Juno Recommends Electro: May 2024

Review: Tresor joins forces with Carhartt - a company that can trace its roots back to the Motor City - to celebrate techno's two premier cities, Detroit and Berlin. The formula is devilishly simple: brand new cuts from artists based in one of the two cities, with stone-cold legends being joined by rising stars. There are headline-grabbing contributions from Juan Atkins as Model 500 (the warped, alien, dub-flecked and Cybotron-esque electrofunk of 'I.D.L.E') and DJ Stingray 313 (the industrial electro clank of 'Dynamic Instability'), plus fine contributions from JakoJako (the early morning techno hypnotism of 'Metal Goat'), AMX (the wonderfully hazy, deep and dubbed-out electro shuffle of 'Your Body') and Erik Jabari (the mind-mangling modular madness of 'Screamore').

Review: Legowelt is a master of electronic music. He coaxes more feelings and emotions and originality out of his machines in one record than many people manage in a whole career. He has made millions (probably) of them in his time but it is still always worth checking in with what he does next. In this case, it's a new album for New York punks L.I.E.S. called Like A Song From Your Dream which comes with one of his own cover art illustrations. Musically it finds him in electro mode, layering up squelchy synths, kinetic and ice-cold rhythms and plenty of sci-fi motifs with inescapable cosmic energy. It is yet another doozy from the man who never misses.

Review: Four electroclash/Italo dancefloor bangers recovered from the vaults of electro producer 'Konerytmi' under his alias 'The Klash'. Mixing contempoary sounds with samples and motifs reminiscent of the TV docs, newscasts and movie soundtracks of the 1980s, 'Disko Varasto A' is a boxy, arpy cascader of blipping synths plucks, flatulent basses, and gated snares, best represented by the airtight, hermetic melodic wave machine of a track that is '1982'.

Review: This new drop from key Dutch label Frustrated Funk is a 12" sampler for Adapta's critically acclaimed Memory Program album. It was only a cassette and digital release the first time around so it's great to have these tracks on wax. There is a serenity to the synths of 'Who Am I' that really captivates your imagination while 'Cousin Bruce' has whipping, lashing synth lines tearing up the broken beat funk and 'Cassette King' is a sludgy, lo-fi, gritty and mutant slow motion rhythmic workout. 'Memory Event' and 'Stars Hold' add yet more variation to a superb 12" and a great reminder of the quality of the original album.

Review: Zeta Reticula (Uros Umek) is among the wide cream of today's atmospheric breaks and electro producers, carrying on strong with a career that he's kept steady since 2000. Since the mid-2010s, the Slovene star has hopped from label to label, signifying a restlessness that matches the writhing weight of his music. 'The Beryllium' is yet another EP to capture Reticula's preference for unrelent, commanding a unique sense of space and weight that flaunts a true sense of art. Listened to in one way, 'Need To Orbit', sounds like a functional acid jam, but its pitch-perfect use of reverb and EQ renders it gestalt, nearly convincing us that the track was direct-outputted from the aux port of an interplanetary war machine and not a stack of analog synths. On the other hand, the closing remix from Sound Synthesis is nice and cascading - gushing, sheathing sounds abounding - contrasting to Reticula's opting for judderings and impacts.

Review: Part 2 of the Wave Modulation Series is here. This time the troupe presents a fine release from Gimmik, with remixes from Moy, Sound Synthesis and Naqare Lucid. The central number is 'Analog Dream Plants', which commands a uniquely well-rounded, full-bodied sense of space (it's so organic, even the hi-hats have bass) while reflecting the more repititious elements found in nature by way of lilting two-tones, analog synth ostinati, and, muted vocal murmurations. The quality is kept up almost effortlessly, with dreamy transitions into spacey electro from both Gimmik and Moy, all while Naqara Liquid indulges an equally lovely, but toothier, IDM interpretation.

Review: Love Love presents a collaborative release by two of the freshest contemporary Avon producers here in Best Pest and Kursa. Kursa, also known as one half of S.Murk, has picked up a significant following in both the UK and the USA with a unique mix of tight, maximalist bass music. Meanwhile, Pest is a familiar name on this label after two previous solo releases which showcased his crunchy techno, electro, and hardware-heavy sounds. Together, they deliver a five-tracker EP that transcends genres as it blends elements of dubstep, grime, hardcore, and garage with intricate sound design. Audacious, to be sure.

Review: Electro / techno up-and-comer Viikatory shows no signs of slowing down; the Berlin-based producer and DJ has released at least (get ready for it) a whopping 26 EPs across multiple formats since 2021. Whatever it is she's doing, or simply *is*, is working undoubtedly well for her. Her latest is a juddering cosmic-horrific blooper for Mechatronica Music, and features two supporting remixes from established game-pushers Luz1e and Poly Chain: the best of Viikatory's originals has to be 'Cartesian Space', a spitty electro heater across which the vocal interjection "the entire observable universe considered as a unified whole" is heard repeating as surely as a jackhammer unintentionally left running overnight. The remixes, meanwhile, are as eerie and otherwordly as the amplified sound of a newly-hatched facehugger's egg left to ooze toxic slime.

Review: Decal is the enduring alias of Alan O'Boyle, an Irish electro lifer who has rolled with Weatherall's Rotters Golf Club label among other venerable bastions of the scene. It's been a long time since the project was put on ice, but a quick archival dig yielded some unreleased gems which now find a home on TR One's always-on-point Intrinsic Rhythm. Generationally, this is two different waves of Ireland's healthy electro scene working in tandem, charged by some absolutely deadly machine funk executed around the 1999-2004 era but sounding like all your future shock dystopian dreams made real.

Review: Serge Geyzel continues to merge and solidify musical political power by way of the esteemed Russian Electro Music Coalition, bringing four electro dark fresh'uns to our collective cochlear foreground. The 'Memorize' EP both uplifts and broods through tense melodics and inverse acid cascades, evocatively painting an emotional picture of a waste-lain future technoscape, in which some humanity still manages to peek through the cracks.

Review: Long Island Sound steps out here with an enthralling full-length on Oath that explores myriad mystical deep house depths. There is a live feel to the skipping beats and organic percussion of the opener which comes alive on rousing chords. 'Photos' has trance-like pads that was over you in waves as the broken beats soar and then the opener gets remixed by Otik before tracks like 'Your Love' immerse you in more emotionally wrought synthscapes and precision-engineered beats. 'Fracture' is another well-designed sound with ghostly drums and pads and it then gets remixed into a shuffling garage-tinged beat that might be the best of the lot.

Review: A retrospective of Third Earth Visual Arts and the career of AbuQadim Haqq who as many of you know created art for Transmat, Drexciya and Underground Resistance.

The book covers his early life in Detroit to his last project for Third Earth Visual Arts in 2023.

Over 100 pages of art.

Over 100 pages of photos.

258 pages

Review: New week, new album from the prolific and always fantastic DMX Krew. Unlikely Seeming is the latest from the much-loved UK underground mainstay and it comes on the Byrd Out label featuring eight superb cuts that showcase his signature mix of joyous synth hooks, pads full of texture and of course innovative analogue drum machine rhythms. With hints of 80s pop and a slightly softer sound than he has done in the past, this is another triumph that is well worth adding to all his many other triumphant albums on your shelves.

Review: Anthea welcomes Spanish producer C.R.U.Z. onto the roster. C.ru.z.'s live jam arrangements lend well to the overarching mood of toxico-apocalyptic rave here; the 'Secuencias Del Tiempo Perdido' EP contorts to every logical end of acid twinge and direct-current frisson. The darker ends of things are heard on the likes of 'Pensamiento Geometrico' and 'Hospital Del Mar', while a subtler, albeit surreal Italo mood is heard peeking through on '80sLoveParade'.

Review: A credible eyewitness is arguably nonexistent; all narrators are unreliable in some way. But the ACEW label boss who bears the name makes a worthy attempt to justify it, laying down four killer downtempo dreams of the tongue-in-cheek, driving kind. 'Hypnotik' was clearly made with the aim to mesmerise in mind: 'Waz Up' and 'Sexy Waz' logically follow each other as snake-charming pendulum-swinging coldwave-chug trances to make up the A-side, while the B's 'Following' and 'Subreal' raise the pace again, deftly working illusory melodies round strangled electro workouts.

Review: Following up the digi in 2023, Italy's Muovo Musica bring the edgy jukey electro stylings of Dove Quiete's 'So I Ride' EP to 12" vinyl, doing thorough justice to this sparse sonic tonic, which borders on a skweee temperament. The title track is both jitterbugging and propulsive, fitting in reams off bass beneath its earcatching toppy snaps; then things get increasingly weird, with 'My Jordan' working in childish laughs and indecipherable hahas between the woodblocks, and 'Something For' going full-on acid blues remix; all in all, we get the impression of a weirdo's favourite, one that nonetheless knows exactly the kinds of uncanny emotions it hopes to solicit.

Review: Queensland's DJ Whipr Snipr joins forces with Brazilian artist Norus for this superb new EP, Gravitational Attraction, on the also brilliant Nerang Recordings. Since 2016, Whipr Snipr has helmed the label and steered it through plenty of innovative sounds as he does again here, this time with Norus who brings his expertise from Gestalt Records. This collaboration marks their second EP and it is a clean and crisp blend of emotive breaks, electro, techno, and serene synth sounds. 'If I Could Fake One Emotion' is our favourite for its thrilling mix of deft jungle breakbeats and sombre piano chords.