The Kempe Stone Portal is the long awaited debut album from long time musical adventurer The Vendetta Suite. It arrives on Hell Yeah Recordings on June 25th, and spans over 20 years of diverse musical experiments. In the words of label boss Marco, "it's a nice ride."

Gary Irwin started dancing in 1990, when he was drawn to the dubbed out and psychedelic sounds of Andrew Weatherall and The Orb, at the same time falling for the forward looking house and techno played by David Holmes and Iain McCready at their regular nights at Belfast's Art College. After studying music technology and performing arts, Irwin gave Holmes a cassette of bedroom produced techno and it started a long and fruitful relationship that has continued to this day.

In the intervening years, Irwin has been the in-house engineer at Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label, has engineered and remixed with him, released on his labels and written music for his Holy Pictures album, all while picking up credits on labels like NovaMute, Sabrettes, 13Amp and many more. As time passed, Irwin explored non-dance sounds such as krautrock, library music, synth and 80s b-sides before more recently circling back to acid house, downtempo and Balearic. All of this and more informs this panoramic 12 track album, which is a testament to a life spent submerged in many different sound worlds.

The Kempe Stone Portal opens on the ‘Neon Secrets’, which along with tracks like ‘Morning Star’ and ‘I Am The Ghost In My House’ betray Irwin’s love of wonky, shimmering experimental synth-pop musik. They are glistening tracks with heavenly harmonies that are truly life-affirming in their richness. Elsewhere, ‘Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise’ is an homage to his early experiences of Balearic acid house music from the late eighties and early nineties with a not too subtle reference to the narcotics of the time. ‘Who Do You Love’ was Irwin’s first non-dance music production in 1998, a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's version of the Bo Diddly classic, with guitar feedback and distortion drawing you into a murky world of fuzzy sonics.

‘Della Notte’ came 10 years after, with rumbling toms, bubbling synths and phased Rhodes making for a psyched-out post punk dub. Seasonal sleigh bells and obvious krautrock influences abound on ‘Christmas in Cologne’ while ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is Air meets Phil Spector on a beach at sunset. ‘Warehouse Rock’ is a dubby acid track that follows on from where 2017 track ‘Shut Up Ya Dub!’ left off, but with a more experimental approach that found the artist limiting himself to a 303, drum machine, dub effects and samples. If King Tubby were to release on Acid Trax, this is how it would sound. Shorter tracks ‘Spring Blues’ and ‘The Adult Section’ were originally made for a modern library music side project and are brilliantly suspensory pieces of lush electronics, yawning chords and gentle rhythms that empty your mind of any tension.

This is a storied album that traverses different musical worlds with style and skill. Some are old, some are new, but they add up to a long player that is both fascinating and timeless.

The Kempe Stone Portal

Neon Secrets

pre-order

The Vendetta Suite - Neon Secrets

"If you didn't know, Hell Yeah is the Italian label hell-bent on releasing the best modern disco(ish) you can find. Sometimes it's blissed out and Balearic, sometimes it's squelchy and down-right weird and sometimes it's the sort of elongated, tribal stuff that works dancefloors into a salacious frenzy" (Kristan J Caryl - DJ MAG January 2014)


Hell Yeah Recordings, a descendent of leading Italian dance label Mantra Vibes is an Italian-based electronic music label active since 2006. Releasing from Ferrara, Bologna, and Amsterdam and led by Marco Gallerani “peeDoo” (A&R), the label bases its philosophy on a diversity of artists and recording experiences tied together by a common vision of what defines quality progressive recording. 

With a sound as diverse as the artists it represents, Hell Yeah does not limit itself to the constraints of genre but packs a complex palette of sounds ranging from techno to minimal-nu-rave to electro-funk and tech house.  Artists as varied as Radio Slave, Santos, Umek, Oliver Koletzki, Congorock, 3iO, Crimea X and the mighty Balearic Gabba Sound System have helped establish Hell Yeah’s eclectic sound, a distinct take on party music loaded with a sonic Balearic feel good vibe that has made press around the world hail Hell Yeah as a label to watch, always

Hell Yeah aims to build upon its current reputation as a leading Italian Electronic Music play, overseeing the release of a series of progressive productions that straddle genres, defy conventions and blur barriers between listening and dance music. Stemming from Hell Yeah’s initial graphic identity formed by Neverending’s Rocco “the Boghe” Pezzella, new mind-bending web and label artworks from Italian artist Andrea Amaducci and the Berlin-based Ice Cream For Free collective promises complete visual as well as aural stimulation.

info/bookings: 
marco@pplayground.com

Michal Poncar started his playing in 1993 under a name DJ Face. In that times it was just in small places near Prague. As an eager Radio 1 listener he met Béla Némeshegyi and very soon he started to write reviews for Béla..s Pareniste server under a nickname Myclick.

In 1999 he was also contributing with reviews of new records to Tripmag magazine thanks to Honza Babka who was editor in chief in that time. One year later, after his work for Trance.cz server, Mellow with Dan Kafka offered him a collaboration with Techno.cz.

After reviews with unbelievable 13.000 types he is enjoying writting of voluminous reports from the events he took part in. He is preparing news from the world of dance music for this website and publishes DJ beginners..sets. Since 2004 you can hear him two times a week on
Akropolis Internet Radio in programmes Techno.cz on Akropolis Radio and Techno.cz In Da Mix where he is interviewing DJs and mixing live sets right in studio.

House in all its periods was his favourite. But there was basic change at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. Then he was contacted by <a href="http://www.lucasross.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lucas Ross</a> the guitar player, Mataro purchased electronic percussion and Face 2 Face project had got its roughcast. Every performance took place with different guests and with different repertory. Five musician formation Face 2 Face with records and live instruments combination was performing beside small clubs also at Sazava Fest, Creamfields and several times in Roxy Club.

DJ Face currently enjoys first of all nu disco, deep house, dubby house and minimal house and an ideal performance is to him 
a nights Unplugged @ House boat U Bukanyra, House 4 Adults @ 2. patro with DJ Cubik, Groove Bar and Moovement with DJ Diom, Bar v Krymsky with MC Manda, Luft Cafe and Moje Muza with Pavel Aeling and Namax.


At the beginning of 2010 the circle closes and his big dream comes true... Side by side with his friends who he called about his musical wishes to the Radio 1 in the mid of 90th,
now he puts its own radio show Fluffy Clouds with legendary FlyBoyEda and soon with his longtime back 2 back partner in crime Diom every odd Sunday 15:00 - 18:00. Stay tuned: 91,9 MHz / http://www.radio1.cz!

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