Futureshock! #3

Hi.  

Here's this month's new techno action. Get set.

Bicep – Closing Sequence

A wander through Bicep-world was once a mincing strut through an island paradise gleaming with camp disco joy. Now it's more of a moody schlep through a broken, malignant technopolis. But tbh, it’s winter, it’s colder than a witches tit, and this is just the kind of chilly techno world we’re fiending for. Latest track Closing Sequence is presumably so named because of it’s suitability for rolling over the end credits of a dystopian retro-futurist flick. It’s made from arctic 909 kits and chase-scene basslines, and perhaps some bright spark might play this to Ridley Scott – it'd make prime Deckard vs android fight-scene-soundtracking material for when he starts shooting Blade Runner 2. In fact, when is someone just going to give them an entire score to write? Bang the LP out on Death Waltz, voila, instant classic. Anyway, Closing Sequence is out now from 50Weapons. Get it hurrr. 

Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete

Warp have got the new album from Daniel Lopatin coming next month, and – big surprise- it’s a difficult, chewy listen. The good bits, however, are way beyond pretty much anyone else out there. There’s this track called Freaky Eyes that starts off as an easy going, sun-is-rising ambient synth piece, segues into a tense Giallo organ arpeggio, builds to a mess of ticks and clicks, chirruping vocal samples and noise, switches to some weird pop ballad, descends into these syrupy downward falling synths that sound like they were pinched from a PC Music breakdown, wanders into atonal screaming industrial menace and finishes up on portentous washes of noise and rattling wind chimes. So I’m guessing you’re gonna have a devil of a time finding anyone to actually dance to it, but if techno was ever meant to be about musicians looking to the future, this is looking to the future. Mind expanding business, and well worth investigating. He's also giving away all his midi files – if you want to get remixing pick them up here.

Rekchampa – 7713GH

Looking for summit with a bit more boomp? Time to give REKchampa a shot. I’ve been relentlessly championing Atlanta’s Harsh Riddim’s over the last couple of weeks, and I’ve no intention of stopping now. REKchampa’s got an EP up on the labels Bandcamp (originally released on long since sold out cassette) and on opener 7713GH he’s got that hissy Dance Mania boom bap near perfect. The kicks kick, the vocals pump and the synths make attacking percussive noises. It’s body music pure and simple, and well worth checking out. The EPs other 5 tracks stick on a lo-res home made techno vibe, with REKchampa’s vocals swimming in and out of the mix. It’s wonky enough to sound fresh, and vibey enough to play out.

Addison Groove – Allaby

Yep, I’m just gonna go ahead and shout out two releases from the excellent 50Weapons. The A Side of this split 12” sees Addison Groove plough on with churning out the Euro Juke he nails so well. Allaby is an example of a club tool made with class. It’s got everything you need – repetitive vocal chops, lethal 808 boom, and claps that could decapitate at 10 paces. Any techno heads who want to pull their sets out of 4/4 hegemony need this as of now.  The flip from Errorsmith is some far out grime business. It’s impeccably produced, and, as you’d expect from a producer who created Native Instruments Razor synth, packed with full fat sounds. I’m fucked if I know where the actual groove is though. one for the Boxed massive methinks, I'm going to play Allaby again…

As ever the header image came courtesy of Laurie Bouchard, who can be found snapping increasingly insane pictures of Tokyo over on Instagram