Shields vinyl

The World Unknown focus shifts its gaze to the North East here, with their sixth slab of monolithic mid tempo sounds as two of Newcastle's new breed of producers take the helm for sides W & U respectively. While it seems Newcastle hasn't quite engendered a city wide electronic music heritage in a fashion similar to the likes of Bristol, London or Glasgow, it would be foolish to say there aren't interesting emergent sounds bubbling under in the area, as evidenced on this twelve. Take a glance at the biography and Soundcloud of Emile Strunz and it's apparent the producer has been fine tuning a well chosen approach to his craft over some time, culminating in the quite excellent "Shields." A solid mid tempo jacker of a track driven by a liquefied arpeggio, the unhinged vocal chanting that sits deep within adds the requisite idiosyncratic touch we've come to expect from the label run by Blake and Hart. Complementing this is "Lovebites" from the Last Waltz trio who turned out in fine style on Endless Flight this year. If the W side is all about the sleaze, this track is a much brighter production operating at a similar tempo and manages to sneak in some well chosen Akira samples. Buy on sight!

Brendan Clark (Northern Purpose), GK Machine, Lee (LAST WALTZ), Juno Recommends Electro House, Legendary Children