this year, but those who waited (myself included) have been rewarded with full artwork and a second track, “Shark Chase.”
Ninca Leece, Feed Me Rainbows
April 22, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Only two releases old, Thesongsays has already accrued an interesting profile. It was initially a platform for Bruno Pronsato’s own productions, chiefly LWE’s number four tune of 2009 “The Make Up The Break Up,” a druggy 38-minute trip through his soundbank. Yet release number two was penned by the hitherto unknown team of Benoit & Sergio, featuring the lovely, saccharine “Full Grown Man.” The third single from Thesongsays is equally unexpected, arriving under the auspices of Franco-German producer Ninca Leece who released an album titled There Is No One Else When I Lay Down And Dream earlier this year. Feed Me Rainbows certainly piques my interest like its predecessors and has me wanting to know more.
Milton Bradley, The Unheard Voice From Outer Space
April 15, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Milton Bradley’s name has been synonymous with Do Not Resist The Beat!, his label and the instructions for ingesting the spacey, paranoid slates he’s been turning out since late 2008. His newest 12″, The Unheard Voice From Outer Space, arrives courtesy of Munich’s Prologue, whose line up of Cio D’or, Samuli Kemppi, and Giorgio Gigli are sonic kin to his neuron-probing techno aesthetic.
Bon & Rau, Cloverleaf Days
April 13, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Smallville has long maintained a low key approach to releasing music, even when a critically adored album (Move D & Benjamin Brunn’s Songs From the Beehive) and gargantuan 12″ (STL’s Silent State, our top track of 2009) propelled the Hamburg-based label into the uncomfortable position of being the label for reduced house music. Not carried away with big names, one of Smallville’s charms has been their equal treatment of established producers as well as newcomers. Following a solid label compilation released last fall comes their eighteenth record from the team of newcomer and Smallville Paris clerk Jacques Bon and relative newcomer Christopher Rau.
Erik & Fiedel, Nous Sommes MMM
April 1, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Every once in a while a record comes along that changes things entirely. OK, perhaps MMM’s Donna, first released in 1997, didn’t quite change electronic music as we know it, but it was a deliciously raucous slice of near-perfect raved-up techno. Erik (Errorsmith) and Fiedel are hardly a prolific duo, releasing only their fourth record, Nous Sommes MMM, two years after their third and a full 13 years after Donna. What they lack in quantity of tunes they most assuredly make up for in the quality of their productions, which will all but transform any club environment into a dusty old warehouse located on the outskirts of town.
Donnacha Costello, Before We Say Goodbye
April 1, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Travel seems to always conjure mixed feelings. We travel with friends and loved ones on holiday but we also travel for work/commute. The ease and relative affordability of flight means we’re sometimes quite a ways from home, while anything less than a thirty minute commute is a luxury most don’t have. As a much loved producer, Donnacha Costello, then, finds himself in an odd relationship with travel, often on the road due to a mixture of work and pleasure. On, Before We Say Goodbye, his fourth album and first since 2003’s Isol on Rastor-Noton, Donnacha mulls over his time spent at the gate and on the train, expressing these thoughts through a small collection of analog gear (only four instruments in total).
Marcel Dettmann, Dettmann Remixed
March 31, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Expectations greatly inform our record buying habits. What do you expect from Marcel Dettmann? If previous releases are to be believed it’s stripped down, no nonsense techno. What about from his friends Norman Nodge and the either incognito or actually-a-newcomer Wincent Kunth? More or less the same thing, and that is exactly what’s on display here with four remixes of Dettmann material which didn’t make the album.
Oni Ayhun, OAR004
March 18, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Sometimes you just need to let shit get out of hand. Oni Ayhun seems to understand this perfectly as nearly everything on his fourth record dives right off the deep end. The text accompanying the record on his site discusses both acid and music, but laden with chemical formulas and instructions it’s difficult to decipher. Even the record’s center label is a skewed picture of which might be clearer had I held on to my Avatar 3D glasses. Needless to say, those looking for a return to the melodic stylings of OAR003 should immediately accept that any traces of melody here are accidental: incidents arising unexpectedly from mixing “alkaline component(s), one or more acid salts, and an inert starch.”