Search results: Snipers

Review: DJ Trace's DSCI4 dropped the eight-track Spy Technologies X Sampler compilation last year, gathering together label classics, giving them a remaster and a digital release for the first time ever. Now this 12" cherry picks the strongest cuts and gets them back out there into the physical realm, focusing on Trace's own work and collaborations with his co-conspirators. The Concord Dawn remix of 'Mutationz' is a hyphy kick-off to the A-side before the dark n' deadly 'Move' link up with Ryme Tyme. Trace and Voyager turn up the pressure with the Reese attack of 'Sniper' and then it's Nico who joins the boss for a cooler, deadlier crusher called 'Replicants'.

Review: Some compilations manage to both educate, inform and educate in equal measure; this fine collection from Japanese crate diggers DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite and Chintam is one such set. Comprising mostly little-known tracks recorded by Japanese artists between 1968 and '70, it offers up a wealth of cuts inspired by American jazz-funk "rare groove". There's much to admire across the ten tracks, from the mazy Rhodes solos, fizzing big band jazz grooves and traditional Eastern instrumentation of Toshiko Yonekawa's "Soran Bushi", and the languidly-slung brilliance of Tadaki Misago and Tokyo Cuban Boys' multi-faceted musical fusion "Jongara Reggae", to the Jimi Hendrix-goes-funk heaviness of "Incitation" by Monica Lassen & The Sounds, and the drums-driven dancefloor madness of Masahiko Sato Jiro Inagaki & Big Soul Media's "Sniper's Snooze". Recommended.

Review: Japanese jazzmasuta Jiro Inagaki is graced by a stunning new tribute album via 180g, Legends, which celebrates his 90th birthday in 16-track compilation form. Made up entirely of works made between 1968 and 1980, and selected by DJ and producer Yusuke Ogawa, this is an album made almost entirely of Jiro's best-known instrumentals, not least a formerly unreleased version of the standout 'Express'. The recordings are impeccable, and this is a standard which does not waver over the entire 12-year period this LP spans.

Review: Controversial but nonetheless technically accomplished producer Vatican Shadow is divisive for more reasons than his now-well-discussed choice of collaborative partners. There's always something pretty menacing and unsettling about his output, steeped in uneasy atmospheres, taking us into the twisted side of leftfield electronic music, then sticking titles like Ghosts of Chechnya on his albums.
Nevertheless, there's light in all that pitch black, aurally at least. Listening to tracks like 'Peace Rage', and, despite the name, it's impossible not to pick up on the surprisingly hopeful harmonies, set within an IDM framework. Elsewhere, dubby techno is flirted with (if that's an appropriate word for these sounds) on 'Encryption Nets', while 'Snipers As A Breed Tend To Be Suspicious' accentuates tense atmosphere in a way that most studio pros can only hope for.