Review: Acid Arab is a collaboration between Guido Minisky and Herve Carvalho, which seeks to unite the worlds of underground dance music and Middle Eastern tradition. In the wrong hands, this could have ended horribly, sounding like an advert for a package tour to Morocco. Thankfully on El Maghreb, for I:Cube's always essential Versatile, the pair manage to bring these two worlds together with great flair. The most functional track is "Mogador (club version)", where dense drums and spiraling horns create a fantastical, frenzied track. However, it's not hard to escape the notion that Acid Arab are capable of far more adventurous combinations and this is audible on the hypnotic, mysterious pipe playing and seductive pulses of "Hafla" and on "Amal", a slow-motion, dubbed out mood music piece.
Jacques - "Dans La Radio" (Mixed) - (3:19) 138 BPM
Review: Back in 2016, Ed Banger main man and nu-rave scene stalwart Pedro Winter AKA Busy P delivered a particularly excitable DJ mix that was affixed to the front of copies of Mixmag. Now the long-running magazine has decided to make it available as a paid-for download, with a big chunk of sales revenue going to the producers and remixers who feature. It remains a hugely entertaining excursion, with Winter quickly charging between glassy-eyed synth-pop (Breakbot, as remixed by Fatima Yamaha), mangled electro-pop cheeriness (Justice), contemporary French house (Mr Oizo, Cassius and Pharrell Williams), cowbell-sporting acid house revivalism (Playgroup, Kiddy Smile), Middle Eastern headiness (Acid Arab), and the raw Sheffield sleaze of Crooked Man.
Review: To date, the Acid Arab Collections EPs and CD - compiled by the Paris-based producers behind the concept, Guido Minisky and Herve Carvalho (who DJ/produce under the Acid Arab alias) - have been little less than stunning. This third vinyl-only EP is of a similar standard. As usual, there's a strong focus on house and techno, with Middle Eastern instrumentation, vocals and samples atop. Highlights include the raw, heavy pump of Society of Silence's deliciously distorted "Baghdad", the spiraling, Brown Album-era Oribital style intoxication of An-I & Capablancas "Farsi Farce", and the ghostly horns and humid pulse of Gilb'r Beesan Rum's "A Song For Anna".
Review: One of Europe's biggest electronic music parties sets out an impressive taster for this year's event. Mixed by French DJ/producer Brodinski, it moves from the deranged, siren-led "Slope" by Joe, through the swinging techno of Randomer's "Bring" and the chord-heavy groove of Brendon Moeller's take on Appleblim & Peverelist's "Over Here" before moving into more raw forms. This is articulated by the rough analogue jack of Marquis Hawkes' "Outta This Hood" and the firing, lean techno of Robert Hood's "Protein Valve (Edit 1). Brodinski also deserves kudos for dropping the grainy, surging bass and crisp drums of Claro Intelecto's rumbling electro killer, "Tone"
