Top EPs October 2021
Two Shell – Wedding Practice
The Two Shell duo are at it again, plying eager listeners and white label enthusiasts with some of the funkiest, catchiest and straight up desirable slabs of wax around. After the waves that tracks like Home and Missing In Action made over the summer, nothing could surprise us less that the meagre 150 copies of these babies were snapped up in a matter of hours.
Wedding Practice continues in much the same vein of the last two white labels, the A-side serving up wonderfully sampled R&B – you can almost feel the action in the club come to a standstill as the pure piano and soulful vocal soar through the soundsystem – before launching bodies into a frenzy with some beautifully heavy breaks. B-side house cut The End of the Party skips along happily like a Four Tet track after one too many Buckfasts and a fistful of fizzy snakes.
Mehen – Imperfections In The Sun
Hadone dons his Amniote Editions alias, and delivers us four cuts of tear-streaked techno designed for those euphoric moments of the night you remember with absolute clarity in a haze of sweaty recollections. The scene is set with the fast and furious Silver Parade, before the feelings dial is turned from wobbly to full-on emotional breakdown on the stunning title track.
On the flip Mehen proceeds to send heads west with Memories On The Floor, the intensity reaching fever pitch in a dizzyingly hard and shrieking track that somehow manages to retain a sense of sentimentality, and we finish with the dramatic electro of Her Revolver’s Eye Shot Me Down. On top of his contribution to the outstanding Taapion various artists EP, and it’s been a hella month for Hadone.
Eversines & Caim – Split EP
Amsterdam-based outfit Lonely Planets Rec invite two of the city’s most discerning sonic connoisseurs in Eversines and Dutch duo Caim, to share their sixth release with us, the perfect tonic for the lengthening winter nights. Eversines takes control of the A-side, keeping the mood low and smooth with a glittering electronica cruise on Subtle Shift and the grimy, atmospheric, deep techno number Separation.
On the flip Caim pick up from where Eversines left off in the form of Prey, another time-bending groove that combines oh-so-nice pads and cheeky acid stabs, before rounding off the package with the warped, spacey satellite and highlight of the EP Exo, and the ambient breaks of Yucatan. Set the turntable spinning on this one, turn off the lights, and watch the rest of the room spin with the sound.
Timothy Clerkin – Plasticity EP
Another EP emerging from the canals of Amsterdam, Timothy Clerkin is back on his own Insult To Injury label and he’s gone all Daniel Avery. Particularly on the opener and title track, where acid swamps, warped vocal samples and ambient washes combine in a way that wouldn’t sound a millimetre out of place on Drone Logic.
Dancefloor slapper Would? is a sudden blast of even more rolling acid with bright synth stabs cutting through the murky fog, and after the tense builder Mercurial we get the dancefloor focused Order 66; what’s not to like about huge breaks, and thumping 4/4 kick and Star Wars samples?
Guy Contact – Ultraviolet Freqs EP
Like the environment, oil states in sport or the Tories being generally shit blokes, you just can’t seem to keep this guy out of the news at the moment. A debut full LP, a stunner of an EP on Haŵs, and now this red-hot release on Craigie Knowes all in the space of a month – the man’s been more relentless than your loosest mate during a summer of fezzies.
Expect the expected at this point. Chugging rhythms and airy pads on Doors Of Perception, metallic toms and drifting melodies on Ultraviolet Freqs, the acid nob turned to pH1 on Look Into The Mind, and croaking synths layered over bleeping breakdowns on The First Anura Ever Known. This is straight up prog house gold laced with serious psychedelia – magic.
KETTAMA – Steel City Dance Discs Volume 26
No nonsense party material as KETTAMA sets a collision course with Steel City Dance Discs, and piles a Vauxhall Corsa loaded with 5 head-banging house and techno tracks sideways into the studio in a tangle of limbs, grins and twisted metal. Our first two big room dancefloor weapons combine echoing kicks, sunny vocals and piano stabs for a 100% guarantee on fast moving bodies – Saint Lauren in particular is a stunner.
Tunnels of technicolour synths slide us towards euphoria on Picanya 2400, before things just turn nasty on the rock-hard techno track Bōsōzoku. We round out the package with a fun, sample packed warper and tribute to Luke Vibert. Fast, fun and sweaty, bring your Stella’s and leave your ego at the door of this reckless little house party.
MYKI – Delenya
The Israeli producer MYKI lands on Roza Terenzi’s Step Ball Chain, a label who have been responsible for a couple of seriously spooky releases over the last year, and he follows the philosophy down to a T. Proggy house tracks to suit those who prefer the basement to the loft, opener Vertigo is a bassline driven textural treat, which Roza Terenzi steps up to mutate into a faster, sludgier version of itself.
As we swing over onto the flip the pace is ramped up into eerie trance territory with Puma Snap, and we stay in the light-speed end of the spectrum with Bleeding Tooth, which also throws in the odd proverbial curveball in the shape of guitar-laden breakdowns and distorted, rasping vocals – absolute choon.
Various Artists – WITNESS02
The notorious distributors One Eye Witness release their second record, bringing together Robert Dietz, Z@P, Kasper Marrott and New Members for a stellar little VA lineup, and the record itself is a must-have for the serious heads on the hunt for tunes that don’t sit neatly in a tidy genre box.
EMQUE EMJAY kicks us off, Dietz taking us on a bouncy little house/electro trip before things take a darker turn on Z@P’s YFM, something that feels ready-made for the murkier ends of a Job Jobse set. On the flip we have Kasper Marrott and the swirling, peak time hands-in-the-air-head-back Bleep, and New Members’ irresistibly fun The Dink. Now those jungly little percussion patterns really tie the room together.
Rnbws – Salvation
A nice big 6-tracker EP to really get stuck into from Rnbws, Salvation is a welcome collision of breaks, techno and a dusting of house, and feels like the kind of complete package you just want in your crate. We boot off proceedings with the breaks-led It Could Happen To Anyone and Modelicious, the latter laced with a healthy dose of 303.
After some straight up screwy filth on Untied, the mood changes as we take on the choppy house rhythms and rainbow-laden pianos and vocals of Devotion – here be breakdowns to lose your head to. Then it’s the lush little floater Salvation, undercut by bubbling dark streams of acid, before we finish with Stupid. A closing track that’s like medicine on a cold day.
Interplanetary Criminal – Dangerous
Interplanetary Criminal landing on the legendary Instinct label run by James Burnham was always going to be an outrageous meeting of the minds, and UKG heads will not be disappointed by this juicy, juicy release. The title track sets the scene, a goosebump vocal given serious heft by an outrageous low end and wonderfully two-steppy beat, and Razor follows up with slick vocal sampling and a mood funkier than a mosquito’s tweeter.
Jumping to an absolute burner Gyaldem Dub on the B-side, where samples cut with hazy disco samples get interrupted with a wall of low end distortion, and you can almost feel the sweat dripping off this one. But head out, have a quick cig and grab a fresh can, then get back to the front right for the outrageous stinker that is Murder Sound.
Marlon Hoffstadt a.k.a. DJ Daddy Trance – The Heat
Let’s finish the list this month with some proper silly trance and eurodance, because what is more fun? Marlon Hoffstadt pairs up with himself as DJ Daddy Trance, and the results are inevitably euphoric synth melodies, dramatic to the point of silly but so god damn danceable.
The Heat (Club Mix) is your bread and butter, before 030 Original drops you into a pixelated race car in a 70s arcade game and you bleep your way through an obstacle course of trancers and dancers. A Lonely Ravers Anthem has a slightly darker twist to it, one for being lost in a labyrinth of lasers, before the enigmatic DJ Heartstring finishes off with a belting remix of the title track – close your eyes, feel the outlines, good times. Leave your chin scratching at home for this one.