New private playlist

Patrick Russell remix. "MEQ" is the first track from the forthcoming MOON POOL AND DEAD BAND's MEQ, a double 12" of swinging, dirty, analog techno-funk, created with mountains of old synthesizers. MEQ consists of Moon Pool and Dead Band’s earliest track, reworked by some of Detroit’s (and ex-Detroit) best producers: Patrick Russell, BMG (Brendan M. Gillen of Ectomorph), JTC (James T. Cotton/Dabrye/Charles Manier aka Tadd Mullinix), Ice Cold Chrissy (Coyote Clean Up), Michael Dykehouse, Erno the Inferno and Nate Young in Wolf Eyes mode. MEQ plays like an album, rather than a collection of remixes. The remixers were supplied with “stems” nearly one-half hour long, leaving each with an abundance of raw material at their disposal. There are no cloying, repetitive vocal hooks to disrupt the sonic narrative. Deep, dystopian techno-funk is delivered with the unerring raw assurance that only seasoned masters could deliver, leaving the music’s rough edges appealingly unvarnished. The strong, danceable music is rugged enough to test the limits of any club sound-system, yet contains nuances, subtleties and warmth that make it ideal for home listening. Mastered by Ruud Lekx (Rude 66) and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in NYC. MEQ comes housed in a wide full-color UV gloss jacket featuring artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator, Mark Salwowski. Layout by Beth Hall.

This is the first release on Midwich Productions (MW-001).

Moon Pool and Dead Band - MEQ (Patrick Russell Mix)

Midwich is proud to present MAGAS’s Heads Plus, the first proper vinyl release from James Marlon Magas since 2009’s Violent ARP. For the past several years, Magas has been concentrating on instrumental production, eschewing vocal histrionics of previous work, in favor of moodier, more open-ended composition. This focus has resulted in the bombastic and hallucinatory Heads Plus, an all-instrumental wallop that fuses howling ARP Odyssey, capricious Juno funk and fuzzed Rhodes anchored to the ever-present throb of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Freed from vocal constraints, Heads Plus conjures a cinematic ambience where light and dark wrangle for dominance in a dystopian post-techno near-future. Plowing ahead with gleeful abandon, this 5-track EP is a take-no-prisoners statement of intent. Heads Plus is mastered by Ruud Lekx (Rude 66) and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in NYC and comes housed in a eye-popping full-color UV gloss jacket featuring artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator, Mark Salwowski. Layout by designer Beth Hall. 


Magas - Countess

Alex Barnett
from the 'Chew From the Mind' LP (MW-006)
Release date: April 1st, 2016
Written and recorded by Alex Barnett
Artwork by Mark Salwowski
Mastered by Ruud Lekx

Alex Barnett - Slapwalk

New track from MOON POOL AND DEAD BAND's HUMANIZER LP entitled 'Cycloid'. HUMANIZER will be released Friday, October 28th, 2016.

The duo of Nate Young (Wolf Eyes, Regression) and David Shettler (Viands, SSM) return with their highly-anticipated full-length follow-up to MEQ 2LP remixes, released by Midwich in 2015 (MW-001). Humanizer is sonically diverse featuring varied modes of production throughout.

Humanizer jettisons with their live staple ‘New British Blues’, the 10-minute track recalling Shettler’s long-form work in Viands (MW-003), putting synthesizers in space, as live drums invigorate the track with an earthbound brashness. ‘Cycloid’ is the album’s most concise, bracing and dare-we-say catchy number--a real ear-worm. ‘Sea Dust’ is a blasting electronic collage also featuring live drums (we think). The title track ‘Humanizer’ is classic Moon Pool, creepy and menacing with an off-kilter bass  thump. ‘A Gray Glow’ continues in classic mode with thumping bass and queasy synths. ‘Hospital Quiet’ features pleasing, sunward-facing ambience to reassure listeners that all is good.

Moon Pool and Dead Band have been a Detroit cult techno favorite since Shettler and Young joined forces in 2011. Uninitiated listeners are caught off-guard by the funkiness of the group, shaking assumptions about the group’s perceived roots. We’ve all heard bad noise-techno records--this isn’t one of them. The danceable style is one that grows organically from the duo’s life experience. Moon Pool and Dead Band approach the music with respect, knowledge and humor. Humanizer is a party-starter that could have only come from Detroit.

Tracklist:
A1. New British Blue
A2. Cycloid
A3. Sea Dust
B1. Humanizer
B2. A Gray Glow
B3. Hospital Quiet

Humanizer

Moon Pool and Dead Band - Cycloid

'Neo - Venezia' is the 2nd track on the Mukqs LP 11,666,666,666,666,666,666.

Maxwell Allison records improvised loop-based electronic music under the name Mukqs. 11,666,666,666,666,666,666, his first LP with Chicago imprint Midwich Productions, documents a session of intertwined synth melodies and technoid beat arrangements recorded live and presented without overdubs. Previous tape releases compiling live takes of textured noise and deranged sample manipulation using cassette tapes as sound sources appeared on labels like Phinery, Apothecary Compositions, and Hausu Mountain (co-run by Allison himself and Doug Kaplan). Allison and Kaplan perform with Natalie Chami in Chicago free music trio Good Willsmith, whose abstracted electronic rock jams and space drone ritual performances aim for a state of overloaded chaos. On 11,666,666,666,666,666, Allison sheds the randomized and abrasive aspects of past free-for-all jams and latches into an elastic pulse of syncopated basslines and complex percussion patterns pumped from a minimal hardware rig of drum machine and sampler. The LP evokes the subaquatic atmospheres and evolving analog arrangements of Drexciya, the recursive melodic ecstasy of Terry Riley, and the cyborg tonal juxtapositions of Oneohtrix Point Never.

Mukqs's arrangements pit the insistence of a rigid grid against a system of arrhythmic synth samples that intersect with a loose logic all their own. Brittle vocal and flute preset tones clash with chordal clouds of sustain and swelling drones, as a network of hi-hat and snare patterns click a path through the center of the mix. Allison's thick bass bursts dominate the stereo spread, animating grooves and harmonizing in distortion with a web of crisp triangle wave arpeggios. His session stretches from the loping electro thump and siren synth walls of "The Tulpoid Serpent" into the zen bongos and syrupy pads of "Neo-Venezia." "Frog Work" hits a stride of major-key bliss when xylophone cascades blend with sitar tones over a 4/4 stomp, as if soundtracking a Studio Ghibli-core movie of Allison's own invention. "Hashimoto-Appelbaum Syndrome" closes the LP with a palette of juxtaposed textures painted in kinetic rhythms: compounded organ lines mingle with vocaloid chirps and a lattice of pitch-shifted cymbals, as a chopped and screwed flute melody holds down the low end with faux-upright bass. If Mukqs's strict adherence to a live take / no overdubs recording regimen betrays a mentality closer to the noise underground, 11,666,666,666,666,666,666 elevates his stubborn practice to new heights of analog synth arrangement and cosmic density.

Mukqs - Neo-Venezia

'Shipping Container' is the 1st track on the new MAGAS 12", 'Explanatory Denial' out May 26th, 2017.

Explanatory Denial is the 7th record by Chicago-based electronic producer Jim Magas under his longtime MAGAS monicker. In the ‘90s, he fronted unconventional ‘no wave’-ish bands Couch and Lake Of Dracula. In the early 2000s, he recorded for material for Ersatz Audio and did a few remixes. In the Twenty-teens, he focused on instrumental productions for his own Midwich imprint and composing music for director Asia Argento’s 2014 film, Misunderstood. In early 2017, Magas premiered new material during a U.S. tour in support of band Joan of Arc.

The limited-to-200 4-track spring 2017 12" EP Explanatory Denial opens with ‘Shipping Container’, a rough, minimal stomper, offering plenty of bounce, but no padding or instructions.‘New Dawn’ opens the door to a brightly-lit and concrete alternate reality. ‘Sky Castles’ keeps bodies moving while synthesized strings whisper false reassurances of easy days and high pay. ‘Indelible Mark’ is an atmospheric lo-fi Casio lounge-funk spy groover that smells of Holiday Inn wood-paneling, dripping with Benson & Hedges Ultra-lite 100s. Deploying a variety of primitive electronic techniques, Explanatory Denial is a testament to the power of diligent synth-hunting and decades of basement refinement.

Explantory Denial is the first entry into Midwich Red, a series of no-frills, minimally-packaged, club-friendly, limited edition 12”s.