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Euphoria wins the day on Alberto Guerrini’s three-track gabber EP. What began as an archival tumblr dedicated to re-examining the oft-maligned fringes of hardcore has been taking physical form since early last year, with Guerrini creating zines and DJing with hakke dancers, so stepping in the studio was always the next logical step. Released on Lorenzo Senni’s Presto!? label, Gabber Eleganza treats the music of its devotion in much the same way Senni does with trance, another sound largely derided among modern dance circles. The pummelling abrasion and intense speeds are present here, but at just shy of 170BPM and with a focus on dynamic and tension it does a good job of making it accessible to people who likely watch footage of nutty kids in Belgium, Rotterdam or Glasgow at gabber raves and think ‘what the fuck is that?’ Opening track Junonica breathlessly builds with jagged synth stabs but settles in a deep rumble without erupting. The title track wouldn’t sound out of place on Bicep’s 2017 LP, which was a melancholic ode to rave, if the pounding kicks were swapped out for a breakbeat, while Total Football is disconcertingly menacing and gorgeous in equal measure: skittish lazerguided stabs bloom with a bubblegum sweetness along galloping snares. Dance music isn’t scary anymore, having been firmly co-opted by the mainstream. Gabber offers a glimpse back in time, when an older generation were shocked and disgusted by what kids did in fields and warehouses at the weekend. The sight of skinheads covered head to toe in tattoos and dressed like football hooligans may drag up more negative connotations than a lot of people are comfortable with. But Gabber Eleganza goes a long way in showing there’s more to the scene than face values. There’s beauty and unity to be found here. !
Theo Kotz
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Moon Gangs Earth Loop Village Green Arriving on the Village Green label, the head-turning debut from BEAK>’s William Young is a treasure trove of synthesiser melodramas, dripping with classic cinematographic references and a joyously maximal approach to production. Things get underway with the portentous Second Run, before The Terminal raises its head to a neon-soaked sky. Like bandmate Geoff Barrow’s soundtrack work or composer Tom Raybould’s score for sci-fi indie The Machine, there’s a gothic, gloopy edge to Moon Gangs’ material, and as much kinetic energy in some of these tracks as Fuck Buttons or Rival Consoles. But where these latter acts deliver their power punches partly through muscle and might, Moon Gangs pull off an even harder trick: flooring you softly without the aid of the loud/quiet/loud dynamic. Sea Circles swirls gently through a rhythmless vortex, while Familiar Machines is the most Blade Runner-esque track of all, a deep, pounding bass note providing the heartbeat for concentric circles of synths to cluster around. The album is bookended by a pair of gentle, drowned chants, a natural contrast to the intense noise contained within. It's difficult to find fault with this all-consuming set of songs: an epic unfurling of electronic melody. !
Adam Corner
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Bad Gyal Worldwide Angel Pure Records & CANADA Editorial Born in 1997 and raised on the internet, Barcelona’s Bad Gyal (aka Alba Farelo) is one of the more promising products of the global web of culturallyconfused artists making popconscious club music for the online underground. Singing in Catalan, Spanish and occasionally in English, the 21-year-old performer’s so-called ‘futuristic reggaetón’ is a (not uncontroversial) take on a style steeped in an afro-latin sound, beginning in Jamaican dancehalls then spreading across the Americas on variations of the famously anti-colonial dembow rhythm. From 1990 to the early 00s, the wave of music influenced by said tresillo moved from the margins into full view of latinamerican pop – from Panama’s El General to Puerto Rico’s Daddy Yankee and his 2004 hit Gasolina. Farelo’s music is a somewhat skewed reclaiming of a sound rooted in subcultural resistance, by virtue of her youth and the language barrier between the Spanish and English-speaking worlds. With a 90s revivalist fashion sense and a powerful visual aesthetic – both live and in press – the success of the European artist rests as much on her marketability as it does on the palatability of her music. Incorporating elements of trap, RnB and UK garage into this hybrid reggaetón, Worldwide Angel features production by frequent collaborators Dubbel Dutch and Fakeguido, as well as melodically-driven post-club producer Jam City. The latter London-based artist’s input is significant, given that he was also executive producer of Kelela’s breakthrough album release Take Me Apart last year. Meanwhile, between its slick and sultry riddims and Farelo’s signature Auto-Tune vocal, Worldwide Angel might very well be a similar step towards becoming something much, much bigger in the future. !
Steph Kretowicz
Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois Timesig It’s a collaboration precisely no one saw coming: noise agitator and extreme electronic futurist Venetian Snares and rock record producer, guitarist and fellow Canadian, Daniel Lanois, who is famed for his work with Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Though it sounds like an outlandish proposition, Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois is, in places, surprisingly beautiful. Recorded live in a former Buddhist temple in Toronto, it’s a project that seems to have inspired its participants. Lanois has said of the record: “To come upon a new form reassures the head that frontier lives on.” Venetian Snares (aka Aaron Funk) is known best for hyperactive splurges of speedy digital percussion and splintered jungle breaks. These intense bursts of electronic rhythm frequently surface here, though mixed with Lanois’s intensely mellow echo-drenched country guitar, they take on a new form. On HpShk5050_P127 dubby bass underpins warm washes of psychedelic pedal steel, while blasts of mechanically altered beats dip in and out of the mix. Night_MXCMPV1_P74 is an impressionistic ambient affair, where Funk’s skittering rhythms twist and contort beneath the dramatic skies evoked by Lanois’s playing. The combination is strangely soothing: neither artist compromises their distinct identities, yet their polarised sounds seem to slot together naturally. The open-minded will find much to enjoy on this weird and wild combination. !
Ben Murphy
DJ Koze Knock Knock Pampa There was a period when Stefan Kozella was one of European dance music’s most intriguing, infuriating and inconsistent producers. Over the past 15 years or so his 12”s – released by the likes of Kompakt, Philpot, and IRR – have veered from cracked-out abstruse deviant dancehall (2010’s Mi Cyaan Believe It) to minimal techno workouts (the still absurd stomp of his seminal Brutalga Square) via downtempo chipmunk soul (Smornin’) and wonkier-thanthou piano house-not-house (Rue Burnout) all of which hinted at an incredibly talented musician who couldn’t quite work out what exactly he wanted to be. Then came Amygdala, his 2013 LP on his own Pampa Recordings imprint. The record was a lush and sublimely sensate listening experience, packed with micro-moments of genius that coalesced into a towering totality. Luckily, almost impossibly, Knock Knock rivals its predecessor. Kozella’s approach remains as scattershot as ever – luminescent sadlad filter-house (Moving in a Liquid) and broken-hearted disco (Pick Up) sit alongside sunrise-ready dewy eyed anthems in the making (Seeing Aliens) and Wighnomy Brothers-esque mutant microhouse (Bonfire). But there’s a cohesion at play that means Knock Knock feels like the best DJ mixes; these are songs that talk to one another, poly-vocal constructions that prioritise pure pleasure. Sure he’s as goofy as ever, but it feels like Stefan Kozella is that step closer to knowing who DJ Koze is. And DJ Koze is someone to treasure. !
Josh Baines
Preoccupations New Material Jagjaguwar When Preoccupations chose to name their new album New Material it indicated one of two things: the deadpan title was either a droll attempt to disguise the fact that they’ve run out of ideas, or a sign that the Canadian band are ready to let their music speak completely for itself, raw and unvarnished. So which path do Preoccupations – a band with a problem in naming themselves, never mind their albums – tread? This record is, according to singer Matt Flegel, “an ode to depression” and the one-word song titles like Decompose, Disarray, and Doubt, suggest its dark subject matter, as well a love for post-punk B-sides. On first listen the songs themselves can feel too one-coloured; painted out in ink black. Doubt’s splodges of synths underwhelm while Antidote’s mechanical funk doesn’t deliver on its promise. Yet there’s a thrilling, menacing, itchy quality that bleeds through the album. Espionage is great; an echoing, clattering drone that sounds so much like Joy Division that Peter Hook is probably already out there, somewhere, trying to make money from it. The motorik swagger of Solace and the glacial chimes of Disarray capture 80s post-punk so well you can hear the wind blowing in Flegel’s hair as he drives an open top Cadillac. It’s an ominous, claustrophobic listen – only released as the haunting instrumental Compliance disintegrates and implodes. It’s not so much the sound of the new, as the sound of a band figuring out who they are. !
Danny Wright
REVIEWS
Gabber Eleganza Never Sleep Vol. 1 Presto!?
09
