Cabaret Japan レコード& CD

Review: For the label's first compilation, Cabaret Records has decided to introduce us to their Alien Family. By the sounds of the collection, they're a motley crew of studio mutants united by a love of creaking hardware, sci-fi synths and intergalactic dancefloor workouts. Happily, highlights are plentiful, from the acid-fired, bleep-heavy throb of S-Audio's "Remote Circuit" and weighty electro crackle of Binh's "Wova", to the dreamy underwater deepness of EK Box's "Watair" and the classic deep house/Detroit techno fusion of So Inagawa's futurist masterpiece "Solitary Affair". Evan Baggs's contribution, the TB-303 madness that is "AZS", is also superb.

Review: Amphibian ambient techno artist Bufobufo (Ben Murphy) debuts a brand new breaks-techno project for Japanese label Cabaret; it's one of his few long-form projects, other than the sole album 'Flora And Fauna'. Recalling various breaks and trip-hop classics over the years (Smith & Mighty's 'Same' may or may not be sampled on the track 'Pixelated Dreams'), this is a retro-modern take on the genre of breaks, less concerned with old-skool scratchiness as it is with stoking sonic intrigue, through its many clippy and refined textures.

Review: Japanese micro-house champ So Inagawa has long been serving up delectable singles for labels such as Minimood and Trimsound, and it seems high time that he delivered an album, ten years after his first single was released. This long player for Cabaret allows Inagawa to stretch out his styles without losing focus on what his distinctive sonic identity is. The grooves stay slight and serene throughout, with delicate threads of instrumentation woven in and amongst the needlepoint drums, and the overriding feeling is one of strung-out jazz. Closing track "I Will Do It The Same Way" perhaps says it all, this is an album of consistency that hits upon a refined style and maintains it throughout.