Damn this is good!  The drums, you can touch them.  Very cool. <3

Artist: @xiaoquanxiaoquanxiaoquan
Catalogue Number: IM090
Album: A Taste of Revenge
Release Date: May 28th, 2021
Format: Digital

Having spent the latter half of 2020 pushing out a string of intense bootlegs via SoundCloud and taking up remix duties for acts like Ice_Eyes, São Paulo’s Xiao Quan is readying some original productions for his debut release on Infinite Machine, entitled A Taste of Revenge. These frantic, drum-heavy compositions see the artist push further into a liminal space where techno and hybrid club sounds blend - and continues a stylized nod to Xiao Quan’s muse, The Crying Freeman manga series.

The record opens with Chakram Intel Bulletins; one of the EP’s more measured moments but one that remains as tense and claustrophobic as the rest of Taste of Revenge. The layers of crunching analogue synthesis and the deluge of drum hits which seem to trip over each other are hypnotic; creating strange and disorienting effects on the ear. The end result has more than an air of the cyberpunk about it - as if Vatican Shadow tried his hand re-soundtracking Ghost In The Shell.

Xiao Quan notches up the dread and suspense on the following title track of the EP. Airy sustained tones and an unrelenting mass of polyrhythms push up against each other, vying for your attention before a piercing 2-tone melody cuts through the mix like a hot knife through butter.

With the next track, Shades of Death, the creeping suspense and claustrophobia of the previous two compositions is swapped out for unadulterated rhythmic chaos. Underpinned by an oscillating bass pulse, countless samples and drum lines are arranged in a frenetic audio-collage. A solid showcase of Xiao Quan’s skillful combining of sounds from across the globe.

The EP rounds off with The Crying Freeman, a track named after the manga that underpins many elements of the Xiao Quan project. The most melodic production of the release, the track’s mournful synth line glides over rushing, mechanistic drum patterns. This blend of the emotional and the machinic distinctly mirrors the situation of the manga’s protagonist; an assassin hypnotically programmed to kill on his master’s demand who sheds tears at the fate of his victims.

Even a passing glance at panels of The Crying Freeman manga clearly shows that Xiao Quan has done his homework on his source material. The producer masterfully channels the uneasy and shadowy world of the manga series and translates it into the sonic experience that is A Taste of Revenge EP.

Tracklist:

1. Chakram Intel Bulletins
2. A Taste of Revenge
3. Shades of Death
4. Crying Freeman
5. The Dragon from Russia (Bandcamp bonus track)

Artwork by Danny Hell
Mastered by Fausto Mercier

A Taste of Revenge

Xiao Quan - Chakram Intel Bulletins (IM090)

Opal Tapes and Petrola 80 embrace the end of the summer months and the onslaught of winter with this debut 12” from Copenhagen duo Lyra Valenza. Comprised of Jens Konrad (Severin) and Hjalte, they debut a blur of post-rave tropes, insistent, sometimes frantic gabber kicks folded up with punishing sampler fuckery and futurist-leaning sound design. 

Icy cold and menacing yet bursting with playful energy, ‘Down Not Out’ and ‘January Airdrop’ seem to take their cue from piano led hardcore nostalgia and murky sinogrime. A tornado of 160 bpm drum programming, computerised vocal cut ups and joyous, amusement park slot machine major chords. Konrad and Hjalte seem happy to move away from the straighter, more techno focused recordings of PET-001 (recorded as Lyra) and even experiment with jungle breaks and 90s bleep pads on ‘Reality Blizz’. The Copenhagen scene has been truly verdant in recent years, with fast industrial techno through Euromantic and Niki Istrefi and the left-field house of labels like Twin Cities and Tartelet and of course the peerless Posh Isolation. Lyra Valenza carve their own space in the city across these impressive four tracks of forward facing rave music.

Artwork - Laurits Hanak

https://www.instagram.com/laurits_hanak/
http://lauritshanak.dk

Video for Reality Blizz by Camille Doussy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-cNrMZLNT4
https://www.instagram.com/kmidouss/
http://pyrocumuluscamillus.com/

https://soundcloud.com/lyravalenza
https://soundcloud.com/petrola-80

Buy 12" / Digital

Lyra Valenza - Reality Blizz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eBhf6f8TrM

A2 I Tried To Tell Ya Something Through This Fucking Phone

HEART FIELD (x MORGIANA HZ)

Taken from 'Deserted / Reclaimed'(G&P015), out September 16, 2020

With a handful of releases out on various pioneering imprints (including longplays RISC Chip and Meme Booth via Conditional Records or the latest contribution to the groove series by Warsaw based label outlines), the producer, programmer and live-coder Mike Hodnick is one of the leading figures representing a movement of computer-centred music production, recently labeled as algorave. Since we are devoted fans for quite some time, the Platonic's are proud to present Mike Hodnick´s latest project under the prolific Kindohm alias - 'Deserted / Reclaimed'.
Sequenced live on a drum machine, the diptych stretches across four vast sonic plains, bounded by curvy dunes formed by countless TidalCycles code bits, constantly pouring over like the grains of scorching and shiny sand. Full of paradoxical rhythm twists planted into the ever-bending landscape, Deserted / Reclaimed reads as a fragmented and sometimes petrifying ride towards the chaotic percepts of the monumental surroundings, dissolving in the thermal inversion somewhere far on the horizon.

Written, produced & mastered by Mike Hodnick
www.kindohm.com
@kindohm

Artwork by Jiri Macku
jirimacku.tumblr.com

🦂

Deserted / Reclaimed

Digital & Cassette

Kindohm - Reclaimed 2

Yelzin - Gasper

The French artist Basile3 is giving another proof of his wide-range & futuristic production palette on "Ciel Rouge", his forthcoming EP to be out on InFiné

Read more on CxC: https://couvrexchefs.com/en/basile3-infine-temps-du-reve

Article

[PREMIERE] Basile3 - Temps Du Rêve [InFiné]

Ausschuss contributes 'Silk Law' to Perpetual Cares's audio & visual project 'Communion'.

More: https://ins-rt.net/audio/ausschuss-silk-law

Communion

Premiere: Ausschuss - Silk Law

“Whisper” by @zalivad is the latest track from @svbkvlt 's upcoming compilation "Cache 02" out on the 4th of December.

Pre-order: https://svbkvlt.bandcamp.com/album/cache-02
Read more: soulfeederweb.com/premieres/premiere-zaliva-d-whisper

Cache 02

[Premiere] Zaliva-D – Whisper

J Sliwa - Demiurge

Sequistice

http://hesaitix.net
laetitia@annexagency.co.uk

Sequistice

Hesaitix / eea / M.E.S.H.

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