BENOIT B レコード& CD

Review: French producer Benoit B marks his debut on the Aussie label Animals Dancing with some super sweet FM synthesis and tight house rhythms here. It comes after head turning outings on the likes of Into The Light, Berceuse Heroique and his own Banlieue and opens with some wild melodies and layered synths on 'Drums Symphony.' 'La Retraite Des Rockers' is spaced out and star-gazing, 'We Come In Peace' pumps a nice cosmic house vibe and 'Dreelkrugz Conquest' is psyched-out slow motion electro with crisp beats and fluttering synth work from another dimension.

Review: The latest producer to contribute to Into The Light's "International" series is Benoit B, a Berlin-based artist renowned for his releases on Peur Bleue, Versatile and Wisdom Teeth. "Notes Of Love" is an altogether more opaque release than we've come to expect from him, with the label rightly describing it as "a soft journey for the ears". The six tracks are all superb - and stylistically eclectic - with highlights including the sunrise-ready new age synthesizer melodies, bustling synth-bass, Fairlight style stabs and shuffling breakbeats of "2090", the Vangelis Katsoulis-esque bliss of "Polar Nights", the Art of Noise style ambient collage "Czechoslovakia" and the intergalactic, post-electro pulse of "Cowboy Dan", whose rubbery synthesizer lines and electronic motifs somehow manage to be both funky and foreboding.

Review: Firecracker offshoot Unthank's 13th immaculately presented clear vinyl 10-inch comes courtesy of Benoit B, a producer whose suitably cosmic and otherworldly electronic outings have previously been showcased by Wisdom Teeth, Berceuse Heroique and Versatile (amongst others). He's in fine form throughout, mixing skewed, lo-fi drum machine rhythms with fuzzy, retro-futurist synths and a big dollop of intergalactic attitude. We're particularly enjoying the strangely swung wonkiness of opener "Global Go" and the leftfield sci-fu funk of closing cut "Coconut Grove", but the two tracks in between are equally as potent. In other words, this is another deliciously quirky and entertaining ten-inch from Unthank.

Review: The latest missive from Benoit B's Banlieue label is a tight double-header in which the boss man takes top billing. His A-side cut "100%" is a sleazy, mind-bending chugger where bleeping electronics, breathy vocal snippets, ghostly lead lines and "clonk"-style percussion hits rise above a sludgy bassline, new beat drums and a filthy bassline. Candido (not the disco-era percussionist, but rather a rising star of German electronic music) handles the B-side, offering up an even darker and sleazier number that joins the dots between EBM and new beat (think stabbing, mutilated vocal samples, machine-gun percussion fills and "Sensoria"-era Cabaret Voltaire bass).