Rephlex Records

Bochum Welt’s 2019 LP ‘Seafire’ and its accompanying remix album are two of the Central Processing Unit label’s most beloved releases. However, links between the two parties run far deeper than just those records.

You see, the tracks that Gianluigi Di Costanzo cut as Bochum Welt in the 1990s and 2000s are in the very DNA of the celebrated Sheffield imprint. Bochum Welt’s drops on labels like Rephlex made for some of the most celebrated electronic music releases of the era and went on to influence producers the world over - including many of those who have turned up on CPU since it launched in 2012.

As such, it makes sense that two of the most crucial EPs from Bochum Welt’s first wave are now being given new life by CPU. ‘Desktop Robotics’ and ‘Feelings On A Screen’ initially emerged in 1997 via Aphex Twin’s Rephlex imprint. Now, Di Costanzo has curated this special CPU release to celebrate both of those EPs making it to 25. This is a reissue with a twist, though. While ‘Desktop Robotics / Feelings On A Screen’ features many crucial cuts from the original pressings, the record also serves up other gems gathered from Bochum Welt’s original master tapes - all of which have never previously been released on vinyl.

The ‘Desktop Robotics’ cuts which make for the record’s first half are dreamy, impressionistic things. On this quartet, Bochum Welt plays painterly synth work off of idiosyncratic drum programming to illuminating effect. The opening title-track, for instance, blooms from a clattering, distorted beat into an icily beguiling electronic soundscape, a vibe which carries through to following number ‘HMT (202 Mix)’.

Things become more weightless on ‘Leafs Brought By The Wind’, a potent vignette where you can almost see the leaves falling amidst its reverb-drenched haze. We then get ethereal ‘Marylebone (Demo Version)’. Anyone who’s heard the iteration of ‘Marylebone’ which appeared on Bochum Welt’s 2017 LP ‘April’ will be pleasantly surprised by this alternate mix. Here the track pulls away from pretty post-minimalist piano composition to widescreen ambience - it’s so warm and intimate that it feels like peeking behind a curtain to observe an artist at work.

Things ramp up a notch with the tracks taken from in and around ‘Feelings On A Screen’. The title cut kicks off the record’s second half in limber fashion, its nimble percussion programming dancing around a pulsing bassline. Like A Tim’s mix of ‘Greenwich’ is still as much of a party-starter as it was on the original ‘Feelings On A Screen’ release, with the Djax-Up-Beats veteran setting buoyant rhythm work against a playful, eccentric lead-line. 

Between these tunes we are treated to one of the gems of the Bochum Welt discography. In 2007, Di Costanzo split an EP with Heinrich Mueller, an artist best known as Drexciya’s Gerald Donald. That record featured Mueller’s ‘Z Version’ of Bochum Welt’s ‘Saint’, and the track’s appearance here, with machine gun bass burbling alongside strange textures, joins the dots between Di Constanzo’s style and the pulsating machine-funk that Donald helped popularise. Things close out with ‘North’, a frostily beautiful ambience which makes for a fitting bookend to this album when taken alongside ‘Desktop Robotics’.

This 25th anniversary re-release of Bochum Welt’s ‘Desktop Robotics’ and ‘Feelings On A Screen’ EPs reminds us that, while time may have passed, the appeal of Bochum Welt’s electronic music remains as strong as ever.

RIYL: AFX, Mike Paradinas, Boards Of Canada, Mrs Jynx

Bochum Welt - Desktop Robotics & Feelings On A Screen (25th Anniversary Edition)

Polymer

Artificial Intelligence

Crystel

The Egg

Taken from the album 'LXXXVIII', released 03 November 2023 on Ninja Tune: https://actress.lnk.to/LXXXVIIISo

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Game Over ( e 1 )

Module 2

That's Mutuality

Lunakhod

Mechanique

Radiopropulsive

Listen to all tracks from ‘Utility’ in full at https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/utility

On his debut solo LP ‘Utility’, Barker [@voltek] turns his focus toward melding experimentation and dancefloor pragmatism with the psychology behind the musical decision making process.

‘Utility’ is a playful but non-ironic musical approach to a whole spectrum of utilitarian and transhumanist ideas: from models for quantifying pleasure and “gradients of bliss” to abolishing suffering for sentient beings (not just people) through the ethical use of drugs and nanotechnology. Over nine tracks, Barker’s vision ebbs and flows through waves of deeply psychedelic musical vignettes; free-floating and futuristic melodies and rhythms as targeted brain stimulation.

Listen now in full

Barker | Die-Hards Of The Darwinian Order

'Push Power ( a 1 )', out now on Ninja Tune: https://actress.lnk.to/push-powerSo

X22RME

Two Autumns

Premiering 'Caged In Aly's Body' by Simo Cell (@simocell) & Abdullah Miniawy (@abdullahmadm) taken from the KILL ME OR NEGOTIATE EP out October 16, 2020 via @bfdmrec


Schooled to distinct musical classes and universes, geographically distant though highly compatible culturally speaking, Simo Cell and Abdullah Miniawy began collaborating in the winter of 2018, jamming and experimenting together at Simo’s studio in Pantin, in the suburbs of Paris. Merging Simo’s hypermodern, hip-hop and bass-infused production skills with Abdullah’s soulful trumpet and vocals hoodoo, their joint debut effort ‘Kill Me Or Negotiate’ lays the foundation to a body of work that transcends epochs, latitudes and other zeitgeistian concerns to weave a narrative arc both timeless and inwardly impactful throughout.
Having graced the grooves of an array of high-flying labels such as Livity Sound, BFDM, Timedance, Wisdom Teeth, Simo Cell has created a sound imaginarium truly his own, as exacting and complex in its overall structure as it invites to get rid of any prejudices towards restrictive terminologies and genre-bound limitations. An effervescing crossover of rehashed trap motifs, dub flexions and trenchant Bristolian programming, Simo’s sound reinvents bass music as we know it, exploring its core assets and fringes with equal poise and determination to make a difference. This attempt at forging new paths for bass and electronic music in general shines particularly high on ‘Kill Me Or Negotiate’, exalting to further compelling spiritual and political heights the boundary-pushing potential of both his deconstructionist approach and Abdullah’s vibrant Eastern-grown poetics.
Defining his own craft as an «expression of religion, revolution and freedom», Abdullah Miniawy‘s the herald of a musical realm where music, faith and politics entangle to form a strikingly profound tableau of the human condition in an era of uncontrolled digital frenzy. Multiplying main projects and side-endeavours, whether it be joining forces with contemporary jazz whizz Erik Truffaz, Munich-based trio Carl Gari or through new collaborations with DJ HVAD and YOM, Miniawy’s keeping a position of choice as a spearhead of vanguard music, as attested by this debut EP alongside Simo Cell. The result goes way beyond expectations, pushing forth a uniquely free, mind-expanding brand of sufi-esque riddims and more ambientoid spaces for contemplation as it steers clear from normative club music to root deeper into socio-politically charged instrospection and thoughtful, elegiac body music.

Mechanique

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