Early Fall Music

The seemingly never-ending heat of summer 2019 is finally winding down, and the cool, crisp air of fall that always seems to make music sound just that little bit better to my ears is sweeping through. Thankfully there has been a small handful of new releases that feel tailor-made for the season that have caught my attention recently.

H Fusion Captured Entities The Death of Rave LP

This one is especially strange since just last month I had gone on a Howard Thomas/H Fusion binge, listening heavily to everything he had done (a grand total of two 12”s and two tracks on different CD-only comps), with the only one of them from the last thirteen years being the EP for Fit all the way back in 2012. I found myself wondering what he was up to now.

On Sunday, via Marcellus Pittman’s IG, I discovered that he had a brand new double LP out on a European label, and since there was another import I had already been planning to buy I pulled the trigger immediately. While he only had nine tracks released before this, this album’s 11 cuts both expand upon his earlier sound and also goes to new places. The grimy house music of his Sound Signature and Fit EPs is present here, though mixed in with a heavy dose of similarly rugged minimal techno and jit flavored jams.

The standout track for me over my initial listens is “14”, where Thomas takes the pounding funk rhythms of booty shaking jit music and layers in grinding synth tones more reminiscent of old school industrial music. The extreme speed of some of the tracks like “12” and “60” sound similar to the late 90s/early 00s Detroit style of pitching up techno jams to 45 rpm, though these faster jams are cut into the vinyl here at 45 meaning you can turn them down to 33 and have a really menacing and twisted house tempo track instead if that’s more your bag.

At their normal tempo, “19”, “11”, and “70” are all appropriate for those in the 120 bpm range with a nice variation on sounds running from acidic tweaking to lush synths. The overall vibe of every track gives the feeling you might expect if mid-90s Robert Hood did a remix album for early 80s Ike Yard, with aggressive, grating tones riding powerful, primitive drum machine rhythms. It sounds as if much if not all of it was recorded to cassette as well which adds a nice layer of atmosphere to the whole album.

I’ve been in a headspace recently where this is almost exactly what I’ve been wanting to hear, and this album is really hitting the spot for me right now.

Newworldaquarium “Mercury/Levels Halo” NWAQ 12”

I’ve been a fan of Jochem Peteri basically since I first started buying this kind of music. His more recent material hasn’t struck me as much as the early 00s era, but I always appreciate his approach. When this one came out, I checked it as usual. The A side is a nice bleepy techno jam, kind of reminding me of the 12” he did for New Religion. But then there is the B side. To me this is one of the most gorgeous and deep ambient techno tracks I have heard in a long, long time. It’s really just three parts as far as I can tell: a kick drum, a sweeping pad, and one little synth line. But there is magic in how they are weaved together, just a perfect moment that you want to keep going and going. Release the extended 20 minute version!

C. Scott Phase Shifting Soul Slime Cassette

Pittsburgh youth keeps coming through! He’s had a couple records out doing house music, and he’s been making a name for himself doing beats for MCs, but this is the first time C. Scott has really tried to show the totality of what he does in one release. Using an mpc2000, sp404a, a couple synths, plus some records, Charlie takes us on a tour of the funky soulful music he likes. Hiphop is the primary ingredient, whether that be instrumental beats like “Partially Parched” or “Cigarettes” or tracks with rappers, especiallt “Venus” which features Hubbs, a killer Pittsburgh MC. But you also get some future funk in “Mixed Threads” with an assist from longtime ISM fav Nice Rec, and deep house music on “Promise”, “Already”, and “Which Witch”. Despite the wide range of styles, Charlie’s musicality shines through, wearing all genres equally well.

Central AYR Productions “Hotter/Hypnotize/We Came To Party” PPU 12”

So this one actually came out earlier this summer but I only got around to ordering it recently. After constantly playing the jams off of the bandcamp page, I figured I needed to have the damn vinyl in hand. According to the story, the cat behind this record was a prolific DIY cassette multitracker, and this is the first of PPU’s efforts to give his music a proper release. This is house music from that Romanthony/Peven Everett/Seven Davis Jr methodology of raw, self produced vocal tracks with a lot of soulfulness going on. In fact this might be even less refined than any of those artists, and I like how that has worked out. You could easily imagine any of these cuts being beaten in a Theo Parrish or Marcellus Pittman set, mixed right in with old Detroit house and Chicago trax. All three can do damage in a set or at home, but the one I come back to most is “Hypnotize” which feels like the most developed song of the three, despite also being the slowest. But you really can’t go wrong with any of these jams.