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News
New Releases
Festivals
Listen
Watch
Charts
Credits
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JULY 21 - AUGUST 3
Earplug is a twice-monthly email magazine, delivering a handpicked
selection of news, sounds, videos, and original features to the international electronic-music community.
Word on the street — OK, in the press releases — is that BPM magazine is relaunching this September, with a new look and expanded coverage of everything from gear to nightlife. At a time when everyone from clubs to publicists and even some techno-friendly printers of fishwrap seems to be moving away from electronic music, it's reassuring to see a North American publication redoubling its efforts. Meanwhile, some fresh faces are also getting in the game: the gearheads at San Francisco's Robotspeak recently launched an eponymous magazine, a free print zine dedicated to software, hardware, and the artists who make them sing. So, in the spirit of renewal, we bring you news of killer new software updates, long-players from some under-recognized acts on the scene, and a couple of festivals up north that are giving "Old Europe" a run for its money. We're not clowning around; there's room in this car for everyone, no matter how big their shoes.
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Get a CD loaded with unearthed indie and underground hip-hop, rock, electronica, and whatever we uncover that's soothing to the ears. Best of all, get it for FREE. You just pay the shipping and handling. For a limited time, we'll even pay the shipping for the first CD — what do you have to lose? (You're not a virgin anymore, so... nothing!) |
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Music for Air-Conditioning
Though festival season is in full effect, replete with the obligatory summer bangers ("Geht's Noch?" anyone?) and sun-drenched outdoor sessions, there's plenty of new and upcoming electronic music that can be enjoyed on headphones in the confines of your centrally cooled abode, or in a dark, strobe-lit basement, for that matter. Type continue their strong push into the ambient/ experimental realm with Julien Neto's drifting, electro-acoustic Le Fumeur de Ciel, while Portable's Version (~scape) and Felix Laband's Dark Days Exit (Compost) apply deft micro-sampling and razor-sharp drum edits to the downtempo realm. Meanwhile, in addition to a recent string of remixes, Lindstrom, our top Norwegian, reissues his epic disco masterpiece "I Feel Space" (originally released in May by Feedelity) on August 30 via Playhouse — this time with remixes from M.A.N.D.Y. and electro-disco kingpin Isolée. Elsewhere, Monolake's recent Polygon Cities (Imbalance Computer Music) stands as the antithesis of Ibiza, with cold, minimal beats better suited to the bleak vibe of pre-unification East Berlin, while Ivan Smagghe's new Fabric mix (out this week) touches up techno with industrial rewires and grating acid. Finally, for those wanting a proper party record, look no further than Chelonis R. Jones' Dislocated Genius (Get Physical, September). Given titles like "Blackface," we don't think the watermelon he's munching on the front cover is simply a summertime icon, but thanks to Booka Shade's off-the-wall production, even a potentially inflammatory tune like "Middle Finger Music" becomes a love-in on the dance floor. (CJN/PS)
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Software Toughens Up
As any GarageBand user can tell you, the barriers to entry into the home-studio market have never been lower — even for those who are sans band (and garage). With several new developments on the software front, the outlook for amateur laptoppers and professional producers alike is better than ever. Last month, Sweden's Propellerheads released Reason 3.0, the latest update to their popular virtual studio software, which folds Sim-like instruments — from samplers and drum machines to virtual analog synths — into an all-in-one, infinitely expandable rack of knobs and faders and bobbing patch cords. With a nod to the increasing ubiquity of Ableton Live, Reason 3.0 adds two new features intended to facilitate live performance, and for studio shut-ins, the MClass Mastering Suite beefs up the program's final sound. Ableton, in turn, ups the ante with the launch of Live 5, currently in Beta and slated for a late July release. Live 5 increases the application's arsenal of instruments and effects, retools the Simpler sampler, and offers improved power management and overall optimization of the UI. Most intriguingly, Live 5 introduces a number of features geared toward remixers intent upon applying a stroke of genius to pop culture's products. Looks like mashups aren't over yet.
Meanwhile, for users who like to throw around phrases like "higher levels of abstraction," Native Instruments' recently released Reaktor 5 offers the ultimate buzz. Reaktor 5 vastly expands the multipurpose application's range of instruments, from subtractive synthesizers to grooveboxes. But the real rewards come to those who unlock its Core Technology, a modular construction system that allows users to construct new instruments from the oscillator up. Frustrated that so many musicians use the same instruments as you? Reaktor 5 offers a simple (OK, not that simple) solution: build your own. (PS)
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MORE HEADLINES
30,000 Baltic Ravers Can't Be Wrong
Clubbers flock to Tallinn's Tampax World of Drum and Bass Girl Power more »
Knitting Motor City
Lucky Kitchen's Yarning Detroit
more »
Just Don't Call It Techno
Frisco grapples with fear of disco more »
Burning Down the House
PopMatters on acid more »
In Praise of Slowness
Nitsuh Abebe on post-rock's "Lost Generation" more »
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Snark
Why novelists shouldn't write about music more »
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Artist: |
Ari Up |
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| Album: |
Dread More Dan Dead |
| Label: |
Collision |
| Release: |
July 12 |
Judging by the length of Ari Up's dreads, she hasn't cut her hair since the Slits went splitsville in 1981. She also clearly hasn't cut her ties with Jamaican music. Dread More Dan Dead is as soaked in Caribbean rhythms as the Slits' own masterful Cut. It's also almost as eccentric. The punkish, out-of-tune guitars and lopsided drums of her former band have been replaced by washes of digital strings and rocksteady machine rhythms, but Up's wails and growls are as unhinged as ever. Recorded in Brooklyn, Berlin, London, and Jamaica, Dread soaks up the sound of each locale, handily juggling dancehall, punk, and electronic styles. At times, it seems she might have done more with fewer options — the dub/breakbeat/ techno track "Kill Em with Love," for example, isn't jacking, it's just a jack-of-all-trades — but when she focuses, as on the spooky, Ras Michael-flavored "Can't Trust the Majority Mass" or the eerie, ululating "True Warrior, she proves that there's nowhere to go but Up. (PS)
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Artist: |
Jacen Solo |
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| Album: |
Virgo |
| Label: |
Ai |
| Release: |
June 20 |
England's Ai label has been quiet since the release of Claro Intelecto's Neurofibro album over a year ago, but Virgo shows that it hasn't been so much biding time as delving deep into timelessness. Jacen Solo's fantastic debut album fuses radiant Detroit techno with the rhythmic trickery of IDM's golden age, before the quasi-genre disappeared up its own analog interface. The CD's 11 tracks layer glossy pads over minimal machine rhythms, take circuit-borne bass lines into new orbits, and explore every last corner of electro's syncopations. Straddling acid and ambient, Virgo maps an imaginary constellation outlined by the amber glow of Aphex Twin and B12's ancient explosions; Solo's star, pulsing at a frequency that's impossible to ignore, burns white hot, suggesting that it's not the age of the genre that matters, but rather the time it takes to beam itself earthward. (PS)
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Artist: |
DJ Koze aka Adolf Noise |
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| Album: |
Wo Die Rammelwolle Fliegt |
| Label: |
Buback |
| Release: |
May 2 |
Following a slew of club-conquering releases on Kompakt, DJ Koze (née Stefan Kozalla) shifts gears with Wo Die Rammelwolle Fliegt, a downtempo affair harking back to his hip-hop roots and cheeky signature as a member of electronic-soul trio International Pony. Under his Adolf Noise moniker, Kozalla employs breezy harp, piano, glockenspiel, quirky vocal samples, and undulating synthesizer melodies to craft an introspective, irreverent, eclectic, and playful album that leaves the listener with the warm sensation of being wrapped in a homemade patchwork quilt. Standouts include "Zuviel Zeit?," a cut-up vocal romp that transforms aging schlager-pop singer Gunter Gabriel into a Teutonic MC, and "Last Night of the Year," an ephemeral track that ushers in the New Year with a whisper in lieu of a bang. (JJ)
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Artist: |
Mutamassik |
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| Album: |
Masri Mokassar: Definitive Works |
| Label: |
Sound-Ink |
| Release: |
July 25 |
As clubs from Beirut to Dubai pulse with potent blends of hip-hop, Arabic pop, and Top 40 mashups, agit-popster Mutamassik has built her own promised land by welding junglist aesthetics to Middle Eastern folk rhythms. Though she first garnered notice through a split session with DJ /rupture, the Arab-American Brooklynite has been releasing tracks for labels like Sound-Ink and Soot for eight years now. Finally collecting her raggafied oeuvre on one volatile album, Masri Mokkassar offers deft manipulations of the bludgeoning breakbeats that Western pop has been pillaging for years. Wailing choruses, peppy handclaps, and the sounds of choppers and sirens are folded into fiery drum 'n bass workouts, while loops of jittery hip-hop nod to dome-expanding verses from Def Jukie 4th Pyramid. True, all this fusion is sometimes marred by moments of knee-jerk breakcore, and the "Definitive Works" never quite gel into a whole, but they nevertheless form a blistering statement of intent. (TW)
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Artist: |
Various |
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| Album: |
4 Women No Cry |
| Label: |
Monika Enterprise |
| Release: |
June 2005 |
Having scoured the world for unique approaches to production, with this release, Monika label boss Gudrun Gut compiles some of her best finds — four female musicians from around the globe. While they differ in style, the artists are often united in the way they meld traditional song structures from their respective countries with laptop-enabled samples, textures, and edits. Argentinian Rosario Blefari's despondent "Partir y Renunciar" blends a simple, guitar-based folk song with tinny breakbeats and a buzzing synthesizer drone, while Georgian visual artist Tusia Beridze sings an Eastern European campfire classic ("Gorod") tinged with a subtle delay that makes her whisper seemingly stick to the air. On "12h12," Parisian Eglantine Gouzy adds a playful, stuttering pop touch that brings to mind Stereolab's most creative moments; and Catarina Pratter rounds out the foursome, exploring dark, brooding dub techno on "Stronger than Before." (CJN)
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EARPLUG FAVES
Audion, Suckfish (Spectral)
Marc Hellner, Marriages (Peacefrog)
Electrelane, Axes (Too Pure)
Jason Forrest, Shamelessly Exciting (Sonig)
Arpanet, Quantum Transposition (Rephlex)
Greg Wilson, Credit to the Edit (Tirk)
Mark Stewart, Kiss the Future (Soul Jazz)
Modeselektor, Hello Mom! (Bpitch Control)
Various, Fueradeserie! Presents Snowdrop (Fueradeserie!)
Various, Kitsuné Maison (Kitsuné)
Various, Kalk Seeds (Karaoke Kalk)
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PREVIEW: Koneisto
August 12-13
Helsinki, Finland
Helsinki's remote location isn't exactly a tourist magnet, but Koneisto's reputation as one of Europe's most consistently engaging festivals draws increasing numbers to its Arctic circle dance.
Eminem may rule Eight Mile, but only hip-hop's weirder offspring make the trek this far north, with Wu-Tang's Raekwon the Chef serving up his oddball concoctions and the recently chopped and screwed TTC dicing their froggy flow six ways to dimanche. Adam Freeland and Michael Mayer represent breaks and techno's respective global spreads; and if the inclusion of Bedrock's Luke Brancaccio suggests that Koneisto may be regressing from its adventurous vision, breakcore assassin Hellfish is on hand to scare away the handbag housers.
You can catch the likes of Mouse on Mars and Roisin Murphy at just about any event this summer, but what distinguishes Koneisto is the chance to discover regional musicians like the avant-folky Pastacas or the lo-fi Aavikko — who bill
themselves as "Synthy Ensemble Finland." Of course, there's one name that will scan for everyone, no matter their proximity to Scandinavia: Norwegian pop goddess Annie. (PS)
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PREVIEW: Numusic
August 24-28
Stavanger, Norway
While you're off chasing the Aurora Borealis, it's worth wending your way to the western coast of Norway for the five-year-old Numusic event. Norway may feel far away to many in the AngloEuroAmerican electronic-music world, but its influence is anything but — having given the world Biosphere, Röyksopp, Tellé Records, Erlend Øye, and the combined rosters of Smalltown Supersound and Rune Grammofon.
Numusic's range is clearly inspired by its southern cousin Sónar, bringing together the likes of Luke Vibert, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Carl Craig, Jamie Lidell, Biosphere, David Toop, Brooks, and Rother & Moebius. But with venues accommodating between 150 and 600 people, crowding isn't the issue it is at messier massives. And when the inevitable agoraphobia sets in, workshops and new-media exhibitions provide welcome respite. And if they don't do the trick, you can always go look at the fjords. (PS)
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listen » |
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Diplo and Tripledouble: AEIOU Vol. 2 (MP3)
It may be a few years old, but the raw talent is as fresh as day on this incredible mix-up, released right before Diplo's critically acclaimed Florida album. Ever since, the man's been spelunking in funk's deepest recesses, in Brazil and places widely unknown.
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listen » |
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Steppa Style: 3 Table Dancehall Mix (MP3)
Summer heat and reggae beats are inextricably linked, so don your favorite wifebeater, cozy up to a yard of fuzzy navels, and let the dub and dancehall vibes soak you like so many pitchers of dirty water. DJ Steppa gets loose on three turntables here, splicing hip-hop instrumentals together with upfront reggae vocals.
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listen » |
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Wighnomy Brothers at Awakenings 2005 (RealAudio)
They may be labeled by some as the "Sasha and Digweed of microhouse," but the Wighnomy Brothers — aka Robag Wruhme and Monkey Maffia — aren't afraid to let their mix sets stray outside strict techno boundaries. Listen in as they take over the dance floor at Holland's Awakenings party.
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listen » |
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Drop the Lime at Wasted, Berlin (MP3)
Drop the Lime — aka Brooklyn's Luca Venezia — escapes from the "my beats are crazier and harder to listen to than thine" fraternity of breakcore DJs and producers with a big nod to the UK dubstep underground and the US crunk and dancehall scenes. Watch your bassbins!
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listen » |
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Mantis Recordings Presents Public Nylon (RealAudio)
Derby's Mantis Recordings — a cousin to nearby Nottingham's legendary DIY crew — is famous for turning out tunes that are simultaneously deep, jacking, and a little bit weird, thanks to artists like Atjazz, Brooks, and Herbert collaborator Phil Parnell. Get your kicks with these insects' clicks.
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Looking for more hot mix sets and fresh new tracks?
Check out Blentwell for an
ongoing document of the evolution of blended music online.
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Rize
Lions Gate, 2005
In theaters
Rize is ostensibly a documentary on the dance subculture movement called "krumping," but at its core, photographer/director's David LaChapelle's film is about survival. Two different camps of South Central Los Angeles youth — known colorfully as Clowners and Krumpers — dance with frenetic energy and urgency, as if their lives were on the line. As the camera shadows a handful of spirited, dedicated kids during battles and practice sessions, it becomes clear that the participants' commitment to their ever-evolving dance form is one of the few lifelines in an increasingly dangerous urban landscape.
Mixing elements of b-boy top-rocking with the aggressive tension of a mosh pit, krumping offers a non-violent, hyperactive form of controlled anger management. (Think of it as the 'hood's own form of group therapy.) Clowning, meanwhile, is a more sedate, yet by no means less vibrant version of its sister form; created by the film's memorable Thomas Johnson (aka Tommy the Clown), it unites the complex movements of krumping with the comical jesting of the big top's most famous pranksters — face paint and costumes included. Both forms eventually mix it up at the Battle Zone, an epic downtown dance-off culminating in one of the film's most powerful moments.
Although Rize suffers from some underdeveloped moments and a tendency to sermonize — particularly with regard to the history of a dance form clearly derivative of African and Native American tribal traditions — it is nonetheless an eminently enjoyable, often incredible tale, powered by a kinetic soundtrack, first-rate photography, and characters so deeply entertaining that it's a pity it runs only 86 minutes long. (SM)
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Each week, Earplug sneaks a peek inside the crates of our favorite DJs. We'll even help you beef up your own bag: click on selected titles to preview, download, or purchase vinyl.
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Adam Freeland
(Marine Parade)
Brighton, England
www.marineparade.co.uk
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- Evil Nine, "Pearshot (Switch Mix)" (Marine Parade)
- Sly Fi, "Wild Wild Child" (Marine Parade)
- Freeland, "Heel 'n Toe (Daniel Taylor Mix)" (Marine Parade)
- Infusion, "Careless Kind (Evil Nine Mix)" (BMG)
- B-Movie, "Nowhere Girl (Adam Freeland Mix)" (WMG)
- The Doors, "Hello I Love You (Adam Freeland Mix)" (Marine Parade)
- Daft Punk, "Robot Rock (Soulwax Mix)" (Virgin)
- Soulwax, "NY Excuse" (PIAS)
- LCD Soundsystem, "Disco Infiltrator (FFS Bootleg Mix)" (white label)
- Autolux, Future Perfect (Sony)
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Click to view all of this week's charts »
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Editors:
Philip Sherburne
Doug Levy
Sascha Lewis
Cyrus Wadia
Jon Spooner
Steve Marchese
Founder:
David J. Prince
Cover Design:
Marco
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Contributors:
Kendra Borowski
Andy Cumming
David Day
Jorge Hernandez
James Jung
Andrew Kellman
Mandy Minor
Colin James Nagy
Nick Parish
Tim Pratt
Maggie Stein
Mark Teppo
Toby Warner
Production:
Sameer Shah
Anjuli Ayer
Peter Stepek
Joe Colly
William Pierce
Sander-Martijn Milks
Melissa Phruksachart
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Submissions/Feedback |
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Tell us what you think is exciting and worth including in Earplug by dropping us
an email at tips.
Writers interested in getting even more involved should reach us at contribute.
To criticize, praise, or generally comment on this publication,
please send an email to feedback.
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Cover Design |
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We have an open call to create the covers that run at the top of each issue.
If you would like to submit a design, please email us at design
and we'll send you the necessary specs.
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About Us |
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Earplug is an email magazine dedicated to electronic music and its many dynamic styles and influences. Published every two weeks, it features a handpicked selection of music news, cultural spotlights, tip sheets, CD reviews, original reporting, and music festival previews and reviews. Earplug offers only pure editorial and unbiased news — no money is accepted from any artists, labels, promoters, or companies seeking mention.
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