Two The Hardway
Who Said?

Futuristic electro by Gerald Donald (Dopplereffekt, Drexciya) and Beta Evers, originally released on Weme, including a previously unreleased track.

Sekhem, the Grenoble based label is back with his second various EP. This one welcome international talents like Moya 81, Do Or Die and Davide Piras as well as the very talented french producers Mohammed Vicente. All killers, no fillers on this one !

Generative music seems to imply a systems approach to music, or a system that once created can utilise randomness in a creative way. The benevolence of nature’s creativity belies this musical term, and can flip the word ‘generative’ to mean to involve constantly flowing creativity with purpose. In Europe there was a time in the Pagan Renaissance when architecture would mirror nature’s generative quality. Sculptures and columns were to imply animation or movement.That’s where Milan W.’s album comes through in 2021. His music involves the night shadows of Europe’s architecture and its growth. In Bloom personifies itself by showing Antwerp’s influential ‘Night Play’: a term that can relate to many European cities such as Bologna, Vienna, and so on and so on. The leftovers of Renaissance and gothic architecture are everywhere in Europe still; layers of ruins that can generate the impression of simultaneous time periods. Tracks like Spa and Helium Queen reveal and revel in the power of shadow movement that is generated by the night. In Milan W.’s past works, the poignant and simple creative play of dark wave and synth beat music was his vehicle for expression, but now on In Bloom he departs to a touching sidereal impressionism allied with Coil’s instrumental pieces on Horse Rotorvator — an album whose cover portrays the potential powers of the pavilion just as Milan W. is portraying the generative soul and alienation of Europe’s ‘Night Play’. Because of In Bloom we can come to believe that there is a secretive energy in alienation, a playfulness that is alight at Night.

2019 was the year of breakthrough for Amsterdam-based talent and De Lichting staple Eversines. Continuing on his ascension, we’re chuffed to welcome him to the fold with ‘Plooi’ – a stupendous mini sonic odyssey of sorts, taking us from vaporous skylines to brightly hued seascapes. Both captivatingly melodic and kinetic to the full, the four tracks composing the backbone to Eversines’ new jaunt into elegiac dance territories work their magic in the gap betwixt zen-like atmospherics, velveteen acid, sun-bleached electro and chiseled breaks that step up to the plate.Whilst the OG version of ‘Plooi’ eases us into a shape-shifting environment, swinging the pendulum between nu-age infused / Sino-flavoured harmonics, lysergic bass phrasing and muscular breaks straight out the UK rave scene’s heyday, the remix from Oceanic alters the original into a subaquatic dub weapon, navigating its way across frothing and bubbling synth lines to emerge in geysers of thermal bleeping and rhythmic outbursts. A more jacking affair, ‘Efbol’ carves out a lane of its own in between angular techno and playful, retro-laced electronica a la KLF meets James Holden in his ’Idiots Are Winning’ days. Completing the set on a more understated note, ‘Missing’ in collaboration with RDS promises to fill your headspace with thoughts of beauty and quiet. Merging FX-dipped piano chords, laid-back junglism and heavily verbed-out envelopes to form a well unique piece of ambient lushness, Eversines ushers us into a world of vibrant musical rapture, nestling away from standardized tropes and patterned behaviours.

“Let me fly you home. We can talk on the way”Thorn Valley is a 20 song assemblage of various transmissions from the ever diffuse and widening DIY underground, released to mark the four year anniversary of World of Echo. The river ever bends, the valley ever deepens.

“The doors are where the windows should be, and the windows are where the doors should be”. If you had been in one of the more open minded all night raves in the early 90s you are likely more than familiar with Earth Leakage Trip’s ‘No Idea’.You could write several pages about the 'Psychotronic EP' and still not nail it as well as Discogs user covert_operative's description of 'urban, British psychedelic music.' The Acid House narrative is all about ecstasy, but for many, especially outside of London, there was a lot of LSD involved. Things were edgier, too, with parties in derelict, liminal spaces. By the time this record came out in 1991, the rave was properly diverging from its house music beginnings.The Psychotronic EP was the first release on the legendary Moving Shadow label. Its lead track 'No Idea' is both the perfect entry point to the catalogue and something of an outlier. Neil Sanford had been writing music for a few years before playing some demos to Rob Playford in his car outside a nightclub in Wood Green. Simon Carter got involved, and the pair went to Playford's studio to manifest the madness they'd been sketching with rudimentary gear.'No Idea's use of samples was wholly inspired and far more surreal than so many of the dark-side tracks that were to follow it. A friend of Neil's had given him a record called 'Happy Monsters' and the lead track, 'Adventures in the Land of Ooog,' lent the unforgettable children's vocals. Neil initially had his doubts. Had they gone too far? However, while working on the track, Rob Playford's girlfriend ran in shouting, "you HAVE to use that!" And so it came to be.As a footnote, the track did prove to be strong medicine, with at least one documented account of a promoter having to be talked down by his friends after hearing it when psychedelically altered.The Psychotronic EP is a truly visionary piece of work, standing poised on the edge of the rave's burgeoning future and entirely outside it. As such, it's never not been a cool record, as appealing to lysergic adventurers as it is to house heads, hardcore ravers, or experimental music pioneers. And it has now been lovingly reissued by Blank Mind, for which I'm eternally grateful, seeing as my copy is battered beyond belief.