Review: Amsterdam festival DGTL's offshoot label has yet to deliver a duff release, with previous outings from the likes of Man Power, KiNK and Fort Romeau all passing muster. Predictably, their latest missive from sometime Disco Halal and Golf Channel artist Autarkic is also a winner. The Tel-Aviv born producer begins in confident style with "Strange Alliances", where dreamy, drifting vocals, wonky trumpet lines and inter-dimensional electronics rise above a heavy, metronomic, dub-influenced cosmic disco groove. It comes backed with two suitably stellar remixes: a spacey mid-tempo revision by Trikk Sekvica informed by the alien synthesizer sounds of early French electronica and hypnotic Middle Eastern music, and a rubbery, stargazing revision by Rebodello that sits somewhere between dark analogue house and intoxicating techno.
GoldHeart Mountain Top Queen Directory - (2:20) 104 BPM
Let The Water Run - (4:44) 85 BPM
Wipe The Shame (feat Xen) - (4:06) 56 BPM
Bongos & Tambourines - (3:41) 120 BPM
Warmth - (4:13) 140 BPM
Review: Tel Aviv's Nadav Spiegel takes off where he left us with last year's mini album Can You Pass The Knife? with the full-length I Love You Go Away. Touching on the likes of Jamie Lidell, Stuart Price, Luke Slater and Alexis Taylor with a great strength at hooky one-lines and profound pictures, Nadav remains pensively introspective over his often full-flavoured machine grooves. Highlights include the cloud-surfing instrumental "Let The Water Run", the heavily LCD laced hypnotic sermon "How To Cheat" and the poignant eastern sunset twang of the finale "Warmth". Outstanding.
Review: Next up on Tiga's Turbo Recordings is Tel Aviv's Autarkic, with what he describes himself as "Industrial Techno tribal goth dub vibes for 2075 and beyond!" He starts out with the hazy and low slung groove of "Rotation! Rotation!" featuring some nice new romantic style vocals, chunky synth bass and exotic drums; sounds like Human League gone Middle Eastern safari. The remix by fellow countrymen and rising star Red Axes is way more energetic and will definitely work the floor a bit better than the original. Also "I Know" hammers the message home gloriously on this sweet slice of 80s synth pop served up in 2016 style!
Review: Compiled by head of programming Vidmantas "B" Cepkauskas, Opium of the People is the first compilation from Lithuania's infamous Opium Club. It's a druggy, off-kilter and decidedly trippy affair, with Cepkuskas wisely choosing to showcase cuts from artists who in some way have helped shape the sound of the label. Expect to hear tracks that touch on EBM, new wave, new beat, bleep techno-influenced deep house, mutant disco, mind-altering techno and skewed acid house, with highlights - and there are certainly plenty scattered throughout the compilation - coming from the likes of Sharif Laffrey, Kris Baha, Lauer, V and Von Party.
Review: Since launching a couple of years back, Moscoman's previously vinyl-only Disco Halal imprint has led the way in fusing the sounds of the Middle East with contemporary electronic music culture. For proof, check Halal Collection, the label's first digital release. It offers an 11-track trawl through the best of the label's output to date, with a previously unreleased Red Axes remix of Autarkic's "How To Cheat" - think bubbling drum machine beats and lilting, cascading synthesizer melodies - thrown in. Highlights include a chunk of spooky, Arabic house hypnotism from Naduve, the skewed late night funk of TCP's "Twonga", the intoxicating, anthem-like throb of Simple Symmetry's "Voodoo Your Ex" and the thrillingly percussive disco-funk/acid house fusion of Red Axes, Moscoman and Krikor's "Subaru Pesha".