Always an exciting day when a Frequency Domain new release email lands. With its stripped-down beats and precise, calculated bleeps, ‘◯’, masterfully embraces minimalism, creating an immersive sonic landscape that feels both futuristic and meditative. The deliberate restraint in its use of elements allowed each bleep and beat to resonate with significance, highlighting the beauty found in the spaces between the sounds. Something that rewards as a listening experience, but could also work in a minimal techno DJ set.
Stefan Robbers, aka Florence aka Terrace, was among the first European producers able to capture the soulful spirit found in productions coming out of Detroit. His music holds a special place for many. The title of this EP, the first on his own label, which he ran with Wladimir M, pays homage to this influence. The homage was taken further with the Alan Oldham-esque cartoon artwork on the label and, unusual for European releases at the time, plastic shrink rap giving the package the same look as an imported release. This was no one-sided idol worship though, but a two-way exchange of like minds, with their music being released on stateside labels and stateside artists being released on their label.
The female spoken word lyric, in style as well as content, draws heavily from Blake Baxter’s When We Used To Play. Melancholic references to frustrated sexual desire, either through the passage of time or lack of opportunities, grace both tracks. A similar feel is on the Terrace track Bewitched, this time the theme being more about unrequited love.
While having definite inspirational origins, Robbers developed his own peculiar vibe, a haunting sparseness that comes from living in the flatlands – in this case, the ones of the Netherlands.
For those not inclined to collect quarter-of-a-century old phonographic disks, a compilation of remastered Florence tracks was released in 2020.
As someone born in the beige area between gen x and millennial, we had no internet until our later teens. Something to pass the time would be casually browsing my local video shop basement, sticky carpet and dank smells galore. All the new releases stayed upstairs, but the horror, soft porn, b-movies and kung fu vids were downstairs and rarely, if ever, seemed to get updated. Over time I got to know the plots and synopsis of many films, by reading the covers and staring at the pics, as I was way too young to actually rent them. Drunken Master was in the Kung Fu section and the images of inebriated Jackie Chan fighting on the back cover stuck in my head. Later on, I developed a musical obsession with Sly & Robbie (still do tbh) and loved the General Echo tune of the same name, which I think is a sort of loose homage to the film, toasting over the ‘My Woman’s Love’ riddim.
Now, 30 years later, another namecheck in the form of some amazingly gritty techno and electro courtesy of RGLN on Don’t Recordings. It’s got a call-to-arms urgency about it, along with some serious dry heave distortion, that manages to reside in the borderlands of industrial, new wave and techno.
It’s relation to the film I have no idea, I’ve still not actually seen it.
10 track album and super limited vinyl available at their bandcamp now.
‘Orbit’ is the title track for Komo B’s debut EP on EPM music. We present a short interview below:
1. You’ve been collecting records and mixing for some years now. What inspired you to begin and what has been the most memorable thing along the way?
Yes indeed. It is all about the music. I grew up in Maastricht and there were squat parties with different music like techno, electro, acid, deephouse, disco etcetera… So, it were the local DJs that inspired me to start playing records and buying synths and drummachines. The squat parties at Vendex were memorable. After, there were others like 10daysoff in Gent but can’t say really which one is the most memorable.
2. What was the inspiration for taking the leap into producing your own music? Was it a straightforward process?
I was already playing trumpet and piano when I got into electronic music. I just wanted to explore the (new) electronic sounds of synthesizers, effects, drummachines etcetera and to create. So yes, it was a straightforward process and still is.
3. What are your hopes for the future? Musically or otherwise.
I hope to make some more EPs, records and an album. I would like to do some radio shows and to continue DJing as well.
4. What is your message to the world? What do people need to know?
Dance like a bird Don’t judge someone Enjoy nature
A highly personal theme for Tudor Acid on this new release is close identification with the emotions of cyborg and robotic characters in fiction. The character portrayed by the album (who Tudor Acid says is “obviously a stand in for me”) is on a mission to prove that its machine-generated or machine-mediated emotions are as equally valid as purely organic ones.
Following a two-year hiatus, he returns to the Tudor Beats label with a new album, ‘Empathy for Cyborgs’.
What results is an album which represents the conflict between one’s own sense of self – and external, negative perceptions from others.
The cover drawing of Tower Bridge was intended as a counterpoint to this – the sense of a digitally constructed brain demonstrating its sentience and humanity in the process of the art being generated.
Artist: Tudor Acid Title: Empathy for Cyborgs Label: Tudor Beats Cat. No: TB-2626 Format: Digital Released: 27 January 2022
Our friends, and purveyors of the finest deep techno and electro, Machine Mind Records are now distributed worldwide through EPM Music. Check out this Jeran Portis track from the archive.
And this one by Dangerous Liaisons for good measure
Always a sucker for the DIY (is there any other kind?) slo-mo industrial / EBM vibe so this one was set to go down well. TR707 drums in various stages of distortion accompanied with Gameboy minimal synth lines for eight tracks of body moving toughness. In true modern underground style only available on cassette and only through Bandcamp.