Published on
April 17, 2017
Category
Features
Actress, GAS and gqom.
This week, Actress comes correct with one of the year’s best electronic albums so far, whilst Wolfgang Voigt adds the first new work to the GAS series in 17 years.
On the reissues shelf, there’s a glorious retrospective of art-house introvert Jan Van Den Broeke, plus a curious excavation of the mid ’80s project of Gary Ramon, better known for his long running psych/space rock band Sun Dial. Elsewhere, there’s a couple of killer edit 12″s to grab, a guaranteed dancefloor-winning gqom record via Black Acre, and gloriously strung-out guitar pop on 7″.
Scroll down for our definitive across-the-board rundown of the week’s new vinyl releases as selected by The Vinyl Factory’s Chris Summers, Patrick Ryder and James Hammond with help from Norman Records. 5 singles and 5 LPs every 7 days that are unmissable additions to any collection.
Singles
Brooch
Blood Spitting
(Tough Love)
Supergroup alert! Members of Yung and Ought got together during some downtime in Denmark and set about writing some mellow pop tunes that sounds like neither band. Instead these woozy productions recall Deerhunter or Pavement after a night on the valium. Gloriously strung out guitar pop.
Nan Kolè
Malumz
(Black Acre)
Nan Kolè’s Gqom Oh! label boss has helped to spread the stripped-back and broken South African house genre of gqom around the world, most notably with last year’s The Sound of Durban Vol. 1 compilation. Here, the Rome-born DJ and producer drops his debut EP for Black Acre and it’s an instant shaker! The percussive palette of ‘Malumz’ is offered up for remixes by gqom veterans Citizen Boy and Formation Boyz.
Spy Edits
Spy Edits 1
(Spy Edits)
Everyone loves a re-edit right? There’s hundreds released every week, most of which don’t really do anything at all but luckily we got this, a cheeky little number from the mysterious Spy Edits. One side bumps up the Peggy Lee classic while the other rips a Paul Simon bass line to bits. It’s a whole lot of fun.
Laurent Garnier
Speicher 95
(Kompakt)
With many a choice cut over three decades of activity this 12” comes as Laurent Garnier’s first effort for Kompakt records- which is in some ways surprising, given this natural pairing and both side’s propensity for adventurous techno that keeps the floor on the move. Having recently received the Légion d’honneur for services to electronic music you’d be right in assuming that Garnier’s masterful touch ensures there no duds amongst these three tracks, and the fluidity and restraint in the build up of ‘1-4 Doctor C’est Chouette’ is worth the entrance fee alone.
Pletnev
EP
(Bahnsteig 23)
It’s not often that edits make it onto this list, but this freaky four tracker from Russia’s Pletnev is something else. Careering wildly through the whole gamut of outernational sounds, this glorious ghost-train harnesses voodoo rhythms, ghostly post punk and spectral fx to totally trip out even the weirdest dance floors out there. Coming alive with industrial clatter and tribal batter, the EP packs a percussive punch while those outsider melodies satisfy your peak time paranoia with their anxious mutterings.
LPs
GAS
Narkopop
(Kompakt)
Following on from last year’s superlative 10LP back-catalogue box set, and a return to the live arena using this particular moniker, now Wolfgang Voigt adds the first new work to the GAS series in 17 years. From the outset this one allays any fears of bombastic direction changes or indeed pale rehashes of the past, as Voigt delves back into the depths of this densely textured and hyper-real sound world, showing he still has an inimitable formula for creating these highly immersive works. Adding to a collection that left such an indelible imprint on current conceptions of ambient music is a hefty prospect, but Narkopop feels like one of those rare efforts where an artist returns to a highly acclaimed project with a potency and intent that embellishes the originals, managing to bring it into the present with a certain unity to it’s past.
AZD
(Ninja Tune)
The play between what came, what is and what’s to come is crucial to the AZD, as the record glides effortlessly between ‘80s New Order-esque synth riffs, dancefloor machinations and an abstracted, future avant-garde. Radical graffiti artist and afro-futurist theorist Rammellzee is as an inspiration for the album, whose Gothic Futurism manifesto is predicated on meeting of ancient and the modern. That premise is extended to the sleeve design – is the chrome hand, dismembered at the wrist, a visitation from some distant future or an artifact, excavated and cleaned from an ancient past? More musings here.
Jan Van Den Broeke
11000 Dreams
(Stroom)
Two releases in and Belgium’s Stroom have already established themselves as the go to guys for electronic oddities, first reviving the lost score to an eighties cartoon then turning out a killer collection of Alain Neffe insanity. This week sees their 100% hit rate continue with a glorious retrospective of art-house introvert Jan Van Den Broeke. Equal parts ambient, Balearic, minimal wave and rain-soaked post-punk, ‘11000 Dreams’ combines the aching shyness of a Flying Nun classic with the tender ambience of the finest moments in the IC catalogue.
Modern Art
Stereoland
(The Handmade Rug Company)
A real curio this – it’s a reissue of the mid ’80s project of Gary Ramon better known for his long running psych/space rock band Sun Dial. Here he plays a brilliant brand of proto-indie pop that sounds like it should have appeared on Sarah Records or Creation. Saturated lo-fi songs for fabs of the Smiths, the Field Mice and the Wake.
Part Chimp
IV
(Rock Action)
Camberwell’s finest are back in business. This is Part Chimp’s first album in eight years since ‘Thriller’ and the boys are back with possibly their best album yet. It’s all here – the riffs, the quiet bits and the LOUD bits but this time it’s catchier than they’ve ever been and Tim’s vocals really cut through the noise with ease. They’ve all been busy doing other things but when they get back on it they really get back on it. Hot stuff.
AZD
(Ninja Tune)
The play between what came, what is and what’s to come is crucial to the AZD, as the record glides effortlessly between ‘80s New Order-esque synth riffs, dancefloor machinations and an abstracted, future avant-garde. Radical graffiti artist and afro-futurist theorist Rammellzee is as an inspiration for the album, whose Gothic Futurism manifesto is predicated on meeting of ancient and the modern. That premise is extended to the sleeve design – is the chrome hand, dismembered at the wrist, a visitation from some distant future or an artifact, excavated and cleaned from an ancient past? More musings here.
Jan Van Den Broeke
11000 Dreams
(Stroom)
Two releases in and Belgium’s Stroom have already established themselves as the go to guys for electronic oddities, first reviving the lost score to an eighties cartoon then turning out a killer collection of Alain Neffe insanity. This week sees their 100% hit rate continue with a glorious retrospective of art-house introvert Jan Van Den Broeke. Equal parts ambient, Balearic, minimal wave and rain-soaked post-punk, ‘11000 Dreams’ combines the aching shyness of a Flying Nun classic with the tender ambience of the finest moments in the IC catalogue.
Modern Art
Stereoland
(The Handmade Rug Company)
A real curio this – it’s a reissue of the mid ’80s project of Gary Ramon better known for his long running psych/space rock band Sun Dial. Here he plays a brilliant brand of proto-indie pop that sounds like it should have appeared on Sarah Records or Creation. Saturated lo-fi songs for fabs of the Smiths, the Field Mice and the Wake.
Part Chimp
IV
(Rock Action)
Camberwell’s finest are back in business. This is Part Chimp’s first album in eight years since ‘Thriller’ and the boys are back with possibly their best album yet. It’s all here – the riffs, the quiet bits and the LOUD bits but this time it’s catchier than they’ve ever been and Tim’s vocals really cut through the noise with ease. They’ve all been busy doing other things but when they get back on it they really get back on it. Hot stuff.
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