[ aquarius records — Electronic ]

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Showing results 4651 through 4700 of 5033.

Turntablists and electronica artists meet up on this new OM comp. DJs Z-Trip, J-Rocc, Disk, Craze, Curse, Apollo, Rob Swift, Vin Roc, Tomcat, and more cut up grooves by Howie B., Meat Beat Manifesto, Photek, Propellerheads, Wagon Christ, and others.

Bill Laswell masterminded this meeting of jazz and jungle, with a cast including DJ Spooky, Material, DJ Soul Slinger, Graham Haynes, and Byard Lancaster.

After the giggles subsided over the cover art (which features a photo of a shadowy warrior figure with a drawn-in red rose in his teeth), we settled in for the no-wave and electro action. This is the real deal from the late '70s and early '80s, folks. None of that watered down replication that's been tagged 'electro' these days. However, the catch of Teutonik Disaster is that this music was not coming from the New York scene back in the day, but instead from the depths of Germany. Much of this may sound silly and absurd today, and taken in their historical context many are... absurd and silly! But many are also so far ahead of the pack, groundbreaking even. It's a fun'n'eclectic mix of tracks scattered with funky basslines, saxophone skronk, gluey detuned analog synth lines, programmed beats, plus spoken, barked, grunted and moaned vocals. Some tracks are clunky and strange like "Je t'air" by Reifenstahl which is punctuated by a "La Bamba" guitar lick. Others like Schwarze Bewegung's Traumfrau" are like a ska-tinged herky jerky comrade of Von Lmo and James Chance (psst, no-wave fans! be sure to check out the brand new James Chance box set too!). And others like Carmen's "Schlaraffenland" are just a real good time. Very entertaining!

RealAudio clip: Schlaraffenland
RealAudio clip: Traumfrau

It used to be jazz combos and chamber ensembles who would try making new, original music to accompany screenings of classic films from the silent era. Now, the new generation of electronic "clicks n' cuts" artists are getting into the act on this double cd.

Two discs, 26 tracks of all new and exclusive tracks from the Planet Mu roster: Hrvatski (record forthcoming, we hope), Jega, Capitol K, Luke Vibert, Hellfish, Producer, Phthalocyanine, Electric Company, Venetian Snares, Speedranch, Leafcutter John, Joseph

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Remix anthologies are almost always varied affairs. While one may like the re-mixer, one may not always like the artist being remixed or vice versa. Here the DFA Team offer up their takes on ten cuts from artists who exist outside of the DFA family, with predictably mixed results. The best cuts are from the artists whose sound already has an affinity to the DFA style of production (Metro Area, Radio 4), and the remixes of Chemical Brothers, Soulwax and Gorillaz offer some nice surprises. But even re-mixers sent from GOD can't ever make the Blues Explosion sound good, so why bother? All in all, this is a decent compilation that would have been better if there was more to sink our teeth into, but what is here is a nice appetizer that keeps us hungry for a more up-to-date main course. Hopefully we'll find that in Vol. II.

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The second edition of DFA remixes improves upon the first by delving into less obvious rhythm and dance territories. Increasing the atmospheres rather than cowbell-driven propulsion, DFA's reworking of Goldfrapp, UNKLE, Tiga, N.E.R.D. and Nine Inch Nails, among others are often more expansive and symphonic, at times extending passages and compositions to almost 14 minutes in length. This is an excellent dose of dance tunes for the mind as well as the body. Awesome!

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DJ Spooky, DJ Wally, DJ Grazzhoppa and DJ Low.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. The Found Tapes is the second compilation published by Minimal Wave, the NYC label dedicated to reclaiming the hidden treasures from '80s of synth punk, new wave electronic experiments, and well... minimal wave. The first compilation of European rarities is currently out of print; but, Minimal Wave's collection from North America is available for the time being. The Found Tapes opens with a punchy synth punk number from Futurisk who hailed from Florida, claiming to be the first electro-punk band from the South. Ohama (from Alberta, Canada) are next, taking plenty of cues from Severed Heads. Iron Curtain were from Southern California, specializing on dark hypnotic grooves, ghostly vocals, and tumbling drum machine patterns. Deo Toy was a bedroom electronics project between the husband and wife team of Bill and Diana Owens, with very little information beyond this concisely rendered synth pop number. Mark Lane's "Who's Really Listening" had achieved some critical success in the early '80s, and it's easy to see why given the prescient similarities to Model 500's "No Ufo" as well as Gary Newman at his best. Dark, sinister monophunk is what the Philly ensemble Crash Course In Science offer for their "Flying Turns" track. Supposedly, they had recorded a single for Rough Trade, but that can't be confirmed. Dark Day is one of the uncelebrated triumphs of the post No Wave scene, as this was the project from R.L. Crutchfield formerly of DNA. Simple yet terminally bleak synth melodies and his clinically detached vocals were the basis for Dark Day, and made a huge impact some 20 years later on the Chromatics who covered his early single "Hands In The Dark." Dark Day present "Danger / Dancer" for "The Found Tapes" compilation with equal aplomb. Craig Sibley's another mystery man from the '80s, but did offer a charmingly dark synth number that's not too far from Ministry's loved and hated album With Sympathy. Tara Cross's "Tempus Fugit" from the album of the same name is a brilliantly primitive electro-funk that parallels the darkened sounds of Pink Industry or early Chris & Cosey. And finally, we have Experimental Products who had enjoyed a reissue campaign thanks to Vinyl On Demand. They qualified themselves as a garage band who picked up analog synths instead of guitars, although their cover of Brian Eno's "Another Green World" is sublimely not a garage punk track. Rather, an elegant redux closing out an excellent compilation!

Lost Tapes, then Found Tapes, and now Hidden Tapes. As good as many of the reissues that Minimal Wave has released, it's their compilations that really shine. Here, those obscurant new wave / post punk obsessives offer a great collection of urgent synth blorp from all over the world and all dating from the early '80s. Very few of these tracks had much in the way of distribution or fanfare whatsoever, and that makes the discovery all the better. There's only a couple of the acts that we had any familiarity with, and we're probably not alone in that assessment. The opening number by SS-Say is one of the tracks we had heard, being featured on the cd reissue of the Pesteg Dreg album, as both bands were led by the Danish synth-mastermind Martin Hall. "Care" is a megawatt anthem of oversaturated synth lines and Euro-pop danceability that lusts after the New Order production of Blue Monday with more cocaine and dark theatricality tossed in for good measure. Every thing else on the compilation is considerably more understated in terms of production quality (and following the branding of 'minimal wave' all the more), with high caliber tracks offered on the Normal / Human League anxious bleep from the Yugoslavian project Oskarova Fobija and the insistent synth-chanting of Danton's Voice. The British duo Robert Lawrence and Mark Phillips take up a friendlier version of early SPK / Nocturnal Emissions monophunk sequencing with transistor radio vocals and speed-simulating circuitry. Things turn toward the ultra-minimal side with the bittersweet melodicism of The Fast Set and Reserve's proto-Italo disco number, sporting an icy vocal detachment that would make Johnny Jewel jealous. The cd features two bonus tracks not on the vinyl including Gary Allen's weird science sequencing and goofy lyricism that looks to Devo and Oingo Boingo. Another tip of the hat goes to Minimal Wave for this one!

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Yay, skweee! The vinyl 7" single may be the preferred format for the damaged DIY Scandinavian electro funk music called skweee that we love so much here at AQ, or at least, we've certainly seen a lot of 7" skweee releases come through here recently. But actually, when we're listening to skweee, we don't want to stop (to get up and flip the record, y'know). So a compact disc mix is much more OUR preferred skweee format. And that's what we have here. In the tradition of other skweee cd comps like The Museum Of Future Sound (vols. 1 & 2) and Skweee Tooth, comes The Internalization Of Massy, a mix on the Helsinki label Massy, put together by skweee artist Spartan Lover. He's on here, along with some others we know (the great Randy Barracuda among 'em, with an effervescent cut called "Sex People") and many more we don't. 14 tracks, 12 artists, 49 minutes. Glitchin' and poppin', slippin' and slidin', there's a wide range of skweee happenin' here. To mention just some of it specifically, well... The mellow woozy zink-zonk of "Bjhbj Nkknkn Kl" by Coco Bryce is quite pleasant and vaguely suggestive of some sort of mechanical accordion music. Boston's Stickem drops some haunted bass on "Hoi Poloi". Compiler Spartan Lover contributes an edit of "Silk Smooth Skin" that's got a nice layer of distortion on it, a real fuzzy sheen. Motem's track "Unexact" has some quasi rap vocals, generally a rarity in the mostly instrumental world of skweee. Hybakusha turns in a nicely disjointed groove called "The Number Of The Glitch". Whereas both Mother North and Beatbully go a more shimmery disco-friendly route, we could almost imagine their tracks coming from Italians Do It Better, or on one of those Milky Disco comps. Much darker and creepier is Jyrkka Pajulasskso's "Twisted Bar Game". And even more messed up (but still groovy) is the flutter-stutter and frog-like croak of V.C.'s "Jello On Springs", which appears to be a Mesak remix. And that's not all. So, if you like skweee, or think you might like skweee, this disc is quite recommended. We've noticed that most skweee releases tend towards minimal art/packaging, and this is no exception, the disc coming in a cardboard sleeve with a simple but nice graphic of waves... and a shark fin?

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Yay, also at last we have a bunch (well, maybe not for long) of this recent Record Of The Week on vinyl!! Ooooh, so awesome! If you're familiar with Minimal Wave already, or if you're not, this is the thing to get. The Minimal Wave label and website have been tremendous resources for discovering the hidden gems of synth punk, cold wave, Neue Deutsche Welle, and any of the darker strains of new wave that all blossomed throughout the early to mid '80s. While the label has released full album reissues (vinyl-only) from a number of forgotten men and women of the trade, the two comps that Minimal Wave has issued over the years - the Lost Tapes (documenting European artists) and the Found Tapes (culling from North America) - were absolutely stunning, without a dud amongst the many collected tracks. Unfortunately, those two comps were quite expensive and quite hard to come by. So when Minimal Wave and Stones Throw came together to release this comp, our initial reaction (and that of a few others walking in the shop) was that this compilation fused those Lost & Found Tapes together. Well, we were wrong as this highlights not only some of the best tracks from those compilations, but also the best tracks from the Minimal Wave reissue library, plus a few rare gems not readily available anywhere else. The Belgian outfit Linear Movement (which later morphed into A Split Second) opens the compilation with a very cold dance number of disaffectedly cold Italo-disco rhythms and female vocals that would fit in with any given Johnny Jewel production for Italians Do It Better (e.g. Chromatics, Glass Candy, Desire, etc.). Crash Course In Science's "Flying Turns" re-emerged first on the Found Tapes and then on the totally awesome Vinyl On Demand anthology; and is an immediately catchy if darkly unique number of dot-dot-dash electro and spiky rhythms closer in spirit to the Units or Nervous Gender. Oppenheimer Analysis reprises a very Gary Numanoid track from their eponymous record which Minimal Wave reissued a while back. The Mark Lane track "Who's Really Listening" is another insistent proto-techno number of synthetic micro-blips driving handclap drum rhythms and Lane's Ultravox-ish vocals. Tara Cross was one of the few women tinkering around with electronics, and produced some beguiling arrhythmic structures with staccato synth punches and her drawn out vocal ambience. Turquoise Days may have been the only New Wave export of the Channel Islands, pulling out some jangling dissonance from their guitars to match the Modern English synth melodies. Minimal Wave reprises the Lost Tapes with a great track from Bene Gesserit, a project of bleakly alienated progressive electronics from Alain Neff who ran the Insane Music label. The Esplendor Geometrico track is curiously playful for a project that centered so much on dangerously mechanoid industrial grinding. Das Ding's "Reassurance Ritual" was designed for the dancefloor with a constant revolution of drum machine programming around tightly wound synth melody repetitions. Cryptic theatrics from the Martin Dupont ensemble appear on "Just Because" sounding a lot like a Fad Gadget B-side. And if the Deux track "Game & Performance" sounds familiar, it's because you've heard it on the BIPPP compilation which Ed Banger re-released a while back. The compilation is fleshed out with the best death disco groove that Das Kabinette ever mustered on their single "The Cabinet" which did come out on a Minimal Wave lp a while back. Fantastic!!!!!

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By now, the term 'minimal wave' has become synonymous with a particular thread of somewhat dystopian and certainly DIY electronic pop whose origins land somewhere between 1978 and 1984. Back then, all of this music was probably lumped under the new wave or post-punk or maybe even industrial category; but thanks to Veronica Vasicka's label, a new taxonomy has stuck, and more than a handful of archivist labels following suit, including the exceptionally well curated Dark Entries alongside Vasicka's Minimal Wave. Here, we have the second co-release between Minimal Wave and Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw, collecting very rare tracks from very obscure 'minimal wave' acts mostly from that aforementioned time period. The only artist on this compilation with something of cultural cache would be Felix Kubin, whose contribution here is a cover of the jittery Germanic punk number "Japan Japan" by Abwarts, turning the frenzied pogo guitars and drums into Devo-esque electronic squeak and double-timed drum machination. Of course, Kubin adds his signature blankly-serious silliness to the reworking which dated back even to this track from 1985. Lesser known acts include Subject (with Belgian electronic maverick Alain Neffe providing the backing track to the impressively infectious guitar riff and motorik chug), Ruins (not to be confused with the Japanese group, this Italian act takes after the mid-'80s Factory Records dark discotheque productions a la Section 25) and Das Ding (a Dutch project of buzzing synth workouts who we only discovered through a full album reissued by Minimal Wave). Other total obscurities include the crooning melodrama of Class Info, the terse arpeggio of Hard Corps, and the contemporary production of Geneva Jacuzzi making a cheap electro-tango that harks back to the chimerical publications from 99 Records. It all makes for another fine piece of archival curation from Minimal Wave!

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The first in a series from Or exploring the nature of computer music. With Aphex Twin (contributing an odd piece for computerized congas beating erratically), Beautyon (from Irdial Records), cd_slopper (aka Hecker), General Magic (Mego's Ramon Bauer maintaining the digital glitch), Kevin Drumm, Stephen Travis Pope, Trevor Wishart (doing a nihilist sound collage for the 21st century), Ubik, and Zbigniew Karkowski & Kasper Toeplitz.

Exciting new compilation for you "kosmigroov" folks, put together by Kirk DeGiorgio and Ian O'Brien. Lots of great old and new electronic jazz-groove-funk is in the mix, including a super rare and sought after unreleased 1973 Herbie Hancock cut called "The Spook Who Sat By The Door". Also: David Axelrod, George Duke, The Players Association, Shuggie Otis, Be Bob Dawg, Lonnie Liston Smith, more.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

Oh man, how this takes us back. Canadian label D-Trash is definitely the new DHR, spawning a whole new scene of breakcore bruisers and digital hardcore crushers. Admittedly they owe a huge debt to Alec Empire, Atari Teenage Riot and that breakcore/metal hybrid sound those folks practically created. So here it is, years after the demise of ATR, Empire has moved on, DHR seems to have disappered, so what better time to remind folks how amazing that shit sounded then, and brutal and heavy and badass it still sounds today. So here's the whole D-Trash roster, each tackling a classic Atari Teenage Riot track, all our favorites for sure, "Start The Riot", "Into The Death", "Delete Yourself", "The Future Of War"� Most of the bands here do it pretty straight, if anything just making the guitars crunchier and heavier, the beats more distorted and blown out, but still the tracks are classic, and sound enough like the originals that from note one, we're already banging our heads wildly. A few folks mix it up, Untitus (whose reissued full length is listed elsewhere on this list) slows things down, unfurling a thick buzzing backdrop, letting the drums lurch in a grinding anti-funk, the vocals all sultry and slurred. Schizoid (who also has a full length reissue on this list) turns his ATR track into some howling ultradistorted blast of blackened breakcore, the drums a chaotic blur, the vocals a hateful howl, so intense and furious, so much so that it almost makes the original sound tame. Other highlights include the robotic electro of Evestus, the old school (digital) hardcore punk rock of DHC Meinhof, the skittery metallized jungle of CTRLer, the playful video game gabber of 64Revolt� It's all pretty amazing, we of course lean toward the heavier more brutal blasts of digital hardcore, but goddamn, this all still sounds so great. We've been going pretty nuts, immersing ourselves in all this amazing D-Trash stuff, it's like a nonstop breakcore dance party around here and we STILL can't get enough. Start the riot! Delete Yourself!

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By now, you probably don't need to be told again how much we love dubstep, that beat, that killer thick bass wobble, and for all the mutant strains of dubstep that have been popping up, we still love the hard stuff, dark and haunting and mysterious, the beats massive, the bass thick and corrosive, the sort of thing that played loud enough would set off all the car alarms in the neighborhood. And judging from how many folks we get coming in looking for more dubstep, well then we're not alone. We raved about the awesome second volume in the This Is Dubstep series, always bummed that the first volume was not released as an actual physical release, just a download, but lo and behold, that digital release has now been made flesh, or at least aluminum and plastic, and it's just what the doctor ordered. Assuming he ordered some rib cage rattling tinnitus producing bass heavy crunch. Which is precisely what you get here, some of the biggest baddest dubstep jams of the last few years, light on the diva vocals, or the good time raviness, heavy on the beats, and even heavier on the bass. Pretty much every track here, even the lighter ones, at some point spit out a huge slab of speaker shredding low end, total headphone / car stereo blasting / club destroying dubstep BLISS. Right out of the gate, with Joker's classic jam "Tron", it's on, a lurching lumbering stuttering groove, with some buzzing synths and yeah some bad ass bass, and so it goes, lots of names you probably know Distance, MRK1, Cyrus, Pinch, Kromestar, and a bunch you maybe don't, YET. But some of the jams here are MASSIVE, Chasing Shadows' "Dr Sin" features some of the meanest buzziest bass ever, warped and caustic and so awesome, Cyrus & Distance offer up their own bit of low slung groove, more minimal, but still dark and ominous and hard, Macabre Unit's "Sunshine" is anything but, instead it's a creepy soundtracky basscape, all minor key melodies, and thick swaths of buzzing synth rumble, not to mention some cool vocals, Truth's "Burglar" is another one that's all about the bass, had our speakers crying uncle, even with the bass dialed all the way down. We could go on and on, track by track, needless to say, this is maybe the darkest, heaviest, buzziest dubstep comp yet, and for folks who have been hankering for more of the hard stuff, this will definitely hit the spot. Includes two discs, one mixed, one unmixed, with slightly different track listings. WAY recommended.

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For as much as we love music that pushes the boundaries, and music that truly takes sound in new directions, sometimes it feels like music can get too diluted, too far removed from the sounds that made us love that music so much in the first place. Maybe it's just that our trve grim tendencies (since they obviously don't apply to black metal, our love of the multitudes of twisted BM variants quite obvious at this point) are reserved for musics like dubstep. Cuz as much as we love the various directions dubstep has moved over the last few years, we STILL can't get enough of that good old school classic dubstep sound. That distinctive stuttery beat, the huge rib cage rattling bass wobbles. Which there is PLENTY of here. If your dubstep proclivities tend toward THE HARD, and THE HEAVY, then there's lots here to dig. In fact, some of the jams here are easily THEE hardest we've heard, with crazy blown out distorted bass, thick swaths of crumbling rumble, in-the-red synth buzz, all wrapped around lurching lumbering beats that KILL. And while we're reveling in all this big beat crunch and buzz, there is actually a surprising breadth of sound here, dipping liberally into the more soulful, house-y, and techno sides of dubstep, and while those tracks are cool, and some of them definitely rank amongst our favorites, they are in the minority here, with artists old and new pushing the bass HARD. Dubstep legend Skream offers up "Heavy Hitter", which true to its title is in fact one, with a lurching stop / start beat, and a seriously caustic crunchy bassline, while 16 Bit's "Frzr9000" is some of the sickest buzziest blown out dubstep we've probably heard, tons of different buzzing synthlines all tangled up, not to mention some surprising melody. Flux Pavillion's "Bass Cannon" sounds like it was created using one, with the usual bass wobbles transformed into thick blasts of almost Merzbowian buzz. And while across the two discs, there is tons of low end destruction and a constant barrage of dancefloor destroying beats, it's those aforementioned variants that keep things interesting, Icicle gets all low slung and woozy, sounding like dubstepped Portishead, with a weird bit of chiming melody, Kryptic Minds & Youngsta also take it slow and low, for a brooding bit of bass heavy moodiness, while Distance remixes Above & Beyond, transforming a soulful bit of electronica into something way more buzzy and fierce. Elsewhere, Wondering kicks out some thick swaths of synth swirl and black rocking big beat crunch, Oshd unfurls some buzz drenched dreaminess, sweetly soulful vocals wreathed in black buzz, and sounding like a super distorted Lamb, Doctor P transforms his dubstep into a twisted bit of fuzzy buzzy synth squiggle, with a crazy drop that might be one of THEE best moments on the record, Nero does his best dubstep Daft Punk, and the set finishes with Commix's very Burial like "Be True" (which IS a Burial remix, we reviewed the 12" a while back), a gorgeously blurred and murky bit of soulful deep dubstep ambience. We probably say this every time, but this just might be the best dubstep comp yet...

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This is, hands down, THEE best dubstep comp we've gotten in, well, maybe forever. So much of the dubstep we get is way too wussy, when what we really want basically is grime without the vocals, the beats banging, big and stuttery, the bass so think and heavy, a wall of throbbing fuzz, that warbly bassline, that distinctive dubstep stutter. And as if in answer to our prayers, This Is Dubstep Vol. 2 opens with what is essentially a killer grime jam, featuring some seriously grime-y flow, over the buzzing bass and hiccuppy rhythm. And we're of, and for the most part, 90 percent of the tracks here are fierce and fiery, dense and dark and way heavy, even the more mellow jams still work pretty well in the context of these two discs, our favorites though, are the ones that are HARD and HEAVY. Chase & Status manage to take one of those diva style dubstep grooves, but chop up the vocals, and add some bin rattling bass, Distance offers up a thick slab of bassy crunch, Joker & Ginz add warbly fuzzed out basslines to some awesome retro synths, Rob Sparx takes old video game music and dubs it out, an awesome lo-fi 8-bit dubstep jam, Demon's track is definitely demonic, weird samples, lurching rhythms, creepy ambience, and a killer drop and some haunting vocals, the Fused Forces track is short but so buzzy and bassy, could have filled up a whole disc with that one, Way Out West also take some diva driven dubstep and add a thick swath of lawnmower bass, Chasing Shadows offers up some of the meanest grinding basslines on the whole comp, and it goes on and on, easily some of the coolest hardest dubstep we've heard, EVER, with just enough melody and vocal parts to keep it interesting for folks who need more than beats and bass, but if you're like us, and it's all about the beats and the bass, then this is gonna be your mix of the year....

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This Ministry Of Sound compilation strikes me as the equivalent of one of those K-Tel ultra-super-mega-smash-hit-only-on-tv-extravaganza compilations, but minus the K-Tel bargain pricetag. Take the very first track

A three-way split cd of live sets by DJ SCUD, BOMBARDIER and NITRO. Forty seven tracks of blistering white noize hardcore ragga dancehall fuckstep destruction from some of the finest of the genre. Scud's set includes tracks from Ambush cohorts Aphasic, Nomex

Kid606's label celebrates its second birthday with this double cd (for the price of one!) that compiles 44 tracks from the usual (and unusual) electronica suspects: Lesser, Blectum From Blechdom, Com.a, Dat Politics, Mikael Stavostrand, Wobbly, Pisstank,

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This here dvd is a cool compilation from the Tino Corp. featuring videos by Ben Stokes, Davy Force!, Mission Control and Eric Koziol for tracks by DJ Shadow, Meat Beat Manifesto, Jack Dangers, D.H.S. (Dimensional Holophonic Sound), Afrunk, Davy Force!, DJ Radar, Enitokwa and Tino himself! Also includes bonus material in the form of a Tino Live segment shot at various 2000-2003 shows as well as four additional videos and more.

A compilation chronicling the current state of the San Francisco 'scene'. Lots of familiar names here, but even more unfamiliar ones (might be due to the fact that the comp is filled out by 'solo' contributions from almost every member of Tarentel as well as

Anyone who shops for orignal library records can testify that it can be a grueling, expensive and oftentimes unrewarding quest. Even libraries with good track records like DeWolfe or KPM can fall short if the themes are uninteresting (like Casino Royale or British Fanfare). Separating the wheat from the chaff takes lots of knowledge and research, and more often than not the good music is only likely found through high end-collectors or a connection with the library archives itself. Thankfully we have this superb compilation that takes out a lot of the guesswork and delivers some incredible sounds to boot. Hailing from Toronto, the Parry Music library was founded in 1974 by John Parry and Chris Stone. Parry's connections with the great UK library Chappell Music helped bring him incredible talent including Nino Nardini and Johnny Hawksworth among a host of others. Selected from a 10 year period, this is an absolutely incredible and essential collection of warm electronic majesty in the form of music for unrealized industrial films, kids' TV shows, commercial spots, radio broadcasts and B-movie cinematic soundtracks. From avant-garde soundscapes to cosmic proto-Balearic disco, sublime choral pieces, blithe autumnal warp and woozy abstracted kinderlieder, a beautifully realized compilation of pure joy!

In addition to the Ninjatune label, Coldcut/DJ Food release more experimental ambient/electronica on the -ntune- imprint. Neotropic, Joanna Lam, Spacetime Continuum (Jonah Sharp), Coldcut, etc. UK import.

This is the cd-r version (for better or for worse Microwave only manufactures cdr's) of a 7" of locked grooved. The grooves are presented in short easily sampled sections. Acid laiden Pan Sonic style techno is provided by /Slo-Fi. Richard Chartier offers a variety of chlorine soaked loops of electronic clicks, low-end tonalities, and flanged squiggles. Interspaced with a few caustic scrapes, Goem's solid monophunktrax are mirror images of Mike Ink's structural techno.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. These two discs represent the ultimate in "techstep"! An incredible, dark, hard and unrelenting drum 'n' bass collection from Ed Rush, Trace & Nico.

Another killer collection of Kompakt techno, and while we may tend to lean toward the Pop Ambient side of the Kompakt roster, no label has done more to wear down our resistance to techno than the mighty Kompakt, so much so, that we now find ourselves looking forward to these Total comps nearly as much as the Pop Ambient comps. And once again, Kompakt comes through with, a killer collection of artists, and tracks, expertly sequenced into over two hours of minimal techno bliss. Just have a look at the names and you'll know what you're in for: Dj Koze, Justus Kohncke, Gui Boratto, Matias Aguayo, The Field, Burger/Voigt, Reinhard Voigt, Jurgen Paape and loads more, and along with the usual tight clipped, late night dancefloor grooves there are plenty of surprises. How about DJ Koze's "40 Love", with a rhythm track built around the sounds of a tennis match, including the crowds disappointed "Awwwww"s when someone misses a shot, birds chirping, squeaking shoes, grunts, all woven into a woozy bit of warm throb and skitter. Then there's Coma's awesomely murky midnight pulse and shimmer, and Jonas Bering's super fuzzed out synth jam that definitely reminds us of Justice or Daft Punk, and Matias Aguayo's sunshiney techno pop jam, that almost sounds like Phoenix or something, the warped and tweaked tropical wooziness of the Pachanga Boys and the circusy soundtrack weirdness of Jurgen Paape's oompah jam "Ofterschwang", and in between, plenty of that classic Kompakt sound that we can never seem to get enough of. If you've got 1-9, you obviously need 10, and if you've yet to dip your toes into the Kompakt pool, this is as good a place to start as any...

MPEG stream: Who Is Who
MPEG stream: 40 Love
MPEG stream: Lovestoned
MPEG stream: I'm In Love With A German Film Star (Gui Boratto Mix)

Latest in the ongoing series of Kompakt's Total compilations of minimal techno, a series that runs concurrently with their other, more blissed out series under the Pop Ambient banner. And like we seem to always mention in these reviews, we definitely lean toward the pop ambient side of the sonic spectrum, although it seems that the chasm between the two sounds grows ever smaller. Not sure if that's indeed the case, or our tastes have just gradually mutated, but it hardly matters, we now find ourselves just as excited for a new Total collection as a new Pop Ambient one. And this one especially is totally hitting the spot, maybe the weirdest of the bunch so far. Right off the bat, DJ Koze, offers up a twisted bit of electronic cabaret, with some clipped synth warble, and what sounds like muttered vocal garbling of some Tom Waits / Louis Armstrong hybrid, gurgles and grumbles, before a pulsing modulated bass pulse comes in, then some crooning, can't imagine that this would go over well on the dancefloor, but it's pretty wacked out and weird and wonderful. And while the rest of the music here is maybe not SO far out, it is all pretty wonderfully weird, especially by techno standards. New music from The Field (a whirling swirl of kosmische synths and warbly low end buzz, hazy and dreamy and krautrocky), Wolfgang Voigt (a super minimal clipped beatscape, all murky and mysterious, but laced with some strange hazy jazziness), Matias Aguayo (a fantastically festive looped party jam, anchored to a solid 4 on the floor, but wrapped in creepy haunted house synths and funky basslines), Superpitcher (an awesomely "I'm Too Sexy" chunk of techno pop), Justus Kohncke (total eighties style electro pop) and on and on. Other new jams from recent aQ faves Walls, Jurgen Paape, Jorg Burger, Thomas Fehlmann, Michael Mayer, Gui Boratto, Jonas Bering and more more more. So great, and yeah, recommended even for those of you, like us, who claim to not be so into techno or electronic music. This is exactly the sort of record that will change your mind.

MPEG stream: Caroline
MPEG stream: Robert Schumann / Clara Wieck
MPEG stream: Der Wallach
MPEG stream: Mensch Und Maschine

With compilations, no matter how much we dig 'em, and no matter how great all the tracks are, there's always one that we get totally obsessed with, and end up playing over and over and over. And this latest Total compilation, #12, as it's almost 2012, from Kompakt is no different. We were already big fans of Gui Boratto, but holy shit, his track here, "The Drill" has to be the best thing we've heard from him. A heavy bassy low slung groove, all fuzzy and distorted, with a weird woozy synth melody and some cool handclap snares, the drums wreathed in effects, a little bit of backwards whhhhoooo, and then suddenly the bass gets even more distorted sounding crumbling and fuzzy and almost metallic, and then it does it AGAIN, getting more weirdly effected and distorted, only to slip right back into the more muted groove, and so it goes, that super catchy bassline synthgroove, constantly changing tone and timbre, the sound following suit, slipping from groovy and slithery, to super blown out and crackly, distorted and in-in-the-red, and right back to that moody sorts of housey skitter. Someone needs to make us an hour long mix of just this song, cuz we'd set out cd player on repeat and listen to nothing else. So good. The rest of the comp is great too, but nothing nearly so dark and distorted and radical. A lot of the usual names are here, Superpitcher, Michael Mayer, Wolfgang Voigt, Matias Aguayo, Gus Gus, as well as a few new-to-us groups/artists: Kolombo, WhoMadeWho, Coma, Mohn, etc. Kolombo starts things off with another dark brooder, that starts out all pulsing minimal dark house, wreathed in swirls of soft buzz, before blossoming into a weird bit of washed out soul, only to slip right back into minimal skitter, the "choruses" sounding more like M83 than something on Kompakt, and from there on out, Kompakt Total 12 unfurls as an ever shifting collection of modern electronica, from pulsing minimal house, to blissed out Pop Ambient skitter, and abstract electro to looped fuzzy field recording flecked dubby drift. As always, super great, and worth it for the Boratto track alone!

MPEG stream: The Drill
MPEG stream: Playground Altona
MPEG stream: Tiefental
MPEG stream: White Lightning

Weirdly enough, the lp version of this latest Total comp from the always awesome Kompakt label, contains only SOME of the songs that are on the cd. Leaving off all the tracks which were released recently as 12"s it seems, which also means leaving off what might be our favorite track, but that track, Gui Boratto's "The Drill" IS available on a 12" that we have in stock, so if you want that, just ask, and then you can enjoy the rest of this amazing comp without missing out on THAT TRACK. If you want to read about THAT TRACK, check the cd review, but in terms of the rest of Total 12, a lot of the usual names are here, Superpitcher, Michael Mayer, Wolfgang Voigt, Matias Aguayo, Gus Gus, as well as a few new-to-us groups/artists: Kolombo, WhoMadeWho, Coma, Mohn, etc. Kolombo starts things off with another dark brooder, that starts out all pulsing minimal dark house, wreathed in swirls of soft buzz, before blossoming into a weird bit of washed out soul, only to slip right back into minimal skitter, the "choruses" sounding more like M83 than something on Kompakt, and from there on out, Kompakt Total 12 unfurls as an ever shifting collection of modern electronica, from pulsing minimal house, to blissed out Pop Ambient skitter, and abstract electro to looped fuzzy field recording flecked dubby drift. As always, super great.

MPEG stream: Playground Altona
MPEG stream: Tiefental
MPEG stream: White Lightning

Kompakt is quite possibly our favorite techno label (who just so also happen to be responsible for the absolutely divine Pop Ambient series) and this is volume 7 in their sort-of-annual best singles of the past year collection, and as always it's pretty awesome. You probably already know if Kompakt's particular brand of minimal house and lush but skeletal techno hits the spot for you. if not, take into consideration, that most of the folks here are not all that into house or techno at all, but somehow, Kompakt stuff seem to always hit the spot. Not quite as murky and divine as Chain Reaction's heroin house, but still definitely more abstract and far out than most techno we hear. There are of course a few tracks of more straight ahead house music, and some breezy dreamy club anthems, but for the most part, this is some cool, tripped out, laid back Kompakt style techno, house, and space disco! Two disc featuring tracks from Triola, Justus Kohncke, The Modernist, DJ Koze, Mikkel Metal, Superpitcher, SCSI-9, Jurgan Pappe, Robert Babicz, Reinhard Voigt, Jonas Behring, Thomas Fehlmann and a bunch more.

MPEG stream: Getreide-Phunk
MPEG stream: Tonite
MPEG stream: Arquipelago

Here we have the eighth installment of the Kompakt compilation series. And it completely kicks ass. As we've mentioned before, and received a bunch of flak for it, a bunch of us don't really dig straight up techno that much. Leaning toward the murky pulse of Chain Reaction, or the shoe gaze-y bliss of Kompakt's Pop Ambient side. But damn, if there was ever a label, or a collection of artists, or just a SOUND, that might change our minds, it would be Kompakt. Even the most technophobic among us, find ourselves loving pretty much everything these guys have released. The Total series, now on number 8, is consistently killer, offering up tracks that cover Kompakt's expansive sonic universe, from pounding club bangers, classic dancefloor destroyers, murky minimal pulses, strangely straight ahead techno pop, and everything in between, all sharing a special something, a vibe that runs through everything Kompakt. More warm and emotional that it is clinical and robotic, but still so mysteriously groovy and futuristic. Every time this plays in the store, folks are constantly coming out from the back to see what's playing. Total 8 might just be the best yet, certainly the most varied, with not a stinker in the bunch, which is saying a lot for a double cd compilation. From the cool space age skitter of Superpitcher's "Rainy Nights In Georgia" to the Nightcats' Justice via Fischerspooner, bass heavy, fuzz drenched throb, to the dreamy Euro pop of Rex The Dog, to the alien Kraftwerk worship of Steadycam and that's just to name a few. Anyone who loved the recent record by The Field as much as we did, will go nuts for this stuff, two discs packed with so many new (and not so new) bands to check out and records to track down. This is the kind of music that makes us want to do a ton of drugs, rent a motorcycle in Berlin, jam down the Autobahn at 200 miles per hour, blasting this shit at 10, all the way to the airport where we will board a private plane, filled with foam and Gui Boratto on the decks, more drugs, and slow strobes everywhere, headed to Ibiza, where we will continue to jam this shit, and not sleep for 5 days. Or maybe forever. WAY recomended.

MPEG stream: Every Day
MPEG stream: Uber Wiesen
MPEG stream: In The Moog For Love

We've been seeing a bunch or reviews, harshing on this, the latest in Kompakt's ongoing Total series, number 9, complaining that it's more of the same old, but hell, we love the same old Kompakt, it's the one modern techno label that has managed to sway the techno naysayers around here, and to our ears, this Total sounds just as good as any of the others. The Kompakt sound is so immediately recognizable yet on Total 9, the sounds are all over the place, it's the usual suspects, sure: Justus Kohncke, DJ Koze, Superpitcher, Thomas Fehlman, Jurgen Paape, Gui Boratto, Kaito, and a bunch more, but a few new names tossed in here and there. And the sound is glorious, less minimal than some past installments, and much more effusive, sun dappled, feel good... this could sound so good to us cuz some of the pop ambient vibe of Kompakt's other long running series might be seeping into these Total comps, but whatever, this stuff is fantastic, muted minimal beats, warm synths everywhere, bubbly loops, all woven and blurred and smeared into woozy beatscapes. Kaito's "Everlasting Dub" is one of our new favorite tracks, a gorgeous blend of Pop Ambience, modern dub, and minimal techno, SCSI-9's track is like dubstep gone Kompakt, the Gui Boratto is some awesome eighties style soundtrack techno, Superpitcher chops up some lady vocals and makes a loop that sounds like a calliope, over a soft skittery beat, Burger / Voigt do a sort of Kompakt post rock, all strummed acoustic guitars and swirling ambience, over a loping simple beat, DJ Koze employs some serious stereo panning to send your headphones spinning, we could go through track by track, but you probably already know you need this. Kompakt fans, Pop Ambient heads not averse to some beats, you'll want this for sure, and for folks thinking about getting into techno, or at least curious about modern minimal techno, this would most definitely be a great place to start.

MPEG stream: No Thanks For The Add
MPEG stream: Zouzou
MPEG stream: Disko (You Don't Care)
MPEG stream: Wand Aus Klang

This may seem to be a very confusing compilation if you haven't been privy to its theme/intent. For those unfamiliar, Trash is an infamous London nightclub and this cd documents the hip, eclectic acts who've performed there. The first six tracks, tagged "Part One - Live At Trash", are indeed live cuts by Gold Chains, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Peaches, Moldy Peaches, Peaches and Stereo Total. The second six are titled "Part Two - Club Classics" - and they certainly are. This diverse gathering includes Duran Duran (an early one! "My Own Way"), Kylie Minogue, Nancy Sinatra, Felix Da Housecat, The Slits (doing "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"!) and Huggy Bear. If the club Trash holds little significance for you, this may just seem like a glorified, home mix tape. For hipsters in the know, you probably already own all of these records.

RealAudio clip: Rockshow
RealAudio clip: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Electro tribute to the late, legendary synth inventor, without whom, etc.

Hardcore noise mashup featuring a strange mix of contributions from Melt-Banana, Christoph De Babalon, Merzbow, Shizuo (& Chris), Stilluppsteypa, Patric Catani, Brezel Goring (of Stereo Total), as well as many others. Dunno if these artists have actually

RealAudio clip: Vietnashville Infantry (& Swinger Mix)
RealAudio clip: Landbubenschmarocker

This is actually a mixed cd from Richard Riley Reinhold, aka Triple R and the co-owner of German tech-house labels Traum and Trapez. His selection of cuts is a posh display of the smoothest shuffle techno, minimal house grooves, and vocoder-driven data pop, with cuts from Metaboman, Dialogue, Ada, Broker / Dealer (who have become San Francisco's best known export to the Cologne scene), Process, Luciano, Jeff Samual, Sami Koivikko, PWOG, Schaeben Und Voss, Dntel, and Oxtongue. As a DJ, Reinhold doesn't really have any exciting tricks, but manages to flow between these slick beats with an equally unhurried swagger.

RealAudio clip: Easy Woman (Robag Wruhme Mix)
RealAudio clip: Boots And Pants

As much as we dug Daft Punk's Tron soundtrack, and we did, this remix collection seems to be directed at all the haters who lamented the lack of Daft Punk style dance music on said soundtrack, so in lieu of the more appropriately cinematic sounds found there, here you'll find just what everyone was hoping for, big pounding block rocking beats, fat fuzzed out synths, wild sci fi squiggles, huge thick swaths of speaker rattling low end, glimmering future disco melded to various strains of modern dance music, DP's original sounds cranked and blown out and turned into the sort of dancefloor bliss that fans of Daft Punk / Justice / Chemical Brothers / Basement Jaxx go nuts for. And we're right there with you. We were sold a minute into the first track. "Derezzed" was already one of the few Daft Punk songs on the Tron soundtrack that sounded like Daft Punk, but here, Glitch Mob take the original and make it even more, slowing it down, the bass thick and dense, the beat more dubsteppy, the sound crunchy and explosive and loud and funky and in its own way HEAVY. Then there's the M83 track, that sounds exactly like what you might think M83 and Daft Punk would sound like together, the vibe soaring and eighties, falsetto vox over epic buzzing synths and swirling futuristic ambience, it may be on a Daft Punk remix record, but it would sound right at home on a M83 record proper. And so it goes. From house to trance, dubstep to techno, swirly spaced out ambience to groovy low slung futurefunk, lots of names you know: Crystal Method, Moby, Photek (!), Paul Oakenfold, and plenty more you don't: Pretty Lights, Japanese Popstars, Kaskade, Teddybears, not to mention the awesomely named Com Truise, these jams pretty much all anyone into any of the above mentioned folks could ask for...

MPEG stream: Derezzed (Remix)
MPEG stream: Fall (Remix)
MPEG stream: Encom Part 2 (Remix)