Shlomi Aber & Guy Gerber -  Sea Of Sand (Cocoon)

Buy/stream: kompakt.fm/releases/the_floor_is_lava_2xlp_dl

Michael Mayer albums don’t come round too often, which is one of many reasons why his fourth collection, The Floor Is Lava, is a genuine event. It’s been eight years since his last one, the collaborative & released on !K7; its predecessors, Mantasy (2012) and Touch (2004), took their sweet time, too. It’s no real surprise, given the many hats Mayer wears – globetrotting DJ, revered remixer, inveterate collaborator, and boss of both Kompakt and Imara – that his solo productions are relatively sparing. But this also speaks to their quality: Mayer’s name on a record sleeve is a sign of quality, of music that’s both looking to the future and calling back to the past, that balances the imperatives of the dancefloor and the loungeroom, that’s as exploratory as it is functional.

On The Floor Is Lava, Mayer seems to be taking the temperature of both the music that surrounds him (past and present), and the ideas of the industry he works within. There’s that iconic album title, for a start. “The album’s mindset,” he says, reflecting on those four words together. For Mayer, it’s partly a critique of the way the industry boxes in both producer and listener, focuses them on genre, on market, on the next new thing: “Being a free minded spirit that transcends genres has become an uphill battle.” A battle worth fighting, though, and with The Floor Is Lava, the result is an album that’s varied, quixotic, idiosyncratic, charming, and deeply, addictively listenable.

Throughout, Mayer finds thrills in exploration and juxtaposition, allowing unexpected things to blossom and giving them their life, their platform, throwing the listener exciting curveballs: “It’s a DJ album by a DJ that’s easily bored.” Either easily bored, or endlessly curious, The Floor Is Lava is rich with ideas. It opens with “The Problem”, which looks back to look forward, embracing the rickety way early house productions threw samples together with gleeful abandon. Mayer mentions Pal Joey, and the scene around Rockers Hi-Fi and their Different Drummer imprint, as reference points, and you can hear that freewheeling spirit throughout.

That’s The Floor Is Lava: then and now, brainwaves and nerve structures, problems and solutions, genres on fire; the real, the unreal, and the surreal. An album for the easily bored and the endlessly curious. Mayer has the last word, telling us all you need to know about the album’s spirit: “Burning for the cause, being zealous, being addicted to the heat of the night, the exuberant powers of music.”

Sycophant

Michael Mayer - Sycophant

Michael Mayer mesmerizes on Kompakt with quixotic, curious cuts across 9 track album, 'The Floor Is Lava.' 

Read more: https://whenwedip.com/2024/10/premiere-michael-mayer-kompakt/

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Premiere: Michael Mayer - The Solution [Kompakt]

Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/releases/germina_speeder

Sascha Funke is creating a long overdue monument to an almost forgotten cultural artefact of the GDR: the ‘Germina Speeder’ was the only skateboard made in East Germany before reunification and was launched in 1986. It was produced by VEB Schokoladen-Verarbeitungsmaschinen (a state-owned chocolate processing machine factory) in Wernigerode and was therefore affectionately known as the ‘chocolate board’. However, it was hardly suitable for actual skateboarding due to technical inadequacies. It is not known whether Sascha himself owned such a board, but the tracks on the ‘Germina Speeder’ EP definitely roll better than the original. The opener ‘Blaupunkt’ breathes the euphoric spirit of the legendary Berlin club ‘E-Werk’, while the title track would have been more at home at the ‘Dubmission’ parties in the Turbine. Sascha leaves the 90s behind with radiant positivism; ‘Bo Knows’ sounds more like a 2000s open air at Café Schönbrunn. The EP closes with ‘Mastermind’, a high-octane psy-proghouse banger that, like all four tracks, quotes the past but still has both feet on today’s dance floors. Or rather, is dancing. 4:1 for love!

Blaupunkt

Sascha Funke - Blaupunkt

Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/releases/agartha_remixe

Over the course of a decade, Wata Igarashi has risen as one of techno's most accomplished DJs and producers. His highly aesthetic trademark sound is as heavily psychedelic as it's driven by its stern kinetic energy. It's often overlooked that Igarashi is much more than a torch bearer of the raw hypnotic techno he became known for. He's also a very accomplished and versatile musician with a deep understanding of the cause and effect of sound design. His skills are fully on display on 2023's full length "Agartha", a film score to a fictitious movie about the mythical underworld of planet Mars. It was a rather obvious idea to cross the bridge between this epic deep listening album and Wata Igarashi's techno persona by having him remix himself. As you might expect, the "Agartha Sorcery Acid Mix" has turned out to be a masterclass in psychedelic designer techno. It's slightly slower in BPM as the usual Igarashi fare but every bit as captivating. The "Floating Against Time Shimmering Mix" shows another intriguing facet of Wata's spectrum. Let's call it: Psychedelic Deep House. KOMPAKT's very own Michael Mayer couldn't resist to turn the Godzilla soundtrack-ish "Ceremony Of The Dead" into a positively hysterical minimal disco operette. And then there's the "Fusion Mix of Abyss II x Darkness" by Philipp Stoffel, a fresh Cologne DJ and producer from whose AKTE club nights a label with the same name is about to emerge. He's definitely one to keep an eye on in 2025.

Floating Against Time (Wata Igarashi Shimmering Mix)

Wata Igarashi - Floating Against Time (Wata Igarashi Shimmering Mix)

The Solution (Priori Mix)

Spring has arrived with added fervour here at Darkroom Dubs HQ, as Parisian maestro @prinzethefakeone delivers four jubilant tracks heralding his much-anticipated label debut. His 'We Are Free' EP is a bold clarion call to the dancefloor, offering a mischievous nod to early '90s UK progressive house and the halcyon days of acid and rave culture while fully embracing a defined and distinctly psychedelic sonic vision of the future.

2025 will undoubtedly continue to be an eventful year for Prinze as he duly prepares a fistful of cosmic missives for his own Epicure Records and remix collaborations with Rotten City head honcho Alvaro Cabana and Silicone Soul. The latter is an acid dub of REMAIN & DaWad's 'Comatose' and is due to drop on Bogotá's Kaputt.wav label in early May. Much love x

Mastered by Conor Dalton at Glowcast Audio.
Art by Elena Galkina.
Design by made.by.andy
https://darkroomdubs.bandcamp.com
https://www.darkroomdubs.com

We Are Free

Planet Trip

Bandcamp

PREMIERE: Prinze - Planet Trip [Darkroom Dubs]

PINNBALL

New track! Split is free to download on Bancamp! 

Free DL on Bandcamp

Split

maybe can start again a weekly uploading cycle

vision rat

Dj Hell - Car Car Car (Fango Needs a New Car Remix)

Label, booking agency & online record shop

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Michael Mayer - Sycophant

Kompakt

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