Most well regarded for his out put in the 90s on labels such as Peacefrog and his own Metamorphic Dan Curtin has continued to release records on a yearly basis with seemingly little fanfare. Some of his 00s productions were not really to my taste so I have to admit he did disappear off my…
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Truculent Facilitator at Apartment Records, Dublin, Ireland & DJ / Foghorn
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Lumigraph – Bulletproof Holiday / Melly – Flying Ducks
The world of sparse, gritty house and techno can certainly feel like a chore at times, such is the seemingly never ending stream of it we are faced with these days. As an aesthetic choice there is fundamentally no problem with it, it only becomes an issue when one lathers tracks in distortion to hide behind the fact…
Body Mechanic – Techno Sexual
It sometimes feels like Discogs is most notable for the constantly inflated prices of many old records, but some genres and oeuvres have so far been fairly immune to this at times most frustrating of cultures. The ghettotech sound of Detroit is one such, most notably the back catalogue of Mr ‘De’s Electrofunk label which…
October & Borai – Necessary Force / Nine Tomorrows
Seems we’ve been a bit lazy at ISM the last while but I’ve got a bunch of releases to post about over the coming days, so lets get stuck back in again… I was a little surprised by October’s Black Body Radiation LP that dropped at the end of last year on Skudge. Maybe I…
Mix – The End of Raving?
Posted by Kenny on 03.21.16 | 3 Comments
Last Friday I was recording this mix at around the same time one of the Bloc organisers wrote a rather foolish article decrying the state of “rave” and its populace and so forth, in the modern age. The mix was from the bag of records I played at Bloc. We’d meant to record the whole…
Mix – Massive Carl’s M5 Mixtape / Bloc Mixxx
My latest mix is for the Bloc Weekend festival which is taking place this weekend over in Butlins in Minehead in the UK. Apartment and Lunar Disko will be taking over the Pub Venue on the Saturday of the festival from 7pm to Midnight featuring myself, Tr One, Automatic Tasty and John Heckle. At this…
Rob Rowland – Freestate One
Posted by Kenny on 03.09.16 | 2 Comments
A couple of days ago I posted a white label record with no information on it to my Instagram with the tag “The finest techno record ever to come out of Ireland…?”. Speaking subjectively I will stand by that statement when discussing Rob Rowland’s first Freestate record, which surfaced some time around 2000/2001 and then…
Tim Jackiw – Science Of Sound
Posted by Kenny on 02.25.16 | 3 Comments
The arguments for and against the current craze for re-issues have been made many times before so we’ll skip over that when discussing Australian producer Tim Jackiw’s Science of Sound 12″ that Discogs tells us was first released in 1997. I have no other information on the release or producer past what Discogs says and it…
A Visitor From Another Meaning / Model Man
A Visitor From Another Meaning – Lost Encounters 1 Stylish Dutch label Bordello A Parigi kicks off 2016 with two native masters; firstly a welcome return from Alden Tyrell’s rarely seen A Visitor From Another Meaning alias. Recent years has seen Tyrell move away from his electro and Italo influences into the realm of classic Chicago…
Jules Venturini – Untitled
Even though I have been a regular visitor to the Unsound festival in Poland I will admit to still being quite unsure about much of the country’s output in terms of house and techno outside of popular names such as Eltron John, Kuba Sojka and a couple of others. This untitled release by Jules Venturini…
Shanti Celeste – Being
Operating on a pretty high and consistent level of quality since 2008, 2015 seemed to be a bit of a breakthrough year for Future Times, scoring a mega-hit with Jack J’s somewhat limp-wristed “Thirstin’”, the increased profile of Beautiful Swimmers / Max D and general support and coverage for the DC crew increasing across the…
Tagwell Woods – Mecca
Appearing out of nowhere in 2013 with a single 12″ of stirring, reflective acid on WT Records, this unknown producer quickly disappeared again, continuing in that time honoured UK tradition of keeping as low a profile as possible, leaving room for endless big mouth chancers with far less talent to get all the press. It’s thus…
A reason to be cheerful (?)
This post has been inspired by the RA Dj poll. Not something I expected to be doing when I woke up today but there you go. I apologise now if you are hoping that this will be a rant about how rubbish it is or about how contrived it is, you’ll have to go elsewhere…
Mix: Who Taught You?
My latest mix is for the relatively new Fallow Media site, an operation based out of Dublin that contains plenty of excellent long form writing and other media that has a focus on the arts in all its various shapes and forms. I’ve delivered for them their first podcast, which comprises solely of music that has been…
Who do you think you are kidding?
Posted by Kenny on 11.18.15 | 5 Comments
Disruption, abstraction, subversiveness, outsider, challenging preconceptions, fucking things up and just plain old weird. Terms, ideas and narratives that never stop being appealing. And why shouldn’t they be? Music needs to evolve, needs to break boundaries and challenge its listener. Experimentation is the cornerstone of many great musical movements. Techno music as a form is quite…
The Wall / The Stallion – Mick Wills Edits
Mick Wills is the definitive Djs Dj, forever unearthing lost gems and playing them seamlessly alongside classics and fresh releases (often re-edited by himself) he’s one of the rare breed these days who has managed to build up a regular touring schedule based nearly solely off his djing – most definitely helped by having such…
Vinalog – Perspectives
Before it became de rigueur for everyone to make their house jams “gritty” and “raw” or whatever those reason pre-sets are that so many use as in their badly mastered, leaden productions the Live Jams / Relative crew were quietly releasing some rough-edged but – importantly – funky 12s beginning around 2009 or so. EMG…
Guest Mix: Barry Redsetta (Major Problems)
For our readers living in Ireland Barry Redsetta is an instantly recognisable name. Possibly most well known as the long standing resident at the recently closed Twisted Pepper, he has been a mainstay in Irish clubbing for many, many years and is oft and quite rightly regarded as one of the finest djs ever to…
Tom Dicicco – Mad Dealer
Posted by Kenny on 10.09.15 | 2 Comments
I will be honest and say the pairing of UK techno producer Tom Dicicco and Jordan Czamanski’s Off Minor Recordings was not one I expected but then I like when a label throws up something unexpected like this. It certainly makes me more curious than just churning out the same old same old – though…
Pharaohs – Rinse Dream
What with it being a pretty summery day here in Dublin today I’m going back again to an earlier release from the year with the last 12″ from the US group Pharaohs. Trading on the less is more approach over the last few years, their sporadic releases have all been pretty much essential, especially the stunning…
