New Basal Sounds imminently going online. A much nicer looking version of this can be found soon at the
http://www.organicbeats.co.uk website.
FBD Project - The Core / Terminate (Bandcamp)
Out Now
A now sold out repress of two early 90s (1992-1993 to be exact) darkside jungle tunes from FDB project. Paranoid pulsing
synth pickets tick out a rhythm base that feels at no odds with technology. Almost completely natural in its style as the
fluttering furore that is slightly fear-lobed for your ear lobes. The vintage amen and soul pride breakbeat mashup sounds a
bit tired now but along with the timestretches proto Rufige Cru's "Terminator", around at the peak of this sound in 1994,
the DJ Die meets Override jungle of the day are noteworthy comparisons. In the context of the modern dancefloor this might
not pack a hertz-y punch, but reproducing the masters in this day and age of the jungle en vogue period is a novel idea as
any.
https://fbdproject.bandcamp.com/merch/fb...pre-orders
FatGyver - Talk To Strangers LP (ReDef Records digital release)
Out Now
Crunchy drums were forever epicentric to Janne Hatula's contemporary jungle pseudonym Fanu. With FatGyver, the fatness from
down-pitching the percussion results in whopper low frequencies and enough mid to boost the appreciation singal of everyday
life. With only two lyricists on the entire album, the genre is firmly pitched to instrumental hip hop, while there's a
subtle blurring of lines between downtempo as well. Hues of greenery-based symptomatica sprawl out with the beats in almost
sombre clusters of coolest blue. This changing of colour in sound is surprisingly coherent and free-spirited, but keeps the
weight of the sub close to its chest throughout. Particular standout 'Talk To Strangers (feat. Raw Poetic & Blu)' knots fluid
lyricism that loosens like a lead dropped into the ocean, and from there underwater timbres push to the surface with gusto.
https://soundcloud.com/redef/fatgyver
Maiians - Tokyo EP (Idiot King Records CD)
Out Now
Most praised track "Lemon" squeezes a framework of transcendent electronica driven by neon ambient synths and dizzying
sampledelia. There's a whiff of epitome about the two-drummer setup in relation to the jungle/dnb genres it takes certain
inspiration from. At the inception of the track, those shimmering skyline synths placate a consciousness-weary cityscape -
Maiians being from Oxford - and produce a very fresh version of progressive electronica. The great leveller - or levelling -
of all the channeled data remains tender handicraft. Toms and shakers swell like petticoat tails against the warm jumper
cable tying the record together - mellifluous melodies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl...ZcrHRhHEO8
White Blush - SubVersion Influences Mix - Free DL
Download Now
The synth pop megalomaniacal subgenre mop is often buffeted by lateral thinking - multiple counterpoint, musically, and in
White Blush's 2012 mix for my group blog SubVersion, at the outset the trajectory is synth pop that mops up melody and
wrings it from the edges of tempo. Likening a stadium posterdom through mid-career Joy Division in "Atmosphere", "Laura
Palmer" synthtronica twinkles and "The Wheel" from Tropic Of Coldness, this trip is more along the lines of what Gary Numan
was doing on the down low before the majors kept on milking it.
http://subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk/201...white.html
Julien.M - Put It Down (Sunraid Recordings)
Out Now
Shuffling, short shock sharp percussion rounds out a personable tech house sound-track from Julien.M, coming out of the
underexposed Section8 promoters, who have links with Metalheadz Data and Free Love Digi promotions. It's a pulsating
exercise in clinical excitement.
http://junglepress.org/sunraidrecords/r/...-down/5049
Aphex Twin - Computer Controlled Acoustic Experiments Pt. 2 EP (Warp)
Out Now
A quick follow up release to the highly acclaimed "Syro" from 2014. This time, Richard D James is focusing more on funk
frequencies with pianism over explicit electronica. The castle-like majesty is tripped away, folding rhythms careening into
jazz territory with hairy trees undercarriaged by worm basslines. The pieces wander well enough, not falling too deeply into
kitsch, and obtain a certain pertinence towards abstraction and resolution of modality. The piano playing, whether computer
controlled or not, is particularly impressive, meticulous phrases treading through Davis avenue, whereas the drums root up
and down the scales of natural timbre and rough-hewn grit.
http://www.juno.co.uk/products/aphex-twi...559880-01/
Venetian Snares - Hospitality (ZIQ140CD)
Out Now (actually, 2006!)
Funk is not usually also something I associate with Aaron Funk as Venetian Snares, since breakcore, drill 'n' bass and
orchestral downtempo normally eschews rhythmic structure in favour of syncopative orgy. But in "Hospitality EP", Snares are
supposed to work, you know. Like a sand dune rose over the masturbatory IDM (eurgh) crowd and collapsed the air viaduct,
then got washed over with a thunderstorm and left to cool down in holistically supportive spurts. I commented on "Cabbage"
for TDD Chapter 1 in 2006, but revisiting the EP this month, "Beverly's Potatoe Orchestra" and the massive "Frictional
Nevada" understand how to get under the skin of sugar analog melody acids. "Duffy" doesn't beg you for mercy here, to counter
the singer of the period, but contrives a traditional melodic pattern of major/minor interleaved. I'm glad I re-listened.
http://www.bleep.com
Villem & Macleod - Borrowed Love (Utopia Music)
Out Now
Mercurial rhythms and Cookin' Records likenesses abound this track on the B side to Bristolian label Utopia Music.
Sub-funked out and full of hummable melodies. Borrowed love is often unrequited, and that feeling certainly applies here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDImhOor9eI
Pageant - Victoria EP / Various Artists - The Outer Reaches Pts.1 & 2 vinyl (Omni Music)
There's an element of d-Bridge's fluttering atmospheres about Paegent's ambient dnb/electronica. Stooped out of the slurry
pit of Eurotrance, instead perched on a rooftop on some early 90s Ibiza secret beach. It's a brisk walk: slower BPMs, nothing
too ear-ripping or lacerating in terms of harmonic counterpoint. As an EP, the tracks dovetail in a spiffy, polished way,
blending Detroit Laurent Garnier in the vein of "Acid Eiffel". Pop and sputter of glitchtronica is subsumed for smoothness;
angularity ironed out but left to air in front of an open window. That's how the melodies feel, edging up amongst the upper
end of the octave with a parliamentary intent to net as much seat as they do raise a response.
"But if you listen to the tape, what was going on might have been in the atmosphere rather than the notes" continues Robert
Fripp in a completely unnparallel world as part of King Crimson in The Wire #368 (October 2014), which I happen to be reading
this month. That quote is apt as if you see the journey of jungle thru to drum 'n' bass and then back to wider 'EDM' (forget
what the denial hipsters say, this term was being used in the late 80s in America, not for Tiesto and the like) there is a
continuous parallel to this dialogue now: the development of the spoken genres has converged like a mixtape that dispels
specificity into a more try-hard eclectic, dogmatic thought breed.
The second part of the third-in-series Omni vinyl showcases extensions of these ideologues. Atmosphere is championed; short
clusters of notes stretched out into longer breaths that become inconspicuous and playful in a Cookin' Records fashion,
particularly Justice & Enjoy's "Reconstruction". Pete Rann and Tidal turn in more than a sonic "Sketch", and GLR's Voyager
and Aural Imbalance tow a line through continuous harmony with atmospheric drums arriving as the ordered dial in this
"Transmission Control". And it's all stellar stuff from Omni; someone commented it sounds "very much like Moving Shadow in
their prime".
http://www.omnimusic.org
Deep Space Research - Saturation (Bandcamp)
Out Now
This excellent handful of tracks is siphoned stylistically with fluency for fibre into a coherent LP without too much of the
titular saturation suggested. ASC's "Nectar" remix is a highlight, smoothing out his Autonomic crossover days with buoyancy
in the beats that bob like a shadowboxer drawing waves with his arms. The general strictness of 4/4 on the release and a
natural straightforwardness where nothing is too prog renders the compositions well, as if they transcend the cliche of
dancefloor/home listening by simply being fully realised as possible. Hardfloor's remix is another standout, a cutlass of
old school goa drumwork put to arpeggiated synth work that bubbles like a crystal cave's stalagmites from the ceiling up.
Deep space research indeed, in scope and gravitas direction.
https://deepspaceresearch.bandcamp.com/releases
Aphex Twin (speculatively) - Select SoundCloud Demos
'Nocares' / 'Redcalx (Slo)' / 'Plinky Plonk' / 'Lush Slow Blips' / 'Utopia' / 'With My Family' / 'Slow Early Morning'
'Organ Epic' / 'Martin's Car LPF' (from a whopping 110)
These tracks (I know I know, second mention of Aphex in Basal Sounds this year, what is becoming of me?) deserve a tail-end
mention to give you some free listening that works in a constant stream that strings out the gulf of ambient techno circa
Orbital and Dave Clark on the harder end of things, pillowing melodies boring against your alpha passage as you relax into
them. "Martin's Car LPF" is a real gem in this concentric regard, while "Red Calx" adapts the famous "Blue Calx" concave
lens and sinks the sinuousness of reverb through a compression filter. Overall there's some absolutely brilliant stuff by
Aphex standards in this illustrious bunch of demos, and it can be seen as a cornucopian magnifying glass on his whole ouevre.
http://soundcloud.com/user48736353001/sets/all
Agree with my selections this month? Anything I've missed, or anything I should be checking out for next? Get in touch via
[email protected] or hit me at @MuttleySV on Twitter.
I'll try and check them out before the 21st. 
. I love that there are 12 versions of this!
