techno Archives - BLAZAR

The Origins of Techno – Play That Funky Music White Box

BLAZAR — Wed, 10 May 2023 09:15:49 +0000

Some African-American techno pioneers in Detroit feel overlooked today – in a world dominated by Instagram neo-trance fitness girls and sponsored nepo kids throwing cakes at ravers in stadiums using lame premixed playback – or Beyonce claiming the entire house/LGBT+/club culture on her latest album.

Sure, techno gave the decaying motor city a much-needed energy and identity fix, and Berlin’s techno scene transformed the city and gained Unesco status, but I will still claim that techno is global folk music, with a much more complex back story.

Clearly, the Detroit veterans are tired of the idiots making money dancing in their footsteps… it sobvious that Detroit techno comes from Detroit – but does TECHNO come from Detroit? To Talk about race-related origins in a music genre based on sampling is absurd. What about “I Feel Love” Donna Summer & Giorgio Moroder’s prototype hit? To claim techno as originated frem a specific race or city is historical revisionism…and gatekeeping.

Techno is not mine, techno does not belong to a certain segment, or is the product of Japanese drum machines – techno is more than the sum of its parts – techno is ours – in bodies and brains shaken when techno is played in a room. Techno is an experience that momentarily suspends time and space, and thus geography. Some will argue that it can also suspend race, gender, and class for a second…a sonic utopia!

LISTEN TO MY NON-PURIST RETRO-FUTURISTIC CLASS TOURIST NON BINARY UTOPIAN TECHNO HERE

Some would argue that techno is not the music of the future anymore: some argue that there are rules in techno now – it’s almost a nostalgic genre – nostalgia for a lost vision of the future, now reduced to soul-less, overcompressed e-arobic dance tools.

It also feels nostalgic to talk about the origins and location of an ever-evolving internet-based global electronic music genre. Isn’t techno just in the head and body of the dancer and listener, us – across continents and races?

Sure, Africa’s funk is important for techno – Kraftwerk is inspired by James Brown’s rhythm section, adding almost romantic European melodies on top – and sound design tools that were only available through technology previously only available in conservatories and expensive electronic music studios. Detroit is inspired by the resulting early elegant romantic synthpop, sci-fi, and European conceptual industrial music.

But now some purists claim the party officially starts with Cybotron’s “Alleys of Your Mind” from 1981, which sold 15,000 copies, and A Number Of Names’ “Sharevari”. House finds its nascent form with ‘On & On’ by Jesse Saunders & Vince Lawrence in 1983. But before that, in 1979, Casio merged the calculator and synth:

LISTEN TO MY NON-PURIST RETRO-FUTURISTIC CLASS TOURIST NON-BINARY UTOPIAN TECHNO HERE

I can just, off the top of my head, mention a lot of things that are techno – even before Detroit-techno: cheap Japanese and American music technology, German avant-garde and tape manipulation, Indian drone music, Eno’s ambient, Lee Scratch Perrys dubs, Zapp, Yello, James Brown’s funk, disco, Afrobeat, found sounds from film and media, Belgian New Beat, Italo disco, Giorgio Moroder, Electro, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Flash’s “Adventures of the Wheels of Steel” & Steinski, Pink Floyd, Kraut, Industrial, Suicide and DJ megamix culture. Bernie Worrel’s synths, Sweet’s “Fox on the Run” intro, Who’s “Baba O’Rieley” intro, Pink Floyd’s “On the Run,” Pierre Schaeffer’s tape manipulations from 1942 and onwards, cassette tape pause buttons, Fuzzy, Herbie Hancock’s fuzak, original tribal music and a lot of soundtracks – I can go on…here’s my personal – strongly generalizing early techno history told in music:

LISTEN TO MY NON-PURIST RETRO-FUTURISTIC CLASS TOURIST NON BINARY UTOPIAN TECHNO HERE

Techno: my early years

LISTEN TO MY NON-PURIST RETRO-FUTURISTIC CLASS TOURIST NON BINARY UTOPIAN TECHNO HERE

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ENJOY MORTEN VAMMENS NEW MUSIC HERE

BLAZAR — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:50:17 +0000

ENJOY THE NEW ALBUM HERE

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DAKKEDAK DE LUXE / TECHNO REVIVAL

BLAZAR — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 14:36:22 +0000

Nostalgisk efter dengang du krammede en højtaler – efter at have danset med hele rummet – men mest med dig selv – hele natten badet i sved med øjne så store som Piratos? Du er sikkert for fin til den slags idag, nu EDM, e-arobic, Goa, feministisk trance, bizztech og Bride-dakkedak har ødelagt techno-genren?

Husk at ligesom rap kan techno BÅDE fungere som stadion-pop og rumle videre på nye eventyr i undergrunden – nogen troldmænd blev endda dernede og raffinerede stilen – og vi er midt i en renæssance – klubber som Ved Siden af, Module og Culture Box – og ikke mindst Københardcore leverer stabilt uden trap og flaske-borde, men oveni byder den kommende tid på skønne festivals og flashbacks med store mestre fra 90erne, der stadig udvikler sig:

24-26/8 – Karrusel festival: 26/8 spiller Sake-eksperten med undercut – Richie Hawtin – aka Plastikman på Reffen i en trylleskov skabt af Distortion holdet. Hawtin har siden sine massive tidlige acid ting på Plus 8 været posterboy for den helt tørre prætentiøse post-Detroit/Berliner lyd – så har han været igennem faser med galleri-ambient og semi sovset voksen-trance – men nu er han gået tilbage til en hurtig næsten industriel mono-kværn-stil. Han har nappet den gode gamle Kraftwerk ide om at tage kling-klang studiet med ud og spille live…så farvel CDJs, hello Ableton live og modular-knas.

25 August fra kl.16. spiller den ustyrlige evigt experimenterende rytmemester Bjørn Svin live (23:30) i boomende Nordhavn – check hyggelige gratis Komfy festival part 3 – med 3 scener og sauna – på det hemmelige klondyke Odds and Ends tæt på Tunnelfabrikken, Oceanvej 1. Der er et fantastisk jamaicansk inspireret soundsystem, et rum dedikeret til UK-inspireret D&B og så en udendørs baghave med klassisk techhouse med herlige Jokke og Jack “The Modfather” Rothe. Man kan sågar nyde gode vine og et udemærket måltid der. Et Kinderæg af lykke.27/8 17-02 på Jolene I Kødbyen: KØBENHARDCORE SUNDAY RAVE: for dem der ikke kan få nok og skal have den helt hårde stil – nogen vil kalde det meta-gabber – er denne søndagsklub perfekt. Nyd legender spille overraskende nuanceret fremtidsmusik -veteranen Klaus Boss & vores fineste producer-export, Peckerhead & venner kan deres kram.

30. AUGUST 2023 KLOKKEN 20.30 spiller modular-helten Sofus Forsberg et intimt liveset på fine Frederiksbergs Metronomen. 31/8 – 3/9 kører den fantastiske Strøm festival igen, der traditionen tro har et omfattende esoterisk program til alle aldre afviklet på et bredt spektrum af venues.

11/9 leverer SUNN O))) kl 20. et metallisk lydbad – teknisk set er bandet ikke techno og man kan ikke danse til det – men det vil klart virke for en del af læserne af denne guide – SUNN O))) har taget klangen af den hårdeste rock og fjernet melodunterne…tænk drone noise. Kali Malone varmer op og det sker i Konservatoriets Koncertsal.

2 September kl 20: Christian Fennesz (A) er anerkendt som nøglefigur og en af de mest markante stemmer i den elektroniske musik i dag. Hans brede internationale omdømme er blevet konsolideret gennem hans betydelige samlede bidrag til nye musikalske udtryk. Zoe Efstathiou (G/SE) & TSO (FIN) spiller også – forvent avantgarde, ikke dans på KU:BE, 2000 F.

22 september: Den flamboyante gamle punker DJ Hell spiller på lille Module – komplet med darkroom og tatovør overfor Tivoli – takket være legendariske Ann-Marie, der før har faciliteret intime sæt med ham på NASA. Jeg spillede engang med Hell i Den Grå Hal i 92, og allerede dengang var han super konsekvent, sjov og stilsikker.

23 September banker Matthias Tanzmann Culture box. til den lyse morgen.

Søndag 24 september: Dan Curtin spiller live gratis i Tagensbo Kirke fra kl.20.00 – 22.00. Dan er fra Ohio og bor som alle andre i den genre i Berlin nu, han har udgivet en reol af fine vinyler på labels som Peacefrog, Sublime & Mobilee. Som om vi bliver kristne af det.

Mit seneste album her

The Origins of Techno – Play That Funky Music White Box

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SPELL KIT (aka. DJ Quickstep aka Matthew Dickinson): Fast track to my heart

BLAZAR — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 10:23:19 +0000

Legendarisk 3 bølge techno-dj udgiver endelig herlig stilsikkert mini-album med ny minimal hybridmusik.

For længe længe siden var der en vaskeægte subkultur i København, hvor originaler mødtes i små vinylbutikker og spillede til hemmelige fester før medierne, stofferne, internettet og kommercialiseringen åd alt. Efter genren blev sparket igang i 80erne og jeg forsvandt i studiet dukkede en ny generation af finurlige djs op langt fra Købmand Bager, Goa og Gabba – et hold der selv i dag ville kunne smadre Orange scene eller Distortion i søvne: Bjørn Svin, Daniel San, Bjarke, Lab, Rune RK, Patrick Bateman, Dennis Uprock, Klaus Boss, Thomas Knak, Mathightass, Morten Kamper, Ned Flanders, Claus Es, Decare, Goodiepal og ikke mindst quirky DJ Quickstep, der endelig er aktuel med sin første udgivelse under navnet Spell Kit:

Hvornår begyndte du at dj og lave musik: I 94 som dj og så har jeg gennem årene lavet musik, først i 98 med pauser ind imellem. 90erne var sjove nogengange men også kedelige nogengange. Men mange weirdos og karakterer som gjorde det farverigt lol. Det ville være oplagt at sige 90’erne var guldalderen men det modne ikke tilbageskuende svar er at der er god musik hele tiden.

Hvorfor udkommer du først nu? Jeg har ikke rigtigt gjort noget med den musik jeg har lavet så jeg tænkte jeg måtte hellere tage mig sammen og lave et eller andet. Og det her var et sjovt projekt at gå igang med

Hvordan laver du det? Intet avanceret eller kompliceret, Live og FL Studio.

Hvad skal det bruges til? Blive sygt rig

Hvad er det næste? Måske nogen flere bånd. I hvert fald lave mere musik

Hvordan har drugs påvirket din musik? Sig nej til narkotika.

#Metoo oplevelser: Non-stop.. ladies kan ikke få nok af dj’s

Hvad samler du på? Ikke på noget. At samle på ting er for nerds.

5 gode tracks:
Brothel, barnacle boi: Slide
Maximum Love: Sometimes
Windows 96: Extreme Violet
Dru Down: Can you feel me
GRXGVR: Se dig le

Helte: Windows 96 / Black Dog / Gang Starr / Voks

Lyt og køb her

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BUSINESS TECHNO RIP

BLAZAR — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 17:42:57 +0000

Corona cleared most dancefloors, and turned DJs into streaming knob twiddlers. But just before the collapse, techno peaked – not artistically – but as corporate festival fodder, e-arobic muzak for the masses, who where fed up with anachronistic indierock, nihilist logo trap and bombastic shameful childish EDM. But is techno dead? We have collected some visual evidence:

The crowds finally found pleasure in more mature electronica in the good old safe Detroit/Berlin/Roland tradition. But the new heros – djs like Solomun, Nina Krawitz, Drumcode & Charlotte de Witte broke away from the often black blank bedroom image of stealth-mode classic techno bedroom auteurs, they have no problem playing cheesy techhouse, uptempo prog trance and 90s classics and being open and happy about it – dancing for days like coked strippers. The “real” purist techno underground – who prefer to buy rare vinyl from obscure imprints on discogs, discuss remakes of 80s drum machines, noddle modular synths and play for exclusive crowds of trainspotters retro-nirvana was under treat so they reacted – and nailed the new parasitic bizztech industry sucking the blood from their “true” subculture – so the anti-biztech meme was born as a comment on the following bizztech characteristics: A/ The influx of rich kid DJs using PR, ghostwriters and SoMe managers etc. on the techno scene. B/ The oversaturated EDM scene needed to “go back to the roots” for a more adult, less gimmicky sound and hihjacked techno C/ The need for novel sounds for safe mass spaces for intake of horrible dance aerobic drugs D/ general greed trend – invest in PR and recoup on the festivals or thru sponsor deals E/ In biotech ghostwriters making enormous amounts of over-compressed loopbank based semi minimal/trancy festival ready tracks for sale online for instagram-strong headliners with Spotify and beatport playlist insider connections… F/ A lot of idealist dis sucked dry from the cocaine “honeymoon is over syndrome” G/ Corporate style marketing, weekly posed pro gram photos, dull generic obvious music, hardware producers out of touch… H/ Bizztech using Paris Hilton as a role model, not Jeff Mills. I/ Bizztech exposed the “techno underground” as a parallel universe to the backpack goden age rap continuum – 90s retro is king. J/ Bizztech artists is paying 5-10k for a front cover and bribing journalists = mainstream modern pop music business and marketing ethics – now applied to techno. Now biztech is popping up in the dance music press, the blogosphere and the worst techno memes ever group on facebook, where a funny dude called Mitch Davis use it to promote his satirical music videos.And the next step is killing of the old elite via #metoo: Erick Morrilio committed suicide after accusations, and manic Detroit icon Derrick May is getting slandered – get the popcorn ready – immortal techno is about to turn around once more in its grave. So back to the bedroom, back to the pirate bunker party where it all started. Even the “Mozart of techno” – Aphex Twin – felt the crisis, and released a mashup of a remake of a 1982 synth – the sh101 – that – dispite its clever new feature – having a separate sound for each key – a first on a monosynth – is more collectable fanboy retro merchandise than 2020 music tool – please make some software James… The high priest of cosmic minimalism, Jeff Mills, is not shy on merc – skateboards, car key chains and even a very rock n roll leather jacket… To top it off, parts of the black community feels techno has been hijacked by whites. As far as I remember, US techno was inspired by YMO, Yello, Suicide and Kraftwerk – as well as Japanese instruments and scifi. Techno – like all music – used to be ours. Reclaim all music – corona killed the cash element – nobody except Spotifys CEO can life off streaming. As always, blame it on technology – in the beginning, of techno – one had to physically find weird vinyl and expensive music machines designed for jazz and rock and abuse them beyond the manual, learn how to record, master, package and print the result – to a micro-scene using fax machines – WITHOUT ANY YOUTUBE TUTORIALS or manuals or internet! Now you can take any phone or laptop and slap some loops together and put it online in a day from scratch – tracks are like coins in a online streamning casino, and the real goal is live dj jobs, free drugs and sponsor deals. So maybe we should go back to enjoy, play around with and compose music for fun again?

Vammen: 7 new releases

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RESOE: NOCTURNAL WAVES (GREEN VINYL/LUKE LESS RMX)

BLAZAR — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:04:25 +0000

Another great slice of deep dub techno from veteran Copenhagen producer Dennis Bøgh – with a nice extra Luke Hess remix: check it here

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KIM KEMI: Only Smoke EP

BLAZAR — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 10:48:02 +0000

Copenhagens own dj legend and veteran producer KIM KEMI releases another jacking and euphoric banger- ONLY SMOKE – his stylish and subtle sound design and varied arrangement take hints of Robert Hoods minimal riffs and flesh out a full funky arrangement taking us on that classic luxurious sonic journey. Pres play and trigger the smoke machine – or the soap bubbles.

Martinez´s remix is a more electro affair that could blend well with classic Underground Resistance releases. Watch out for the acid topline. Martinez is a Swedish electronic music producer and DJ, currently based in Copenhagen. Martinez kick started his carrier in 2000 with his “Laidback Grooves EP” on the notorious Chicago based Deep-House label Guidance Recordings.

Asmus Odsats remix – SMOKING KILLS – is taking the track in a more broken but funky IDM territory, breaking the track down adding avantgarde dub details over the stuttering beat. Asmus Odsat is

a former resident at Culture Box and co-founder of Ritual Malmö as well as the BULK club night releases via. FALK DISKS, the club focused sub-label of FALK (Fuck Art Lets Kill) with his ‘Ecstatic Half Truth’ EP, is played by Courtesy – even in her BBC Radio 1 show mix.

An added bonus to these 3 unique remixes is Kim Kemis beautiful Tropical Tucan, a perfect opening track fusing sensual chilly Detroit pads and jacking understated beats into a growing glowing mind-state that is worthy of a Carl Craig spin – let it ride – don’t miss the climax – you will end up looping it. An essential tool. Its. ! Limited vinyl release in June & Digital streaming from August…Enjoy!

KIM KEMI: CITY LIGHTS E.P.

KIM KEMI – NEW TRACKS – ACID MARKET

ENJOY MORTEN VAMMENS NEW MUSIC HERE

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Techno: my early years

BLAZAR — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 12:19:48 +0000

The Japanese drum machines that finally made the white man dance..

What is the skeleton that connects the multitude of up-tempo dance subgenres, known as house & techno? Four heavy stomping bass drums pr. bar, beating in 118-160 beats pr minute – a.k.a. the lowest common denominator in music…

Part 1 :Flashbacks – Back in the ugly 80’s, when AIDS and complete nuclear destruction cast an evil shadow on a financially unstable world, a minor miracle happened; in the Land of the Rising Sun, visionary engineers from Korg, Roland and Yamaha made the hi-tech tools – previously solely owned by pretentious rock dinosaurs like Peter Gabriel and Jean Michelle Jarre – available for any hard working nerd or dancers bedroom setup. Clone the access to machines with a generation raised on post-punk and Moroders prototypical evergreen mantra- groove ”I Feel Love”, a strong influence from Kraftwerk and an urging need for a rebirth of disco – and POW! – techno was born.

This changed any preconceptions of club music – and music in general – and spearheaded a musical revolution that made even punk a tiny bump on the highway. Back then, there was a longing for disco, a genre of pure joy, like soul but without the lost love and race-issues. A pure motorically motivating muzak for sheer kitchy enjoyment. And as the reality of the 80’s sucked big time, there was a urge for a new beginning, a musical utopia that forecasted the technological revolution to come, with less gloom than the dystopian industrial techno scene.Techno/House is post-production retro disco, where echoes and ghosts of the working musicians are reassembled in the digital domain to work out dancers and take their minds to the future.

At first, the primitive 4-track cassette experiments from Chicago sounded crude, like low budget templates for future music longing for its disco past. But when a gang of sci-fi fanatics in the deserted motor city of Detroit cued in to the more serious gloom strategies of European post industrial EBM (electronic body music) and twisted house into soundtracks for the future with a dash of funk, the European producers in spe took note.A DJ back then was a nerdy hobbyist fighting for rare import 12” vinyl, only occasionally leaving his room to hand out flyers and getting his five minutes of fame on the decks. Synths and beat boxes where generally considered bad taste, and not “real music” to most people, who didn’t care for the DJ’s taste, montage and sync skills. They just wanted to hear the pop/rock hits from the radio or the funky fuzak pastel hits from the deckshoe kids on the Montmartre scene.

I played the biker-dominated Christiania back then – and was saved by the “Born to be wild” single – but mostly sneaking in electro, funk, proton-hiphop, funky industrial and dub. In my bedroom I assembled a 808 triggering delays recording it to play in the walkman stoned, but inspiring nabour and future Frankfurt hitmaker Sven-NG – we lived next to the idylic Royal Gardens in inner Copenhagen, but made the hardest beats imaginable for our own pleasure. There was no scene yet. But soon the time machine we had been loning for arrived: in 1986 the afordable sampling workstations arrived and music history changed forever.

“If Pac-Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.”

Part 2 : Alone on the floor – As a DJ/producer always looking for the perfect beat in the mid 80’s, I snobbishly shrug off house as poppy, gay, drug disco, fitness music – until my friends had a party with UK acid house DJ’s in 86’. Complete with strobes and pure MDMA.

Suddenly the dark coolness and speed/coke/alcohol menu combined with black leather and nylon gear and Front 242, “Blue Monday” and The Cramps seemed irrelevant. No more pogo or mating dance steps. Just dance for hours with the whole room AND alone, to a never-ending Roland 808/909 beat.

There was no media, no uniform, no drugs, no set of rules, and the records where few and rare. You just danced for days with strippers, hippies, druggies, and styl- ists – often just fueled from the pure power of the bass. A fresh feeling, and a new liberating post-post punk way to interact socially beyond the general norms.

I was immensely inspired. My team created a video single under the name of Trust, fusing Frankfurt samples, drill instructors and Public Enemy-style rap – then came the Cyberworld compilation with varios EBM bands. I went solo and made the first acid CD in Denmark: AUM/Morph – the title a typical indication of the “fuck pop, we are fighting an information war on our own terms” ideas of the time, referring to the mantra of all sound – AUM – and the quicksilver “morph” effects of the Terminator films. Several occult 12” singles on secret German imprints followed, along with a more breakbeat-orientated sequel CD: AAA: “Connoisseurs cornucopia”. Note the hermetic names and “no photo” style of the time – the purist attitude declared: “let the music speak for itself, fuck packaging and the star system”. The records made minds travel, and send me on a tour of the US and through studios and endless collabora-tions, eventually ending up making sounds for Lars Von Trier’s series “The Kingdom” – and Stimorol ads. A DIY techno-success.

Part 3 : Innocence lost

The innocent scene was soon exploited by pushers, media, entrepreneurs, stale radio personalities, media and ego-driven idiot DJ’s, and split into a neo hippie Goa fraction – the forefathers of trance – and a more minimal ascetic camp inspired by the Detroit/Berlin axis. Later on, a funkier UK inspired Jungle scene evolved in the squatted city of Christiania – all three subscenes co-existing outside the mainstream clubs and charts.

Then, around 1996 Eurodance arrived as the new pop, making 909 beats mainstream. The old rave crowd – as any hipster crowd – needed to stick out, so they picked more avant-garde IDM sounds, or threw themselves at more mature, musical house a la NYC deep house, complete with afro percussion, pianos and soulful divas – as if disco never died. The up-tempo big brother of hip-hop became a global virus, and electronic music was now the new club fodder, and Prince, E.W.F. and post grunge MTV styles died in the clubs. House was now used to sell everything to the younger hipster segments.

Part 4 : Hitting the studio

Suddenly, making music was a matter of punching some drums on a grid and sync/discipline some samples from your record collection on top and master the whole shebang with a club-shaking bassline. A world apart from the tedious rehearsal, live and studio rituals of ”real” music – and you could do it cheaply ALONE.

The Danes are not funky people, and as production before the laptop revolution required a lot of gear and a lot of time to figure it out (no youtube tutorials), most producers made Eurodance, ambient, EBM or tech house. All a bit cold, boring and blue, like most Scandinavian music.

Danish tech house only bloomed after the rise of the Internet. The biggest contribution to the house cannon is probably the Nord and Elektron companies, responsible for some excellent analog-like synths, and especially the Propellerheads Reason software, which emulates all the expensive studio hardware of yesterday – even on a modest laptop.

Part 5 : Voodoo house

House music – as sample based postproduction music – has a weird evolution. On one hand its a complete underground niche music for drug dens, on the other hand its the new pop/rock, filling stadiums. Every time house seems dead, passé and overexposed, after Swedish House Mafia or David Guetta has brainwashed us via the airwaves with another gimmicky tune, a bedroom producer finds a “new old” record to sample and a new evil bass tactic. Everything from Balearic clichés over tribal drums to Balkan has been tamed by the sequencers and made into modern druggy march music. And electronic music is everywhere, as a perfume to sell everything – but the money rarely goes back to the scenes or creators.

Newer generations play around with black downtempo styles inspired by reggae, dubstep, boogie and hiphop rejecting “big brothers music” i.e. tech house – its subcultural context gone, its sign value empty, reduced to juice bar music made by blank attention hungry DJs desperate for bookings and sponsors. But the downtempo trend will just build up to the next up- tempo house backlash, like ebb and tide. Google the house blogs or beatport for further research into future beats. All combinations are possibly tried already.

And as DJ and studio technology merge on the laptop why not make your own? Music production and DJ’ing will likely end up as a kind of “Guitar Hero” game as you read this anyway.

This text is originally published in 2009 in NORDIC MAN MAGAZINE.

BONUS TRACK: a rip of a rare acid 12″ – CONTORT – made in colaboration with Dan Stielow – who turned the tempo up to 1993.

Listen to more current output here & here and new albums here

The original AUM cult video:

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KIM KEMI: CITY LIGHTS E.P.

BLAZAR — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 10:11:09 +0000

Kim Kemi – the Copenhagen-based DJ-legend with the widest smile…is back with a new release on his variation records – the CITY LIGHTS E.P. introduces obscure whispering surveillance-like vocals over loopy percussion popcorn jittering over classic tech beats before nice analog pads provide relief – there is even some weird 80s FM-like synth riffs on his best deal. The centerpiece – City Lights – comes in two hypnotic versions courtesy of a great youANDme remix. If you want unpretentious tech tools with a hint of 80s fun, Kim is still your man:

Download and vinyl links are on the way, official release is in 313_Vinyl Collective on thursday 15 October.

KIM KEMI – NEW TRACKS – ACID MARKET

KEMI & BRYN – NEW RELEASE – WONKY SPLIT

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VED SIDEN AF / ANOTHER NAME / VSA01 – AN01 / E.P.

BLAZAR — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 08:38:50 +0000

Darkroom, neo-trance og post-Berghein hærg: folkene bag den nu legendariske klub Et Andet Sted har også et label, jeg har hørt deres seneste næsten gotiske raver EP med 4 tracks, hør dem her:

A1 Terkel Høngaard – HDKLUBKULTUR: En knasende industriel bitcrushed flade, bliver til en god gammeldags baslinieløs tramper, en perfekt intro når der skal skiftes dj på en klub til en piratfest, ender i en mere opløftende pad.

A2 Hussar – A Messiah Is Born: Så rider vi ud over stepperne, hjertet banker i et ubådsrum, så et pænt storladent fuzz-tema – næsten som en guitarsolo. Mere metallisk perk pisker jagten yderligere op. Episk og morsomt. Hittet.

B1 HyperionORBIT – Asimov’s Ascension: Så gearer vi op, måske er det poppers blandet med meth der rammer gamer/cosplay generationen her…det er sukret og minder om aerobic musik eller game soundtracks og er renset for funk – ren dakkedak med potientielt enormt marked – er dette moderne blues?

B2 Hllw – Sleeping River: Så er vi i tranceafdelingen, men ofbeat “stardancer” bas – minder mig om en mørk jungle i Goa eller sletten på Amager tilsat lidt gabber kicks. 2.20 går der episk tema i den…så den uundgåelige 909 hat. I tredie akt er der som traditionen foreskriver lidt filternulderi. Jeg er ikke den rette til at fatte nuancerne i genren, jeg ved ikke hvad der er skidt eller kanal, får bare flashbacks til bodybuildere på hætter med bare maver og hvide piger med dreads i bedste 90er fræser stil.

Alt i alt en meget alsidig E.P. – fedt man skider på genre-spændetrøjer og “god smag” og bare giver den max gas. Gad godt opleve en klub eller være i en skov hvor denne EP blev spillet lige nu.

Bandcamp side her

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