In a convergence of two of the most celebrated names in contemporary electronic music, Karsten Pflum steps out on Central Processing Unit with the Liars EP. As anyone who has followed either Pflum’s work for labels such as Worm Interface/Furthur Electronix or the Sheffield imprint’s recent run of top-quality electro joints will have expected, this coming together proves to be a match made in heaven.

What we have here is a tour de force of modern machine music. With Liars, Pflum achieves that rare feat of making something that is at once boundary-pushing yet also thrillingly immediate, his attention to detail shining through with each well-placed snare hit or leftfield structural choice. Equally apt for home listening or dancefloor deployment, Liars is a delight for heads and hedonists alike.

Constantly evolving while also cleaving to a relentless groove throughout, opener ‘WAN1’ is a brilliant scene-setter for Liars. The track slinks between sections of seething post-Drexciyan acid and eerie vignettes which balance out haunted house synth licks with the sort of punishing bass blasts that recall early grime classics like Youngstar’s ‘Pulse X’. A sly shift of key halfway through the track only serves to redouble ‘WAN1’s restless brilliance.

After ‘WAN1’, ‘LOLA’ represents something of a gear-switch. The track’s wiggly opening bassline is a red herring - make no mistake that we’re fully into braindance territory on this one, the drums skittering across the mix as Pflum fills the track out with jungle-adjacent delays and softly insistent synth pads. As ‘LOLA’ goes on, blurts of synth and some stiffening in the drum work pushes the track into pure rhythm workout territory.

First B-side ‘MOUSFOLK’ somewhat splits the difference between Liars’ A-sides. This track has ‘WAN1’s unyielding stomp and prominent acid bass line, but the helter-skelter drum breaks and wandering keyboard lines are very much pulling from ‘LOLA’s zanier energy. As with the other joints here, ‘MOUSFOLK’ is elevated by Pflum’s composerly touch, the Dane frequently throwing in new sonic tidbits - a skippy snare tattoo, a single-note synth loop which sounds like a hovering spaceship - that reinvigorate the mix.

Pflum’s musicality is at the fore once more on closer ‘BALM’. For the first section of ‘BALM’, a rich and sombre keyboard fugue, you’d be hard pressed to say whether you’re listening to a producer of club music or a contemporary classical maestro. The way Pflum builds this central motif up with deft broken-beat drum programming, a wheezing synth countermelody and distant vocal sighs is equally delightful, the whole track coming off like a kindred spirit of the electronica-infused experiments on Radiohead’s 2000 masterwork Kid A.

A brilliantly unorthodox collection of electro-braindance hybrids, Liars is a barnstorming Central Processing Unit debut from the seasoned Karsten Pflum.

RIYL: AFX, Silicon Scally, DMX Krew, Matmos

Liars

Karsten Pflum - Liars

After building up a head of steam on labels such as Craigie Knowes and Rotterdam Electronix in the past couple of years, Larionov debuts on Sheffield's Central Processing Unit with the Space Threat EP. Larionov's previous releases have shown off a musical sensibility which is both schooled in classic electro stylings and also able to reach for leftfield sonics in a way which sets the producer apart from the pack. It's a vibe that continues into this record, a quartet of busy electro joints which are characterised by a brooding, neurotic energy.

Larionov arrives on Central Processing Unit with an EP of anxiously excellent electro experiments.

@larionov

https://beacons.ai/looselipsmusic

Space Threat

PREMIERE: Larionov - Flying High [Central Processing Unit]

Tracklisting:

Paul Hierophant - 
Soon come..

Plant43 - 
Plant43 - Skyway Shadow [Plant43 Recordings]
https://plant43.bandcamp.com/album/luminous-machines

Mr. Blix - Racks Xnip Cyber Eye [Stereo on Strike]
https://stereoonstrike.bandcamp.com/album/saucer-sectionals

Aphex Twin - zin2 test5 [Warp Records]
https://aphextwin.bandcamp.com/album/blackbox-life-recorder-21f-in-a-room7-f760

Plant43 - Haunting the Depths [Plant43 Recordings]
https://plant43.bandcamp.com/album/luminous-machines

214 - Arrival [Bandcamp]
https://214electronics.bandcamp.com/album/what-would-have-been

Obzerv - Xeno [Control Data Institute]
https://cdistore.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-the-institute

Tracing Xircles - Voyage [Candy Mountain]
https://tracingxircles.bandcamp.com/album/first-contact

Ana Quiroga - Wallada [Houndstooth]
https://anaquiroga.bandcamp.com/album/azabache

Silicon Scally - Spin Ratio [CPU]
https://centralprocessingunit.bandcamp.com/album/soft-robotics

Larionov - Asteroid Attack [CPU]
https://centralprocessingunit.bandcamp.com/album/space-threat

Credit 00 - Breathe One Two [Mechatronica]
https://mechatronica.bandcamp.com/album/count-8

214 - Mall Walkers [Bandcamp]
https://214electronics.bandcamp.com/album/what-would-have-been

Steffi - Alternation Of High And Low [Candy Mountain]
https://steffiedoms.bandcamp.com/album/steffi-the-red-hunter

Plant43 - Disrupt & Disobey [CPU]
https://centralprocessingunit.bandcamp.com/album/three-dimensions

Luz1e - Electronic Warfare [Voitax]
https://voitax.bandcamp.com/album/radical-optimism

Alonzo - 10 Y Vs A [Control Data Institute]
https://cdistore.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-the-institute

Plant43 - Hibernation Base [Plant43 Recordings]
https://plant43.bandcamp.com/album/luminous-machines

Plant43 - Capsule Hotel (Rainy April Mall) [Plant43 Recordings]
https://plant43.bandcamp.com/album/luminous-machines

State Of Play W/ Paul Hierophant & Plant43 -8th-Feb-2024 | Threads

If you can judge an artist’s quality by the company they keep, then FaltyDL is up there with the best of them. The label history of the producer known to his friends as Drew Lustman reads like a “who’s who” of 21st century electronic music imprints - Ninja Tune, Unknown to the Unknown, Planet Mu, Studio Barnhus, the list goes on.

With In the Wake of Wolves, we can now add Central Processing Unit to this illustrious roster. The Sheffield label joins the party at a notable juncture - while FaltyDL has kept up an impressive clip of releases throughout his career, In the Wake of Wolves is both the NYC-based producer’s first LP for two years and his first full-length release away from his own Blueberry Records for almost a decade. 

In the Wake of Wolves proves to be both a great match for CPU and also further evidence of the label’s burgeoning sonic palette. While CPU has built its reputation on top quality electro joints, recent releases have delivered adventurous electronica experiments (Proswell’s People Are Giving And Receiving Thanks At Incredible Speeds), hard-wired breakbeat techno (Baby T’s I Against I) and golden-age synth explorations (twenty-fifth anniversary reissues of Bochum Welt’s Desktop Robotics and Feelings on a Screen, both of which first emerged via the legendary Rephlex Records). In the Wake of Wolves takes things further still - this is a brilliantly genre-voracious record, one which marries the rhythmic cut-and-thrust that we have long known FaltyDL for with all manner of adventurous stylistic choices.

Those familiar with the FaltyDL experience will recognise the trademark blend of synthetic grit and harmonious softness in album opener ‘I Need You’. This could pass for Four Tet or even Hannah Diamond at points, the steady build of pulsing synths and looped vocals recalling a more mysterious version of the PC Music sound. ‘I Need You’ stands shoulder-to-shoulder with any of FaltyDL’s other great atmospheric album openers - no small feat given the competition. ‘Further’, the following number, is yin to ‘I Need You’s yang. This is a pulsating track which gleefully skitters between machine-funk, tubing darkside bass and breakcore-adjacent drum programming, all of which is peppered with some genuinely beautiful work in the higher synths.

‘Further’ sets the scene for several of the more club-facing cuts here. ‘Minds Protection’ similarly features all manner of strange percussive sounds to surprise the ear, and it also boasts a thrilling mid-section in which the bottom falls out the track to incorporate a short snippet of blown-out junglism. With its tunnelling low-end and clattering drums, ‘Full Spectrum’ kicks off a delightful run of grime-influenced joints which take cues from Mr. Mitch, Logos and many of those other producers who took the Eski sound to exciting new places in the 2010s. ‘Forget Me Not’, the album’s longest track which is placed three spots from the end, feels like the record’s climactic point - a pitter-patter post-house joint that has a hint of Caribou in its DNA, it’ll take the clubs by storm.

But as much as FaltyDL may consistently bring the heat in terms of the beat programming, the thing which has long marked Lustman out as a special talent is the musicality of his compositions. No matter how much drums clatter or bass bangs, FaltyDL always hooks the ear back in with a sonorous synth or pleasing nugget of melody. Nowhere is this more apparent than on In the Wake of Wolves’ more weightless numbers, each startling in their prettiness. ‘Half Spectrum’ is a new-era beat track packed full of ear candy; the keening keys of ‘GasGas’ are potent with feeling; and on the album’s closer, the evocatively-titled ‘Mila Stans In A Meadow For The First Time Eating Strawberries’, we get a gorgeous synth vignette that joins the dots between the modern mastery of Yung Sherman and the most emotionally affecting moments of Aphex’s Twin’s catalogue.

In The Wake Of Wolves

FaltyDL - In The Wake Of Wolves

TL Premiere #1563 (2024.03.22) : Karsten Pflum - BALM [Central Processing Unit]

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

For this 93rd Premiere of 2024, we have a track by Danish DJ/Producer "Karsten Pflum" (@karsten-von-pflum) titled ‘BALM’ from his forthcoming EP "Liars" on the independent British record label, founded in Sheffield in 2012, specialising in electronic music : Central Processing Unit (@cpurecords).

The EP will be available on April 5, 2024 in Limited Edition 12" Vinyl + Digital.

▶︎ Pre-order : https://centralprocessingunit.bandcamp.com/album/liars

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Release Info :

Karsten Pflum - Liars [Central Processing Unit]

Preview here: soundcloud.com/cpurecords/karsten-pflum-liars

In a convergence of two of the most celebrated names in contemporary electronic music, Karsten Pflum steps out on Central Processing Unit with the Liars EP. As anyone who has followed either Pflum’s work for labels such as Worm Interface/Furthur Electronix or the Sheffield imprint’s recent run of top-quality electro joints will have expected, this coming together proves to be a match made in heaven.

What we have here is a tour de force of modern machine music. With Liars, Pflum achieves that rare feat of making something that is at once boundary-pushing yet also thrillingly immediate, his attention to detail shining through with each well-placed snare hit or leftfield structural choice. Equally apt for home listening or dancefloor deployment, Liars is a delight for heads and hedonists alike.

Constantly evolving while also cleaving to a relentless groove throughout, opener ‘WAN1’ is a brilliant scene-setter for Liars. The track slinks between sections of seething post-Drexciyan acid and eerie vignettes which balance out haunted house synth licks with the sort of punishing bass blasts that recall early grime classics like Youngstar’s ‘Pulse X’. A sly shift of key halfway through the track only serves to redouble ‘WAN1’s restless brilliance. 

After ‘WAN1’, ‘LOLA’ represents something of a gear-switch. The track’s wiggly opening bassline is a red herring - make no mistake that we’re fully into braindance territory on this one, the drums skittering across the mix as Pflum fills the track out with jungle-adjacent delays and softly insistent synth pads. As ‘LOLA’ goes on, blurts of synth and some stiffening in the drum work pushes the track into pure rhythm workout territory.

First B-side ‘MOUSFOLK’ somewhat splits the difference between Liars’ A-sides. This track has ‘WAN1’s unyielding stomp and prominent acid bass line, but the helter-skelter drum breaks and wandering keyboard lines are very much pulling from ‘LOLA’s zanier energy. As with the other joints here, ‘MOUSFOLK’ is elevated by Pflum’s composerly touch, the Dane frequently throwing in new sonic tidbits - a skippy snare tattoo, a single-note synth loop which sounds like a hovering spaceship - that reinvigorate the mix. 

Pflum’s musicality is at the fore once more on closer ‘BALM’. For the first section of ‘BALM’, a rich and sombre keyboard fugue, you’d be hard pressed to say whether you’re listening to a producer of club music or a contemporary classical maestro. The way Pflum builds this central motif up with deft broken-beat drum programming, a wheezing synth countermelody and distant vocal sighs is equally delightful, the whole track coming off like a kindred spirit of the electronica-infused experiments on Radiohead’s 2000 masterwork Kid A. 

A brilliantly unorthodox collection of electro-braindance hybrids, Liars is a barnstorming Central Processing Unit debut from the seasoned Karsten Pflum. 

RIYL: AFX, Silicon Scally, DMX Krew, Matmos

Tracklist :
1. WAN1
2. LOLA
3. MOUSFOLK
4. BALM

releases April 5, 2024

All tracks written and produced by Jacob Helverskov Madsen.
Mastered at Computer Club Sheffield
Design by Human / www.humanstudio.com

BALM

Pre-order

TL PREMIERE : Karsten Pflum - BALM [Central Processing Unit]

Inspired by the captivating storytelling weaved by the McElroy family in The Adventure Zone. 

Composed and recorded in one take exclusively on a Eurorack modular system utilizing components from Make Noise, Mutable Instruments, Doepfer, and Waldorf.

Static Memories

Midi Comptroller

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