Review: 2020 marks the 25th year of !K7's acclaimed DJ-Kicks series with Mr Scruff following contributions of late from Leon Vynehall, Laurel Halo, Peggy Gou and Kamaal Williams! Mr Scruff's adventures in sound brings to DJ-Kicks more than 30 tracks of wildly varying styles featuring highlighted music from Equiknoxx, Tiger, Errorsmith, Max Graef and Zongamin. Scruff brings to his edition an exclusive collaboration with CyberPunkJazz ("3001: A Space Disco Remix") and an unreleased track from Andy Ash to boot. Alexander Robotnik makes in there with the wild New York post-funk of "Love Supreme" alongside a heavy Tony Allen percussion session in "Gbedu B". DJ Nervoso for the win too!
Review: Brooklyn trio Archie Pelago has always been one of Mister Saturday Night's more intriguing acts, with a sound that expertly blends live playing (trumpet, cello, sax), with analogue and digital electronics. While it would be incorrect to say that their tunes - think jazz, disco, Latin, soul, funk and house melded together - ape the work of Arthur Russell and Dinosaur L, but they're certainly in a similar ballpark. This latest single for Harkin and Carter's lauded imprint is another impressive outing. Choose between the Konk-meets-Floating Points-in-Brazil warmth of "Clammy Customer", and "Madame Suede Nightshade", a choppier and chunkier house excursion that makes great use of heavily edited samples, flowery chords and darting chords. Excellent stuff, as always.
Review: Brooklyn trio Archie Pelago are a hard group to pin down, and they've put out a wide-arc of music for the likes of Mister Saturday Night and Styles Upon Style after debuting in 2011 on UK label Slime Recordings. Here they deliver a mix of jazz, avant garde and experimentally inspired deep house that feel as if each track is coated in the thin fog of a cloud. There's field recordings too and this release is most suited to home-listening or your next commute , but for DJs happy to venture further into the wild side of selecting check out "Panopticon" and "Interloper".
Review: Sitting somewhere between Brandt Brauer Frick and Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, Brooklyn live-minded trio Archie Pelago have yet to drop a record that doesn't take generic boundaries and burn them down to the ground. Powered by rainbow shades of jazz, sharp craggy spikes of techno and sparkling flurries of lush electronica, this EP is their most adventurous to date. At over 30 minutes and five tracks, it's also their most generous. Vibe-wise the title track sounds like Harold Faltermeyer getting remixed by Aphex Twin while "Neighborhood Mephisto" continues the 160 tempo with an organic, string and horn heavy emphasis. Elsewhere we get spiritualised by the mournful cries on "Saturn V", we're KO'd by deep sax wheezes on "D's Diamonds" and experience the band's perspective on Detroit's legacy on "Chilly". Beautiful.
Review: After a heartfelt debut on Mister Saturday Night, Archie Pelago return with further adventures in instrumentation and modern beats, this time for Brighton's Well Rounded posse. "Subway Gothic" starts off in breezy tones, feeding snatches of saxophone, guitar, vocal and more into a dextrous beat pattern and smoothing it out with a melodic warmth, but there's surprises to be had, not least in the orchestral squall of the breakdown and the percussive intensity of the drop. "Ladymarkers" is a more subdued affair, riding a slow, broken house beat and letting those fragments of real-world musicality nip and dart around the groove with a free-flowing, jazz informed energy.
Review: Considering they are only a year into their releasing life, Archie Pelago sound like a full-bodied outfit that have been in the game for years. Surfacing on the equally fledgling Mister Saturday Night imprint, this three track EP moves between warm, dancing-friendly stomp and dislocated ambience, all rendered through a canny sampling, treatment, but most importantly playing of organic instrumentation. Sax, cello and trumpet work their way into crackly beats, finding the most tangible groove on "Brown Oxford" thanks to a crisp double bass but in more esoteric climes on "Alice". "Frederyk Swerl" spreads itself with an elongated excursion into shapeless flutters and scribbles of jazzed-out expressions that suit the talents of the three-piece perfectly.
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