My Life in 12-Inches (February 2021)
Henry Ivry presents some fresh record favourites from the last few months in his new column, ‘My Life In 12-Inches’
Although just about every press release I see these days makes mention of “Artificial Intelligence-era Warp” or “a contemporary Boards of Canada” or “exploring sounds away from the dance floor,” there are still a ton of bangers getting pressed every month (even if COVID has also meant that we all watch Redeye Records keep pushing back that “Expected Release” date indefinitely). So get the Twitch stream ready and make sure to watch out for carpet burn, I’ve listed some of the rough and ready 12”s that have been keeping me company this month.
Giammarco Orsini and Pancratio - One Trip To Avyon Pt. 2 (Heko)
Giammarco Orsini records are quickly becoming buy-on-site for me (especially after this one that looks like it’ll send my son to college), and his latest series, with fellow Italian Pancratio is no different. The second “One Trip To Avyon” 12” is an absolute masterclass in classy and warm house. The kicks on the opener “FTL Mode” come in a bit tough, but the walking bassline and chords keep things amicable. My personal highlight on the record is the B2, “Oumuamua.” The track dials things down a bit - the drums are slower and chunkier and we start with a series of undulating squelches that sound like they could be in a Z@P record before an almost acid line comes into the track. Not much else happens, but the track is an absolute destroyer, the type of after-hours track that you would be humming on a long-forgotten S-Bahn home. The other tracks are also killer. “Guardians of Galaxy” contains some high-level acid noodling and some stadium worthy drum rolls while the pairs’ penchant for melody really comes across in the lead lines in “DUKHMADCAYM”.
Walt Ever - Homesick (Jisul)
The Pager Records lads, Tiago Walter and Phil Evans, team up once again under their Walt Ever alias. Their latest offering lands on home turf, as the second release for JISUL records, a collaboration between Walter, Nils Diezel, and Alec Falconer that put out an excellent LP by Walter last year. For two guys whose last record together came out on a label called 1-069-PAGE-ME, they still know how to make some emotional tracks. The titular “Homesick” is written with all sorts of shades of melancholy, a forlorn melody line sighs in tones I can only imagine are reserved for the most scorned French lovers out there. There are also some party tracks here. For my money, “Cool Down” sits up there with the best of the music being made by the next generation of Frankfurt am Main producers. The drums are swung, the melody playful, and nestled somewhere in there are just the tiniest hints of a 303 that give the track the faintest whiff of both excitement and unease, like acid flashbacks in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner with your family. I also think the A1 is a killer, even if it is an exercise in restraint. Mixed slightly differently, it could be a disco-house anthem in the vein of Soundstream, but the drums are clipped and the NY chords are mixed low in the track, giving the track a sort of half time bounce.
Roza Terenzi – Stylish Tantrum (Step Ball Chain)
Roza Terenzi’s inaugural release on her new label, Step Ball Chain, bangs it out from the word go. We are treated to some twisted and swirling atmospheric techno for the first couple of minutes before the high hats go straight for the jugular on opener “Cosmology.” Things move in a different direction on the A2, but are no less interesting. The track starts with some cavernous reverb before changing direction and hitting the 150 BPM mark. In different hands, the effect might be disorienting, like Mala mixing in a gabber record, but for Terenzi it seems to work, like she is just shaking off the last spliff from the night before and pouring an espresso. The B-Side is all chocked full of surprises and impressive in its range. The two collaborations, “Chosen Family Feud” with long time partner-in-crime, D. Tiffany, and “Sxc Saloon” with Saoirse, are both druggy and paranoid, and seem to compete with one another for who can have the more anxiety-inducing break in the track (the smart money remains on “Sxc Saloon” where the beat falls out halfway through). It’s an outstanding debut release from Terenzi’s label and also shows her versatility as a producer - these are tracks that would work in the main room or the afters.
ILyes, A.G.. and Kompo - The Void Project 03 (The Void Project)
3 releases in and Belgian label, The Void Project, is doing an excellent job of curating some production pairings. The last release saw Bodin and Alec Falconer share a 12” and I felt like there was a sense of dialogue in the record, not just two producers turning in tracks, but really thinking about how their sounds reflect and refract one another. Although the third release in the series is the wax debut of two Brussels-based producers A.G. and Kompo on the B-Side with rising French producer ILyes, there is a similar sense of dialogue across the record. For ILyes’s half of the record, we get two top shelf gulps of machine funk. ILye’s “Axel and His Drunk Cat” is probably my favorite on the whole 12”. Like Axel’s cat, the percussion alternates between stumbling and slithering along while some pensive chords bring to mind those really deep thoughts that you can’t wait to share with everyone after a few too many. You wouldn’t want to meet the lowend of “I Met a Cosmic Girl” alone late at night, but the high-end is spacious and light. “ We get more in that mode on the flip. Both tracks are cosmic and wandering, but also have enough quirk to them that we can forgive their names being a bit too close to techno cliche for comfort. My favorite is probably the trance-leaning, “Transylvania Express.” The track moves through a series of serotonin flooding lead lines over a toothy bassline in a way that is both delicate and funky.
Errol Simms – DRBAGAIN12 (Dr. Banana)
Errol Simms is best known for his work as part of Skool of Hard Knocks, a group who put out some iconic jump up tracks in the mid-90s. But the Dr. Banana digger fingers strike again and unearth the much sought after “Boss” EP, the only EP released under his own name back in 1998. Everyone and their mum seemed to be rinsing UKG last year, but this is not just any track. “Layback,” the A1 is, as one Discogs user claims “the best UK garage song ever”. While I’m not sure I’m ready to stick my lot in with ‘warsawwasraw’, “Layback” certainly is a contender. The song is sexy and deep and each bass note feels like it has been plucked and pulled inside out, something getting warped in the transmission from outer space to Ayia Napa. The rest of the EP is by no means filler. “It’s Nota” has a bassline that you can literally feel move across your chest, while the chords and vocals on “Oh Baby” can even make this winter have an end in sight. These are tracks that have stayed bouncier than Moet bubbles and any one of these would make the price of admission worth it alone.
Maara - Ultimate Reward (NAFF)
Quickly becoming an essential label, the Montreal label Naff continues its run of quirky club bangers from the north. This time it is the debut of Maara. The EP is an accomplished collection of wonked and atmospheric electro. Most folks will buy this EP for the title-track. And rightly so, it’s a cluttered, mechanic workout as a robotic voice beamed in from a terrestrial yoga retreat tells us to find time for, “Relaxation.” But the rest of the 12” is packed full of gems as well. “Ultimate Reward” is serious peak time fodder while “Splash on Me” is primed for the adventurous warm-up DJ, the spacey emptiness of the track slowly congealing into twisted rhythms. But my favorite is “Tranquil Lust Mommy.” In the best electro, you can hear how the genre sneaks through the low-end of the best R’n’B indebted pop songs as well as the raunchiest ghetto house. This type of universal sex appeal cascades through “Tranquil Lust Mommy” as the track’s hip-swaying rhythm bump ‘n’ grinds with an absolutely gorgeous melody.
Sohrab - Disconnected (Undersound Recordings)
For those of us not deeply immersed in the London underground, it felt like Sohrab emerged out of nowhere in 2019 on the second release for Andrew James Gustav’s fledgling Marginal Returns label. And his follow-up to that release is no less breathtaking. While there are a lot of producers working with the types of spooky techno tropes that Binh and Nicolas Lutz brought to the masses, few are doing it as well as Sohrab. This is techno made for the moment when late night blurs into midday before blurring back into night again. What sets Sohrab’s records apart are the sound arrangements - there are air and room to breathe on every one of these tracks. Take, for example, “Vertical Alignment.” The track clips along above the 130 BPM mark, but doesn’t feel rushed. The smoky contours of a melody percolate across a back alley bassline before some absolutely menacing noodling kicks off after the break. Likewise, “The Fool” has a soft touch to it even though Sohrab is painting entirely with minor chord menace. And then there is the total showstopper, “Digital Bliss.” Like lots of B2s, Sohrab has an eye on both the dance-floor and the beige carpet of your mate’s mate’s girlfriend’s flatmate’s co-worker living room as an arpeggiated synth line moves across a breakbeat in perfect bliss.
And.rea - Coco Bongo Club (Welt Discos)
The B-Side on And.rea’s latest release has provided some of the most fun I’ve had moving in my Ugg slippers in quite some time. The B1 starts with a drum roll that sounds like it was sampled from the in-house band for a late night talk show to underline a particularly witty punchline. A squelchy bass that slips in and out of the acid joins the mix shortly after, as do some congas. I keep wanting to call the song “silly,” but not in a pejorative way - it’s silly in that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, even the almost-melancholic chords are fun here. The nearly carnival sound carries on in the next track. The 80s synth work on the B2 is like getting lost in the haunted house with just a bit of psilocybin coursing through you - a bit creepy, but mainly just kitschy. The A-Side is also no joke - some swung drums and a slight vibrato on the chords keeps things shuffling along. That this release is the inaugural one for Welt Discos, a sublabel of the Lisbon institution Carpet & Snares, and that is curated by Joe Delon make sense. Delon knows how to make serious selection sound seriously fun.
Adam Pits - International Wafter: The Remixes (Coastal Haze)
Adam Pits makes “Choons” with a capital “C”. He first popped up on my radar with a pair of 12”s for Holding Hands and Seven Hills, two labels consistently turning out meaty, UK-flavored slices of house and techno. The original “International Wafter” we get here is no different. Bespoke sound design chugs along with aquatic synths ricochetting across the stereo field. My pick of the remixes is Ciel’s flip of the title track. Ciel takes the song in a slightly different direction, revamping the song into a tech house burner. The spacious pockets of the original are crowded with anxious bleeps and a vocal sample sliced across the pattering drums keeps things dark. Roza Terenzi’s remix of “Motion Sensor” is equally dark where even the nearly progressive chords in the break still sound slightly claustrophobic. In the press release to the EP, Coastal Haze references “prime era Innervisions” which certainly wasn’t something I expected to find in this hipster corner of the universe, but the reference is somewhat fitting. Seb Wildblood’s remix of “Magenta” is minimal and subdued, but also surprisingly cinematic with flourishes that I imagine would send the punters wild on the terrace at DC-10.
Various - I Can’t Complain, But Sometimes I Still Do (Regelbau)
While times have changed since those first dust crackled and breaky releases trickled out of Arhus on the Regelbau label, the crew has still managed to keep things interesting. Key figures (and brothers) DJ Sports and Central have explored the spectrum of dance music. And while the brothers can seemingly turn out everything from Jungle and Garage with workmanlike efficiency, this V/A compilation (mainly comprised of the brothers as well as cameos from PH1 and ManMade Deejay and vocalist of the hour, Erika) comes across as vintage Rebelbau, offering us a glimpse of the ethereal house the crew came to prominence with. The A1, “The Lightness” captures this spirit to a tee - a barely there beat duets with Erika’s spoken word vocals. In-house jam band, Maizena, gives us a bit more of a floor-oriented track, but it still feels closer to star gazing than properly raving. On the flip, “If I Feel Like It” has a bit more of a UK feel to it, like listening to a garage track played through a tide pool. They save the best for last on the record as Erika and Hi-Mount team up for the synth ballad, “U N Me”. It oozes with the right amount of sexiness and cheesiness, perfecting the type of 80s R ’n’ B Erika has been putting out for the past few years. As a whole, the record is a perfect introduction and update from some of Denmark’s finest.
Words by: Henry Ivry