Review: While her catalogue is just a few releases strong, Elisa Bee has already released on key labels like Truncate and Hardgroove. Fluid Funk reinforces her reputation as a purveyor hard-edged but distinctive club tracks. The title track is based on firing percussion and concrete weight kicks, while "Yes Yes" sees her integrate high pitched stabs with a jacking ghetto rhythm. "Pins and Needles" is even more intense. It sees the Italian producer draw on vintage Robert Armani and Mike Dearborn for inspiration, dropping gained drums, rolling snares and a mayhem-inducing looped riff. "Forever Seeking" also features insistent claps and steely kicks - on this occasion, they are combined with dense filters for maximum impact.
Review: Hot on the heels of last year's release for Hot Haus, e-freq delivers this debut for Dance Trax. "E Is 4 Freak" is a fast-paced, gritty banger. It resounds to insistent steely percussion and high-octane beats, with a series of filtered drops and builds and subsonic bleeps layered over the top. It makes for a powerful, distinctive affair. On "Dream State", a more esoteric approach applies; inspired by the jacking grooves of Chicago house, the track features tripped out vocal samples and an acid-tinged, frosty synth line that keeps on building through the arrangement. It's sure to attract the same level of support that the Hot Haus release received.
Review: Garnering a name for itself across the Unknown To The Unknown multiverse and other labels like Manchester's Dansu Discos, Lost Palms and UNDERTHESEA, Serbian-born, Brookyln-based rave revivalist Bojan Cizmic aka X-Coast brings the original sound of '90s rave, acid and techno to a new generation. Pushing at the higher BPMs there's no denying the pure trance sensations inside this EP's title track that goes deep, melodic and a inspiringly-so: melancholic. French producer Anetha (Oak / Work Them) throws down some contemporary industrial techno in her remix but for that pure referential element that sounds just as fresh today as it did back in the summer of love, look to the psychoactive vamps and vocals cuts of "Narcotic Influence" to the yearning themes, snare rolls and booming bass of "Bomba". Techno will always be trance to make you dance.
Folie A Dreamland (Jensen Interceptor remix) - (5:45) 138 BPM
Review: Enjoying her meteoric rise still is South London-based producer Nite Fleit, a new-school acid, electro and deeper spaced techno head who's earned a name for herself thanks to releases on Unknown To The Unknown, Vancouver's Planet Euphorique and others via her Australian association thanks to Mall Grab and Newcastle's Steel City label. For the Dance Trax label she turns in two cosmic, warehouse numbers that burn - both "Usual Suspects" and "Folie A Dreamland" see gnarly acid lines and hectic computer noise calmed by soothing synths underpinned and punctuated by heavy 808 kicks and raw, snappy snares. Jensen Interceptor turns in a gnarly night drive version in his remix, with D Tiffany looking down the '90s techno wormhole in her Hi NRG remix to "Usual Suspects"
Review: Dance Trax's second "Bonus Beat" comes from popular retro-futurist and rave revivalist DJ Haus. "Too Much Data" is a typically forthright and mind-altering affair, with the Haus-master (sorry) channeling his inner Cajmere by smothering a tough techno groove with raw electronic motifs and doom-laden spoken word snippets. Patrick Topping steps up to remix first, offering up a stomping revision rich in paranoid electronic riffs, glitchy percussion fills and kick-drums so weighty the dancefloor may not be able to support them. Rounding off the package is Dance Trax regular DJ Boneyard, whose bouncing, redlined techno revision is full of trance style synth stabs and darkcore style menace.
Review: Casio Royale is a project from underground DJ Mark Forshaw, which has already yielded three fine EPs on Dixon Avenue Basement Jams. For its fourth release, the UK spinner has defected to DJ Haus' label. Channelling the sound and spirit of early minimal house and techno, the title track features a wiry groove, pitched down vocals intoning the track's title and wild analogue riffs. "Work That" sees him look to ghetto house for inspiration, with a stuttering vocal intoning the track's title over a dense, jacking rhythm. On "JFM15", Forshaw continues his fascination with raw electronic music - there's a novel take on the vocals from Pump Up The Jam, layered over an urgent, analogue workout. Only on "Organa" does Forshaw go deeper, but even there the deep melodies are laden down with warm acid and rolling snares.
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