Castroe - Serum

Werkstatt Recordings: 2015

Man, you just knew there was another Werkstatt release lurking about somewhere. You think you get them all, have sifted through every pile, every tower, every folder, but somehow, something slips through the cracks, waiting to pop up when the next round of regular backlog rears its head (somewho, somewhat!). Thing is I kinda' recall listening to this in that last massive run, but it's difficult keeping track of every four-song synthwave EP, especially when you're feeling a touch of the ol' genre burn-out.

I honestly have no idea how some DJs can listen to twenty times the amount of records in a single sitting of just tech-house or minimal techno and have even a fraction of it stick in their minds for future consideration. Like, I can take hefty quantities of some genres, but when you keep hearing the same tricks and tropes played out over and over and over, it doesn't take long for it all to turn to mush in my noggin'. And for as much as I do enjoy synthwave, its tricks and tropes become blatantly obvious in short order indeed. It's one of those fine chocolate genres out there, so succulent, sweet, and tasty when you first consume it, but best indulged for special occasions. Or maybe it's the Turtles/Creme Egg of electronic music, so easy to overdose on when you've been absent of it for a while.

I know I'm willing to take another hefty dive into the genre again (beyond Werkstatt) after hearing just this lone EP. That chugging bassline in opener Nightcrawler, with the flowing backing pads, sparkly synth fills, and chipper arp keeping things moving along... *chef's kiss*, everything I hope to hear in a synthwave tune. And since I haven't listened to much synthwave in this past month, it sounds nice and fresh again, like glistening iceberg lettuce at the supermarket. A good supermarket, not one of those cheap, nickel-and-dime places where the produce arrives wilted.

Coagulator provides the obligatory 'outrun' tune. Intimidate slows things down, and even throws in a charming reverb fade for a small breakdown. Finally, the tituluar closer almost sounds like it needs a vocalist singing about loves lost on the Ocean Drive, in spa-a-ace! Is it just me, or does anyone else get a Starman vibe on this? Seems like a surprisingly untapped Carpenter-'80s thing synthwave has yet to fully exploit. It doesn't have to all be Escape From New York, Miami Vice, and Big Trouble In Little China, y'know.

As is so often the case with this scene though, Castroe (Eduardo Castro to the Austin music clubs) doesn't have much else to his name. Lord Discogs lists another EP released this past year Less Than Zero on Lazerdiscs Records, plus a smattering of Bandcamp offerings before his Werkstatt outing. It's such a shame when I find a synthwaver with panache but lacking in plenty o' consumable goods. Given the ridiculously high turn-over rate of producers, they seem so few and far between.

ACE TRACKS: July 2019

You know what I miss? Naps. Don't get me wrong, the way my current work schedule has turned out is rather nice overall, becoming part of the 9-5 demographic without any of the headaches it seems to create. Getting home at such a time, however, means if I lay down, it's certainly lights out until the middle of the night, from which I'll be up way too long in the pre-dawn hours. What am I gonna' do in that time, go for a swim at the local pool with the elderly? (hhmmm...) My old 6-2 workshift was perfect for catching an early evening snooze without worry about oversleeping.

Does this mean I'm destined for another burnout all too soon? Or should I sneak some naptime while I'm at work? Like, I probably could get away with it, me being my own boss with a serious downswing of activity towards the end of my shift. No one has to know I'm sleeping on company time, not even the ones who somehow stumble upon this blog. Mwahaha!! Ah, hm, here's some ACE TRACKS from July anyway.


Full track list here


MISSING ALBUMS:
DJ 3000 - Sälis
Dr. Atmo - Quiet Life
Cosmic Replicant - Processes
Subotika - Panonija
Opium - Pain(t)
Pleq - Our Words Are Frozen

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 14%
Most “WTF?” Track: The dark ambient stuff. Far too aggro for all the chill vibes on this playlist. Yes, even dubstep and Billy Idol are comparatively chill to SantAAgostino.

Not as ambient as it could have been, what with so many albums missing from this playlist, but it still sounds rather singular throughout. Or at least, having large chunks devoted so certain genres/artists rather than a mix of everything. Surprised by the weak Spotify game this time out. Maybe it's time to look into Deezer?

Harold Budd - The Serpent (In Quicksilver)

Cantil/All Saints: 1981/2018

Harold Budd had made his proper debut with the well-received The Pavilion Of Dreams, which Brian Eno produced. Following that, they teamed up for the second entry into Eno's seminal Ambient series, The Plateaux Of Mirror. Being such a prominent figure of ambient's early years surely yielded many opportunities for the Buddian one, if not for the fact that scene was barely existent yet. Sure, you had the synth noodlings of the Berlin-Schoolers, and the electronic experimenting of the soundtrackers, but Eno and Budd's brand of abstract art music remained a super-niche side of ambient's emergent sound, especially Harold's classical approach to playing the ol' ivories.

Basically, despite having his name associated with a trendy tastemaker, Budd was still left without any sort of record deal for his own musical explorations. He thus did what many a genre-niche artist is forced to do: create his own print to self-release his albums. Eh, why didn't Eno just help Budd along with on his label? If I was to hazard a guess, it was either because Eno was between labels himself (Obscure, where Pavilion Of Dreams had come out on, folded before the '80s), or Budd wanted to release something without Eno's ambient treatments prominently involved, letting his own muse speak for itself. Neither would surprise me.

Whatever the case, Cantil was the result of Budd going into label business for himself, with The Serpent (In Quicksilver) being its first release. Um, out of three, according to Lord Discogs. Guess becoming a record mogul just wasn't in Budd's blood, but at least he got his records out.

And if setting up your own print to release your own music in the early '80s doesn't sound like a punk enterprise to you, then the production of The Serpent (In Quicksilver) sure will. If there was anything Budd took from his time working with Eno, it was realizing he could accomplish more making use of a studio than just recording some piano pieces and calling it a day. Unfortunately, ol' Harold didn't have the greatest connections in California at that point in his career, so he wandered from studio to studio, recording bits and pieces wherever he could, whenever he could. The almost renegade approach to crafting this album helps explain why it's so short, a mere six tracks long, half of which hover around the two-minute mark. Heck, the longest is a shade over five minutes, which may as well be a radio jingle where either ambient or modern classical is concerned.

So the short running time may be a turnoff for some, but let's be honest: the moment you hear that sliding pedal guitar opening in Afar, there's really almost no where else to go but down; or up, to a higher state of peace. Like, I'm not saying The KLF nicked the idea of a pedal guitar making perfect sense in the context of ambient music, but I'd like to hear of an earlier example of it than The Serpent.

DJ 3000 - Sälis

Motech: 2013

I've talked plenty about Motech now (CD bundle purchases help), but it's been a long while since I've gotten back to the man who started it all, Franki Juncaj, in more ways than one. Mr. 3000 was my introduction to Motech, and though I never really followed up on Galactic Caravan until way later, it seems fate (or self-imposed alphabetical constraints) has denied me the chance to return to his musical output. At least until I've given some of his label mates a little shine first. This isn't the last of my Motech material though, another release lurking somewhere along the line. Damned if I can remember what it was.

Have I mentioned buying so many bulk deals in, erm, bulk binges is highly counter-intuitive to actually digesting so much substance in single sittings? It'd be like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet and grabbing one sampling of everything, but putting it all into a blender and slurping it down as some bizarre smoothie concoction. Sure, you've now technically sampled everything, but it's all mushed together into one singular taste. Okay, maybe it's not like that, but damn, what an analogy, eh?

Anyhow, Sälis was the album DJ 3000 released a few years after following Galactic Caravan. Or was that Besa? Both were released the same year, and some promo around the time claimed Sälis was instead a compilation of various digital releases. Sifting through Lord Discogs' database, however, reveals most of these tracks are unique to Sälis alone, save three cuts off the Moroccan Mint Tea EP. Sälis did initially have a Japan-only release, so perhaps it was intended as a compilation for that market, but wound up being a regular ol' album after the fact? Who knows at this point, doubt it matters half a decade on.

What I do know for sure is Sälis was produced when Franki returned to Detroit after some time spent in Europe. Being back in the techno mecca rekindled his faltering muse, from which the album takes its namesake (solace, so to speak). That chiller mindset resulted in an LP that's not quite so dynamic and boisterous as Galactic Caravan, but has its fair amount of choice ethnically-tinged tech-house on offer too. Tracks like Fade Away and Gateway To Mumbai throw in the requisite tribal rhythms, chants, and desert harmonies, while tunes like Shota and Lutë are more subtle about it, letting the Detroit vibe override anything ethnic.

And though there are plenty of uptempo, peak-hour tech-house tunes on offer, DJ 3000 tends to go deeper throughout, treading into the domain of deep-tech, but good! Like, obviously it would be, no European monotony in this Detroit alum's veins. I'd almost fit this with the same style of deep house/tech as whatever Dirtybird often churns out, though less silly about it. Overall, perhaps not the best starting point for folks getting into DJ 3000 – I still rate Galactic Caravan above this - but a worthy album/compilation/whatever from the man behind Motech.

Ink Midget - Re-Leave

Exitab: 2012

There's some downright obscure shit out there, my poor Windows Media Player helpless in its attempts at auto-identifying whatever music it's currently decoding and digitizing to my external hard drive. Not a big deal, thinks I while sipping on pinot noir (or a Monster Sunrise). Just slot the CD in its appropriate alphabetical place within my “to review” tower, and I'll deal with the details when I get to it.

Only, I was left stumped on this Ink Midget. I knew it had to be part of my regular queue, as I'd uploaded it to my portable player at some point, but I didn't see it among the surrounding CDs. Might it have been a digital-only item? No, those at least have cover art. Well, whatever, I'm sure once I listen to it, I'll solve its mysterious origin. Wait, this is a dubstep release? How did I end up with this? Did someone hand it to me after Shambhala? Wouldn't be the first time I was given a promo from that festival.

As always though, Lord Discogs finally shed some light on the matter, at the very least providing me art I could identify it with. And upon seeing that Re-Leave art, I went, “OOHH-ooohh... it's that CD. Huh, I thought it was an indie rock thing.” Admit it, just from a glance, you'd never guess this is dubstep, to say nothing of the four-page foldout with even more water-coloured art within. Plus, it's a big, bulky digipak, the sort of thing I've come to expect from... well, not dubstep, that's for sure. Explains why it wasn't in my usual “to review” tower though, not fitting in the slots and all.

*whew* Alright, all that out and sorted, how does this album from Ink Midget stack up. It's... fine, I guess? Adam Matej certainly tries infusing the genre with some ideas against the tropes of the time, but adding a pile of glitch stutter effects to one's half-time beats feels overkill. He's clearly listened to a bunch of Hyperdub material, and wants to make music like that, but overshot the mark on the production level. There's a dub-trap cut in Night Float that's fascinated by the pitch of the snare's reverb. There's the clear nods to Burial ambience in Flue and Clue (heh). There's some “we're getting ultra-wrecked, man!” grime rapping in Fisheye (though Pjoni's Slovak). There's a dope double-time builder in Půlvlk, with a secret ambient song after. Hey, that's a novel bit of retro!

I dunno, Re-Leave feels quite middle-of-the-road where this sound is concerned, though I'm hardly an expert in this particular genre, my experience still at a surface level. Maybe folks who digest every tiny ounce of dubstep, future-garage, and UK (Slovak?) bass could give a better comparison of Ink Midget against the scene's grand pantheon. On the other hand, I had to submit the CD version of this to Discogs, so maybe this is rightfully obscure too.

Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

Chrysalis/Capitol Records: 1983/1999

The only Billy Idol album you're supposed to have ... is probably a greatest hits package, if we're being honest. If you must get one of his standard LPs though, Rebel Yell is probably the one. Sure, you're missing out on such timeless jams like White Wedding, Mony Mony and Dancing With Myself, but look at what you get here. Rebel Yell! Eyes Without A Face! Flesh For Fantasy! Uh, Catch My Fall and Blue Highway too, I guess.

Yeah, I'm not gonna' front. Vitol Idol remains my definitive collection of Billy Idol tunes; however, it lacks one of his all-time ass-kickin' songs, Rebel Yell. Essentially a remix album, the tracks on there were intended for dance club efficiency, and Rebel Yell was too much of an out-and-out rocker to fit that bill. Plus, Eyes Without A Face is a ballad, thus ineligible for Vitol Idol consideration. No, if I wanted those songs, I'd have to get the album from which they first appeared. Or a greatest hits package, but where's the fun in that? Like, this was Billy Idol's most successful album, so maybe there's a few overlooked gems that were overshadowed by the huge singles, and thus lost when folks started going straight to the hits collections instead. Alright, I'm super pumped in hearing some Album-Orientated Idol now. Let's do this, with a Rebel Yell!

And there's that iconic titular opener, and no matter how many times I've heard it on TV or rock radio, it never fails in getting me hype. Especially those little synth fills, ooh such shivers down the spine for a techno-boy such as I. Daytime Drama is our first instance of AOI, and it's a fun slice of new wave boogie for the inner-city clubs, including a jaunty little synth solo. Sounds good thus far.

Eyes Without A Face follows, and confessional time: for years, whenever I heard this on radios, I wasn't sure it was actually a Billy Idol tune. Yeah, the mid-song bridge, with Idol going full sneer and Steve Stevens' distinct shredding, should have been all the convincing I needed. Still, do you hear those ultra-tinny, heavy-reverb Fairlight drum machines in the beginning? The softer croon? The backing female in the chorus? Might this actually be a Human League song? Ah, the uncertain years of a pre-Discogs era.

As mentioned, Flesh For Fantasy and Catch My Fall are also here, but I'm so used to their extended Vitol Idol versions, they feel kinda' slight on Rebel Yell. And as for the rest? Blue Highway and Crank Call have fun solos. Stand In The Shadows is a fine uptempo rocker. The Dead Next Door serves as a decent album-closing ballad. Not much else leaps out from these filler tunes though, much less being overlooked gems in Billy Idol's wider discography. I'm not surprised though, Idol truly one of those classic artists who lived off his biggest hits. Was still time well spent confirming it though - nothing ventured, nothing learned.

Dr. Atmo - Quiet Life

...txt: 2014

It's astounding that it's taken this long for me to get an album from Dr. Atmo. Chap was instrumental in luring me into the wider world of underground ambient music, first coming across him on the Ambient Auras compilation. Shortly after that, I picked up the Stud!o K7 VHS tape 3Lux-3, of which Dr. Atmo compiled, completing my early ambient indoctrination. You'd think I'd eagerly rush out and grab anything else I saw his name on, but Amir Abadi never made it that simple. He was first and foremost a DJ, often sharing chill-room space with the likes of Mixmaster Morris and Dr. Alex Patterson (what's with the DJing ambient doctors?).

And when he did get behind the producer's console, it was often with others, running through a number of collaborative aliases in the process. Most famous of those was as Silence (and Escape) with Pete Namlook, but also included Oliver Lieb (Java and Music To Films), David Moufang (I.F.), Ramin Naghachian (Sad World), plus many, many more. Of course, since most of these works came out on Fax +49-69/450464, they're all hopelessly obscure, hardly the sort of items a Western Canadian had much chance of stumbling upon.

Dr. Atmo had apparently retreated from productions after the turn of the century, but an unmentionable label managed to drag him back in 2013 with Miss Silencio for a new album called Hush! I'm not sure how that one sounds, since almost all streaming options for it have been scrubbed from the internet. Fortunately, Lee Norris lured Mr. Abadi to his ...txt print for another musical outing, Quiet Life. Ah, sweet, I bet this is gonna' be some ultra-blissy chill-out material, or some melancholic mood music straight from the good ol' archives of Fax+'s golden years.

Nah, brah, Dr. Atmo's laying out them sweet New Age licks on yo' ears, brah. Wait, what? Opener Sunshine And The Sea is pure night-time tranquility, as though you're listening to a harpist gently pluck her strings beside a peaceful pond; y'know, straight up New Age schmaltz. Following that, we have a literal lullaby in Find Your Home, with one Nuwella Love softly guiding your straying thoughts to a light toy-box melody. I cannot deny it does impart childlike whimsy, the sort of trusting surrender one can only feel as a wee babe' with their loving mother cuddling you into a sense of ease. Takes a fair bit of dismantling of one's ego getting there though.

The rest of Quiet Life plays out more as I expected from a Dr. Atmo album (well, about as much as I could have expected given my limited exposure to his productions). Soft ambient techno, some tunes with a dubbier rudder in the rhythm sections (Road), others further treading into the New Age realms (Hang Garden, Subak), plus a good ol' collab' with fellow chill-room DJ alum Mixmaster Morris (Secret Of Mother). Yay, bouncy-happy trippy-dippy musics! What's he been up to, anyway? Ooh, a new Irresistible Force album, I see...

Cosmic Replicant - Processes

self-released: 2018

Normally I'd prefer a little space between reviews of the same artist, but Cosmic Replicant has proven so diverse, I'm practically covering someone different with each album. Like, just from an ear-glance, you'd never have guessed the music on Processes came from the same chap who made Future Memories or Soul Of The Universe. You might have made the connection based off of Landscapes Motion, and perhaps, if you squinted in the right direction, Mission Infinity. Surely little that was released through Altar Records though. Honestly, I'm not surprised Pavel's gone the independent route, the music he's releasing of late hardly gelling with traditional psy-chill prints, but likely not finding much footing with labels outside that field either. Or who knows, maybe one of his pure ambient outings might find a re-issue on Carpe Sonum Records. They don't all have to be Fax+ alum to appear on that label, do they?

Where does that leave Processes though? What label might be willing to give this seven track album a little more shine beyond the Cosmic Replicant contingent (we small few but proud). I feel super-cheeky in suggesting this, but perhaps... Kompakt? Or baring that, maybe... Music Man Records? I'm getting a real neo-trance vibe from these tracks, techno that is rather deep, with subtle building layers of melody. Tunes that wouldn't sound out of place in a set shared with the likes of The Field or Petar Dundov, is what I'm saying.

Okay, not so much the first couple tracks, more following on the dub techno explorations Pavel first ventured with in Landscapes Motion. Hypno Snake treads a little into Detroit's pastures, while Ants In My Computer does the droning minimal thing with peculating sounds that would fit snuggly in on one of Luke Slater's Planetary Assault Systems records.

Those are mere warm-ups though, Factory Processes getting in on that lengthy, loopy melodic techno stylee that's made neo-trance a maybe kinda' sorta' thing with the above-mentioned producers; Silent Season too, at their more upbeat moments. Mirror Cube and Morning Robots try to get back to the proper dub techno vibe, but even they're too chipper and melodic (them sparse bell tones!) to fit with the serious Basic Channel disciples.

The final pair of tracks are about as trance as techno could ever sound in this day and age, and in some circles, techno's been sounding quite trance indeed. Lunatic Runner has the peppy pace, the building arps, and the atmosphere to spare, while some chap named Noraus gives Strange Dream a dubby, trancey rub of his own.

For a talented guy who probably got lost in the shuffle of annual psy-chill releases, I'm glad to hear Cosmic Replicant taking on styles well outside the genre's wheel-house. Yeah, another Nature Of Life would have been nice, but it takes something more to stand out in that overstuffed scene. I only fear an album like Processes may leave Cosmic Replicant without a willing home to nurture such musical ventures.

Lingua Lustra - Portal

Carpe Sonum Records: 2018

It's been two years since I took in a Lingua Lustra album, and it's not due to disinterest. In fact, I remain quite intrigued in his works, but he has so much out there, on so many different labels, it'd require some serious sleuthing on my part. Also, I've taken in enough of his works to realize some releases won't be as captivating as others. Noodly ambient is fine and all on occasion, but I remain utterly sated on the stuff based off my usual label explorations, thank you very much. If I'm gonna' start focusing on a specific artist's output, especially one as prolific as Albert Borkent, I'd like the creme of the crop right from the top. The rest can wait for a time when there's a week's worth of hours available for a deep Bandcamp spelunking.

Still, without sampling every item in an artist's catalogue, how does one find their best material? You go to the labels, my friends! Say what you will about streaming reducing the need for labels, but they still serve as useful curators, especially for a genre as impossibly massive as ambient. Even as I continuously poke and prod into this vast domain for new labels, there's something to be said for trusty ol' faithfuls, including Carpe Sonum Records. Given he stylistically meshes with much of this print's output, I'm surprised it took so long for Lingua Lustra to find himself there. I suppose there was no rush, what with his own Spiritech handling much of his music for a while (and, erm, the unmentionable label too).

What's most interesting about Lingua Lustra's first official album on Carpe Sonum is that it's almost a compilation. Despite the 2018 release, the tracks on Portal were made between 2013 and 2015, some of which even saw release elsewhere. Two had appeared on Carpe Sonum compilations, and another two found their way on Plusquam Chillout. That... may not be as impressive, Plusquam responsible for an obscene amount of Ambient [Theme] digital compilations in the year 2014, flooding the streaming market with their options. Gander at a sampling of their 'S' titles: Ambient Scape, Ambient Sessions, Ambient Shores, Ambient Sonics, Ambient Souls, Ambient Sounds, Ambient Stereo, Ambient Statros. Yeesh.

Back to Portal, Carpe Sonum sifted through Mr. Borkent's catalogue in selecting tracks for this release, including unreleased items. Whoa, you mean the lush, soul-melting ambience of The Gate Of Dawn sat in the Lingua Lustra archives sight-unheard for a half-decade? Even in his relentless digital-only release rate, Albert never saw fit to give this lovely composition the light of day? Oh, I'm sure he's got dozens of such releases, material sat on for whatever reason. The seven tracks on here are all quite lovely and spacey and dreamy and droney, though never exceeding the twelve-minute mark as some Lingua Lustra pieces have done in the past. If this album was meant to serve as a 'portal' in to his music (eh? Eh...?), job well done, Carpe Sonum.

BT - Movement In Still Life

ZYX Music: 2000

(a Patreon Reqest from Omskbird)

And thank goodness it's a request for the original UK version, not the busted-ass American version. I've let my dislike of Movement In Still Life: US Edition known, but I cannot reiterate enough just how much that version turned me off from BT's future output. Like, the cover shot alone felt confrontational to a connoisseur of the clubbing underground, Mr. Transeau pretty-boy mugging suggesting a run with boy-band fame and fortune. Throw in the fact tracks were neutered to pop-friendly lengths, plus lacking two of my hotly anticipated BT cuts at the time (Hip Hop Phenomenon and Fibonacci Sequence), and you can understand my utter bewilderment after my first playthrough. For a release that was clearly executive managed for max North American appeal, it had the exact opposite effect for yours truly. Epic fail, yo'!

When I heard an alternate, original version existed across the Atlantic Ocean, I knew, unheard, it was the superior cut of the album. Then global internet forums compared notes, confirming my suspicion of just how shafted American BT fans were on Movement In Still Life: Inferior Version. Unless some of y'all liked the US edition. For the love of me, I cannot imagine why. Too much awesome to handle in the UK edition?

That all said, it was many years before I got around to hearing Movement In Still Life: UK Edition, for no better reason than it was too expensive to import. In fact, it wasn't until I started revisiting some of BT's earlier albums for this blog that I finally checked it out, and wouldn't you know it, I quite enjoyed what I heard! Hip Hop Phenomenon is here! The Sasha collaboration Ride is here! The Paul van Dyk collaboration Namistai is here! The full-length versions of Godspeed, Dreaming, Mercury & Solace and Running Down The Way Up are here! Andy Gray is here! Wait, what?

Superior songs and superior cuts of tracks notwithstanding, what makes Movement In Still Life: Superior Version so good is the flowing sequencing of tunes, of which the Paul Oakenfold co-producer had a helping hand in. It supplies a fun opening of various breakbeat tuneage, nu-skool still in its infancy and BT still showing restraint in how overtly complicated he made his productions. Following Hip Hop Phenomenon, we're served up some requisite classy progressive trance, most of which holds up to this day. Fine, I'll admit I was never that big a fan of Dreaming, but mostly due to how overplayed the generic trance remixes were – the nine-minute cut here at least provides some stylish detours throughout its runtime. The final couple tracks do a decent job winding things down, with Hybrid lending their breakbeat science to BT's non-abusive stutter effects, and Satellite serving as a nice, mellow chill-hop closer.

Overall, Movement In Still Life: The True Version does a good job capturing what was popping in UK clubland at the turn of the century. Perhaps not as adventurous as ESCM was, but certainly more consistent throughout.