AMPLITUDES - Dimanche Café N°038

The boys are back in town with a B-A-N-G!

PBR Streetgang take a trip onboard the Trans Pennine Express for a follow up to their previous Sprechen outing and as you'd expect its a full throttle aural delightful dishing out of electronic music movers & grovers. With one foot in the Italo disco and the other in the dank & murky underbelly of Berlin squat raves this is indeed one that slaps hard.

Gamma Ray is a straight up chugger with a hypnotic stack of arps that you get lost in before some wonky style ear worms synth lines pop by to mess with your endorphins before its back to bubbling basics. Simplistic, trippy & banging in equal measures.

Delivery Man ramps it right up to peak time pinging action and its all kind of late night, body jacking brilliance. Rolling arps & bass line get you mind surfing along with a laser reaching style breakdown along the way. Again totally simple in its nature but its hefty as heck and will defo do the damage.

Space Cake is almost an amalgamation of the 2 previous tracks. Chuggy & thudding but also with some seriously tripped out synth lines that engulf you & totally wrap around your psyche and yes, it also has a mega hyped breakdown. Big indeed!

We roped in some of our finest to provide remixes for this jaunt. Sprechen head honcho Chris Massey takes on Gamma Ray and sprinkles some his Thief Of Time type dust into the equation to deliver an 80's-ALFOS-Synth heavy rework. Big banging mega human Gina Breeze remixes Delivery Man and turns in a twisted, tweaky & straight up banging late night/early morning houser that stomps & whallops at gale force #50.

PREMIERE: PBR Streetgang - Gamma Ray (Massey Remix)

Fran Deeper - Bye Bonsai (Original Mix) [Sprechen Music]

Whisper it quietly, but Andrew Meecham’s ninth album as The Emperor Machine, Island Boogie, may well be the long-serving producer’s strongest set to date. Of course, all his albums ripple with vintage synth sounds, colourful lead lines, dub-flecked electronic disco and lashings of cosmic intent, but this one just feels a little more special.

Island Boogie is certainly special. Meecham’s “most personal” full-length to date was inspired by his experiences at the Rotation Garden Party – a beloved micro-festival promoted by a group of friends (including sometime Bizarre Inc and Chicken Lips partner Dean Meredith), renowned for the quality of its custom-built Klipschorn soundsystem. “The album’s title sums up the vibe that you get from Rotation,” he explains. “It may be held in a landlocked venue but it gives a wonderful sense of isolation – it is an audiophile paradise.”

Meecham road-tested rough versions of the album’s eight tracks at Rotation 2023, with the feedback and dancefloor reaction guiding the sound and arrangement of the final mixes. Fittingly, Meecham will return to the event to showcase the album at Rotation 2024 this July. Given the inspiration he’s drawn from previous editions of the festival, that will be a very special occasion.

Musically, Island Boogie offers the most fully functioning and expertly constructed expression of The Emperor Machine sound yet, a style Meecham describes as “electronic cosmic disco-boogie”. It’s a sound that takes cues from early ‘80s NYC punk-funk and dub disco, vintage electro, proto-house and left-of-centre synth-boogie, but one that’s instantly recognisable to those who have followed Meecham’s career over the last three decades.

Island Boogie also sees Meecham continue his blossoming working relationship with Séverine Mouletin, whose stylish and distinctive vocals previously graced his popular ‘Dance Par Amour’ and ‘Your Own Style’ singles. Here Mouletin features on four tracks: the acid-flecked retro-futurist wave-boogie of ‘La Cassette’ (featuring additional percussion by Rupert Brown); the infectious, bleep-sporting headiness of recent single ‘Dévoilez-Vous’; and the squelchy analogue synth-funk of ‘Wanna Pop With You’ and ‘Vas-y-Le Chat’.

Meecham also finds space for a cover of Fox’s 1976 pop-rock classic ‘S-s-s-single Bed’, one of the Stafford-based artist’s all-time favourites. His version, featuring lead vocals by Michelle Bee and guitar from Dave Atherton, re-imagines the track as a subtly Chic-influenced slab of infectious electro-pop rich in kaleidoscopic synth sounds, sing-along choruses and shuffling drums.

The instrumental foundations of the classic Emperor Machine sound come to the fore on the album’s three other cuts. There’s the jazz-funk-flecked warmth of the LP-opening title track; the sparse squelches, bleeps, TB-303 style bass and brightly coloured electronics of ‘Walk The Dog’; and the exotic, slow-motion cosmic electronica of ‘Cha Murrah Etem’, a warm but poignant affair dedicated to his late father. Heady and intoxicating, with hints of Balearica and digital reggae, it offers a fittingly beautiful and tactile conclusion to Meecham’s most expressive and accessible album yet.

Island Boogie

LENG SHOP

Emperor Machine - Walk The Dog

Super FU are back with the first single from their forthcoming long player 'Physical Sounds', featuring some heavyweight remixes to get things moving.
 
The original is a perfect blend of disco, funk, pop, and acid house. Rock-solid beats, analogue bass, searing strings, and all kinds of synth action blend seamlessly with live instrumentation. Paul Withy and Sarah Lazenby trade melodies as the chorus swoops for a mid-tempo end-of-nighter.

The Dub strips out the pop and instrumentation but ups the psychedelics. Deep, trippy and electronic, it takes a hypnotic journey into a world of dub and balearica.

Next up, Craig Bratley brings the pianos front and centre, working the riff that comes off like Marshall Jefferson on downers. The vocals repeat as the track builds to chug and weave to the acid; cue smoke, strobe and dancefloor mayhem.
   
Finally, Leo Zero dubs the disco and rolls with the funk. Once again, the song shows it's strength is as it blends with the piano for nu-disco heaven!

Dicky Trisco: "Craig Bratley mix bloody rocks!"

Alice Palace: "Absolute quality from Super Fu, have always loved the 12 inch dub, so glad its getting a release into the wild :-) Craig and Leo's remixes are the icing on the cake!"

Fingerman: "Heavy vibes here! Leo Zero's mix and the dub are class!"

Robot 84: :"All sounding good, very hard to pick a winner, Leo and Craig's mixes doing it for me:"

Siren

Buy/Stream

dsundre - 528 Se supone se propone I seen it

Backlight of Progress

MourningRain (longform)

DC Promo Tracks #111: "Chillin'dretti" by Mushrooms Project is part of the upcoming release on Balearic Social @balearicsocial

Pre-Order: https://www.pbvinyl.com/products/mushrooms-project-motolani-chillindretti

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BSR007

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DC Promo Tracks #111: Mushrooms Project "Chillin'dretti"

Ashley Beedle and Yam Who? take the Annabel Lamb version of The Doors classic into dark, electronic territory. Originally issued in 1983, this sounds so now. One for those grimy basements and illegal jams.

MA005 - Riders On The Storm (YamBee! Rework)

Guest Mix for Massimo Lamagna's Shoreline Music Show. Aired on Ibiza Radio 27th September 2020.

*The Oriolles - Bobbi's Second World (Confidence Man Remix Instrumental) 
* Bixi - Flip
* James Bright - Freq Out
* Hot Toddy - Still We Are
* Damian Lazarus - Mountain (Tornado Wallace Remix)
* Cantoma - Mountain (Lexx remix)
* AKSK - Four Lonely Words (CPUB Dub)
* Hologram Teen - Dalston Wizardzz (Al Kent Remix)
* Lexx - Lunatic Dolphin
* Mildlife - Vapour (Cosmodelica Instrumental)
* Smooth & Turrell - It Ain't Working (Ashley Beedle's NSW Dub)

MourningRain (longform)

jeddazen

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