Category: Review

Categories
Electro Experimental Review Techno

VA – All The Bleeps

Fun in the murky – Release: May 14th, 2021
Trevor Wilkes · All The Bleeps – Bleep 500

Big, bad and heavy. Longtime supporter of the the weird and wonderful side to techno music, Toronto’s Trevor Wilkes runs the Fun in the Murky blog and label. He is also an amazing DJ/Selector and has been broadcasting his radio show regularly online, long before the days of facebook live.

In his words, the immense 4×12″ box set “represents the artists whose music I play the most on Bleep Radio. Literally and objectively played the most. I’m a big number crunching statistics nerd and have trended my own track-lists for years as many of you know. As a Canadian, far removed from where the music I like shines the brightest I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to meet with and play alongside a lot of these folks in person and not just via the stream.”

All the tunes bang as to be expected (including one of mine ;), however the super-standout track for me is the Ben Pest ‘Tilt Lock’, serious bang time !!!

Continue reading “VA – All The Bleeps”
Categories
Radio Review

Instagram

We are now pushing the sounds we like via Instagram.

Link us up @flatlandfrequencies

Categories
Electro Review

T/Error – Rindler Horizon

LDI Records – Release 29th March 2021

T/Error may be known previously for his music on the electro heavyweight Bass Agenda. This is the Rome based producers 4th album. Classic modern electro sci-fi sounds but with enough originality and atmosphere to keep it interesting. New label LDI Records (Lloyd’s Dark Imperium) looks like it is already setting itself up as one to watch. Listen to audio previews here.

Categories
Drone Experimental Review

Drew Mulholland – A Trip To Hob Moor / Cambridge Drifts

Woodford Halse – Release: 16th April 2021

Woodford Halse have been rather prolific with their cassette releases this past year or so, putting out a couple of releases a month with a consistent artwork style. Musically, their output is quite varied and ranges from experimental beat driven trax, to sparser, more ambient excursions.

In Mullands’s new cassette, he focuses on two UK locations for inspiration, Hob Moor in York and a trip to Cambridge. Utilising field recordings and dark, drawn out drones. The two long form pieces have a nice dynamic range and move across textures, gradually becoming increasingly smudged in vast swathes of reverb.

The press release refers to ‘hauntology’ (a term which appears to be adopted on various other labels lately). I’m not entirely sure what it means, other than to describe electronic music that contains a ghostly, spooky or gothic feeling (uneasy drones, minor keys and lots of reverb). I’ve heard it disparately referred to in (electro-acoustic) works by Pierre Shaeffer and more recently (garage) artists like Burial, hence my slight confusion. So I guess it’s a descriptive term for music that evokes a certain gloomy vibe?

Categories
Electro Review

Plant43 – Interlinked

Its electro frenzy this week in the flatlands, with so many great records coming it’s hard to cover it all. This however, is one that will get the you popping and locking on the lino quick sharp.

Quite sparse in its approach, with icy pads, reduced melodic elements and arpeggiations pulsating over the ubiquitous 808 beats.

Nice and cold production skills overall from Brighton’s Emile Facey (who also runs the label) and hats off to the mastering engineer too, the subsequent results are both crispy and weighty in all the right quantities.

Lovely stuff and well suited to those early evening DJ sets.

Categories
Electro Review

Frank Kartell – Electric Sheep

LDI Records – Release Date: 03/05/2021

Very classic sounding electro from new launched LDI Records out of Holland. Deep and clean tunes from Frank Kartell, which nod to Kraftwerk (which all electro does I guess?) and more recent work of Anthony Rother.

The album pays homage to writer Philip K Dick  and in the words of the label “Side A of Electric Sheep EP evokes scenes from future mechanised worlds. Electric Sheep kicks the 12” off with a melancholic and contemplative moment followed by a steel cold and brooding venture in Voigt-Kampff.”

With the backing of Clone Distribution, this will undoubtably reach the right ears and feet out there.

Categories
Acid Electro House Review

Dexorcist – Body Clock EP

Only having just dropped the frankly ridiculous double LP, Super Rhythm Trax are back with one of our favourite producers and DJs.

Si Brown aka Dexorcist, has been tearing up the dancefloors for many years. From alleged involvement in Fear Teachers Sound System, to Bomb Dogs live PA, to playing synths in festival favourites Dead Silence Syndicate, his music has always leant to the darker side to the electronic sphere.

No surprise then, with his latest 4 trax on SRT covering some deep and dark acid house and electro.

Categories
Ambient Experimental Review

Polypores & Gareth E. Rees – Deep Motion Trips

Miracle Pond (Subconscious Suggestions) – 3/3/21

The second release in the new Subconscious Series from Miracle Pond, a sister label, focusing on more long-form, deep listening concepts.

Stepping up this time round, prolific electronics wizard Polypores has “mind-melded with best selling author Gareth E. Rees to create Deep Motion Trips“.  

The result of this collab is a mad concoction could be best described as 1980s new age meditation meets kitchen sink realism, which kept me hooked throughout the two 10 minute pieces.

Expect full previews of these on the next Flatland Frequencies Mutant Radio show, on the 13th March.

Categories
Ambient Beats Dub Review

Apologist – Air Foundry

Frequency Domain – March 2021

Eight tracks of lush electronics from Apologist. Moving from dub techno openings with ‘Architects Dub’, into expansive ambient soundscapes with ‘No Closer Than The Moon’ and an upbeat sunrise chugger in ‘Landfall’.

Although a wide range of styles are covered here, the sounds are not disparate and hold together nicely as an album. Individual tracks hold up from a DJ perspective too, so should be something in here for everyone. TIP!

Categories
Art Culture Review Synth

Passepartout Duo – Epigrams

AIR Niederösterreich and the Ernst Krenek Institut.  Release: 26th Feb

After Benge’s quite fantastic Loop Series One reviewed last November, we didn’t expect to get sent any more music made on an original Buchla 100 system, simply because there is only a handful of them left in the world. How wrong we were!

The particular system used in this new release, sent in by Nicoletta Favari & Christopher Salvito, aka Passepartout Duo, was built by Don in 1967 for composer Ernst Krenek, who used the synth alongside piano.

Flash forward to 2021 and the (still operational) system resides in Krems an der Donau, a small town near Vienna. Lucky for local musicians Passepartout Duo (and by proxy, all of us), who have used the 100 system alongside piano in five considered pieces, inspired by the original works of Krenek, to great effect.