DJ Manny - Signals In My Head (LP out 23rd July)
https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/223122-dj-manny-signals-in-my-head
https://djmanny1.bandcamp.com/album/signals-in-my-head

DJ Manny is both known and unknown. Despite being firmly embedded within the Footwork elite and being regarded by many as a DJ's DJ, Manny has yet to receive the kind of attention his peers have. His joyous new album for Planet Mu "Signals In My Head" is set to alter that for good.

Born in March 1990 in Chicago but raised in Robbins/Harvey, IL, Manuel Gaines first encountered Juke/Footwork before he was 10 years old while out with his brother at a party he was too young to be at. Dancing became a big thing for him, then throwing parties, then meeting Rashad and DJ Spinn when he was in middle school, then making his first recordings at his cousin Jonathan's house (R.I.P.) using FL Studios. His first release "Kush On Deck" came about in 2010 with DJ Rashad's help, when he was already a ten year veteran of the scene.

Here we are eleven years later and "Signals In My Head" marks a long worked for new chapter in DJ Manny's career. Now based in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with partner SUCIA! Manny's sound has widened out and taken on a more romantic edge. He openly admits that his goal for the new album was "to do something that nobody (in Footwork) had ever done before which is an R&B love type of album but still keeping it footwork, juke, house, techno, with a few breaks. I just want people to know it's love out there." Tracks like "U Want It", "Never Was Ah Hoe" and the title cut "Signals In My Head" are strong standouts that show what DJ Manny means when he says 'R&B love.'

"Signals..." also brings in a drum & bass flavour, something you'll find on cuts like "Good Love" and on "Havin' Fun" made with DJ Phil. When asked about D&B Manny shouts out LTJ Bukem as a inspiration. Tracks like "Club GTA" and "That Thang" also call back to the classic Chicago house of the nineties while "Smoke 'n' Fade Away" and album closer "At First Site" both recall the golden era of Detroit techno. Meanwhile "Wants My Body", created with DJ Chap, and "All I Need" are classic Footwork workouts sure to ignite dancefloors.

Looking back at the selection, DJ Manny says he was "actually able to get the sound I wanted." His set up, a mixture of MPC, Abelton, Boss drum machine and synths like the Triton and Omni has served him well. Well aware that some in the past have thought of him as a sleeper - he notes "It's not a problem to be low key at all with your music, when you trying to better yourself and your sound." DJ Manny has succeeded in moving himself forward. "Signals In My Head" brings us back to the joy of Footwork as a dance, as a mid-west American movement and most importantly as a mental and spiritual boost.

Signals In My Head

DJ Manny - Signals In My Head

https://mikeparadinas.bandcamp.com/album/secret-garden

In Spring 2021, Mike Paradinas (µ-Ziq and the owner of Planet Mu) spoke to long time friend and past label signing Hannah Davidson (Mrs Jynx) about the therapeutic power of writing music when times are tough. Both had recently been dealing with the loss of a parent due to cancer, and fresh from writing Scurlage, Paradinas suggested a collaboration.

“I’ve always thought Hannah’s melodic sensibilities chime well with my own," says Paradinas, "and I've wanted to collaborate with her for a long time, since [her 2010 album] 'Shark Carousel' in fact, because she'd written some melodies that I wish I had.”

In a matter of weeks the two collaborated online, sending stems back and forth, each encouraging the other and fitting perfectly together. 

“After about ten days we had ten tracks we were happy with." adds Davidson, "It was exciting to hear what Mike would do with the stems I sent, and equally exciting to see what he thought of my additions to his stems.”

Overall the result is an opus of deeply personal moments of grief, depicted in a feeling of serene, misty tranquility that makes it easy to get lost in. Davidson and Paradinas settled on the title 'Secret Garden' due to the melodic vista which unexpectedly opened up before them on the final track. The album truly is a melodic exploration that is so often missed in this genre. 

There are twists and turns in mood, from the pastoral loveliness of 'Jynxiq' and 'Unheard Melodies' which fall away to the dubby beats of 'Hi Jynx'; the sadness of 'Loss' leading into the beatless forlorn 'The Ballad of Darth Vader. The album ups the pace with the muffled kicks and warm atmosphere of 'Afternoon Sunshine', which sets the tone for the happier mood of the second half. This all leads up to the album's denoeument in final track 'Secret Garden' whose naïve meandering synth melodies, orchestral accompaniment and glockenspiel end the album in happy resolution.

µ-Ziq & Mrs Jynx - The Secret Garden

From 'µ-Ziq - Goodbye EP' (out on Planet Mu - 1st April 2022)
https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/242667-ziq-goodbye

µ-Ziq says hello again with 'Goodbye'. The six track EP is the first in a series of releases by Mike Paradinas this year, which are all centred around the 25th Anniversary Edition of 'Lunatic Harness’, his classic 1997 album. 

Inspired by going back through the archives while he was remastering the Lunatic Harness reissue, 'Goodbye' sees Mike revisiting the nineties, taking on jungle and it's precursor jungle tekno and upgrading them with the benefit of hindsight and contemporary software. Imbued with Mike's lush sense of melody and his knack for striking contrasts (don't be shocked to hear maudlin piano, 303 and amens in the same track), 'Goodbye' approaches these old genres like a sandpit, and stretches them in directions only Mike might take.

Goodbye

µ-Ziq - Goodbye

Room(s)

She Died There

Leave your preconceptions behind because Ital Tek’s brilliant new album ‘Hollowed‘ is his best and most rewarding yet. Created from new beginnings, it's a journey through the naïve exploratory methods with which Alan Myson started to make music over a decade ago. The record is dark and maximalist but at the same time the huge sounds are minutely detailed and elegantly rendered.

Cutting himself off in a new studio at the start of 2014, Alan experimented and worked out the core sounds of the album by going back to the techniques he started with: "when I was 15 I would make endless minidiscs with my guitar and effects. With this record I bought the guitar I wanted back then and hit record, creating hours of drones, loops and textures. I wanted to make the album that was in my head when I was 14 but I had no idea how to".

With ‘Hollowed‘ Ital Tek gone far beyond his earlier more dance-genre based work, leaving just the footprint and especially the sonic weight and space of dubstep. But the sound here is designed from the ground up and carved into something much more abstract, impressionistic and elegant. As Alan puts it "I'm moving away from dance music and letting sound inhabit a space without shoving everything at the listener in the first few bars". One of the biggest musical experiences that left an impression on him while recording this album was hearing "Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No 3’ being played live, starting very small and soaring, then returning to stillness…" It was this that made him think about reassembling his approach to making music

Hollowed

Jenova

Ital Tek - Jenova

Kuedo returns to Planet Mu with his long awaited second album ’Slow Knife’. It’s been five years since his acclaimed debut ‘Severant’ and time has proved it prescient; its futuristic trap influence is now ubiquitous. ‘Slow Knife‘ seems to return to where ‘Severant’ left off, but with the intricate sound design of last year’s haunting EP ‘Assertion Of A Surrounding Presence’ subsumed into the compositions, making them more exacting and beautifully crafted.

Between albums Kuedo has been working as a sound designer and composer for hire and the application of intent and widescreen rigour that commercial work requires has definitely found its way into the new album. ‘Slow Knife’ has the subtlety, ambition and pacing of a brilliant soundtrack - a sense of an album of scenes, that easily lends itself to an impressionistic narrative. But, as with ‘Severant’, the title suggests relationship unease, with the slow knife being a metaphor for the building resentment in any close relationship.

‘Slow Knife’ is almost two albums; the first half, according to Kuedo, invokes the seduction of the city, taking the music of Michael Mann’s ‘Manhunter’ as a cue, with the latter half being inspired by the bloody starscapes and voodoo wilderness of films such as ‘Angel Heart’, ‘Night Of The Hunter’ and more recently the ‘True Detective’ series. Both halves of the album are also in thrall to Mica Levi’s inspiring ‘Under The Skin’ soundtrack, especially in the turbulence of the mid-section. 

The songs of the albums first half are synthetic and seductive, a gelatinous veil with shades of the pseudo-sophisticated trance of Enigma, of all things, underpinned with dusky unsettling shadows and atmosphere. ‘In Your Sleep’, perhaps surprisingly, features the vocals of Hayden Thorpe from Wild Beasts, who settles his dark, whispered vocals into the moonlit shadowy atmosphere. ‘Floating Forest’ is the first track to allow back some of Kuedo’s experimentation with the Southern rap template, which he explored before it became commonplace, with echoed drum splashes and a sinister repetitive motif, ending with a haunting growl.

The second half of the album enters wilderness territory with ‘Approaching’s slow descending notes, before ‘Broken Fox - Black Hole’ throws the record into the cathartic darkness, as undulating chords play hide and seek with riotous reeds and scratchy strings grown from challenging collaborations with cello player Koenraad Ecker (from Lumisokea). ‘Breaking The Surface’ shivers and coils, before metal and strings dominate while ‘In Your Skin’ feels like being lost in a vast hinterland before ‘Warmer Light’ introduces some memories of sunshine, with its plucked bassline and spiralling dub. ‘Halogen Light’ opens with the sound of crickets and a clear piano, cleansing the soul before ‘Lathe’ brings things down to earth with a short, yet powerful coda.

Slow Knife

Kuedo - In Your Sleep (ft. Hayden Thorpe) from 'Slow Knife' released on 14th October

After the critical success of his 'Hollowed' album, which many are calling an album of the year, Ital Tek releases a suite of five tracks which showcase a calm, lush side to his work. 

Lead track 'Beyond Sight’, one of the highlights of Hollowed, undulates and repeats, its riffs gathering gentle force as it approaches resolution. 'Sanctum' is dub from the catacombs; slow, dark and dusty with a sense of something ancient and foreboding. With ’Utter' traces of light start to appear taking us away from 'Sanctum’s' darkness, and as small notes start to form a melody over the palpitating backdrop, the sense of intensifying excitement develops throughout the track. 'Trace' is parched and elegant, its notes stretching out and extending into drones over a repeating rhythm, left flickering like a mirage. The EP ends with the swelling synths of 'Until The End Of Time' with its slowly rising melodies, snaking out over slow bass tones, suggesting a sunrise.

Ital Tek - Utter

Jlin returns with the first fruits of her new work since last years ‘Free Fall’ EP. ’Dark Lotus’ is a transition between 'Dark Energy’, her debut album, and her forthcoming ‘Black Origami’ full-length. 

A-side ’The Escape of the Blvck Rxbbit (ft. Avril Stormy Unger)’ is the more traditional of the two tracks, starting off proceedings with a constantly switching rhythmic structure and a stop-start sweeping hoover stab panning between the speakers, descending bleeps and Avril's vocals cut into shapes and pushed through effects.

B-side ‘Nyakinyua Rise’ races headlong into uncharted territory, with a fierce barrage of djembe drums over pounding bass, punchy war cries and jubilant uluations that paint a tension between hot aggression and weightless ecstasy.

Nyakinyua Rise

Planet Mu are very excited to announce Jlin's long awaited second album “Black Origami”. A percussion-led tour de force, it's a creation that seals her reputation as a unique producer with an exceptional ability to make riveting rhythmic music.

“Black Origami” is driven by a deep creative thirst which she describes as “this driving feeling that I wanted to do something different, something that challenged me to my core. Black Origami for me, comes from letting go creatively, creating with no boundaries. The simple definition of origami is the art of folding and constructing paper into a beautiful, yet complex design. Composing music for me is like origami, only I'm replacing paper with sound. I chose to title the album "Black Origami" because like "Dark Energy" I still create from the beauty of darkness and blackness. The willingness to go into the hardest places within myself to create for me means that I can touch the Infinity.” 

Spirituality and movement are both at the core of “Black Origami”, inspired largely by her ongoing collaborations with Indian dancer/movement artist Avril Stormy Unger whom she met and collaborated with at her debut performance for the Unsound festival – ”There is a fine line between me entertaining a person and my spirituality. Avril, who collaborates with me by means of dance, feels the exact same way. Movement played a great role in Black Origami. The track "Carbon 7" is very inspired by the way Avril moves and dances. Our rhythms are so in sync at times it kind of scares us. When there is something I can't quite figure out when it comes to my production, it’s like she senses it. Her response to me is always "You'll figure it out". Once I figure it out it's like time and space no longer exist.” 

Similar time shifting/folding/disrupting effects can be heard throughout the record – especially on “Holy Child” an unlikely collaboration with minimalist legend William Basinski. She also collaborates again with Holly Herndon on “1%”, while Halcyon Veil producer Fawkes' voice is on “Calcination“ and Cape Town rapper Dope Saint Jude provides vocals for “Never Created, Never Destroyed“.

Jlin will be touring extensively this year and is currently lining up appearances including Sonar festival. She also has plans to collaborate with acclaimed UK choreographer Wayne McGregor who played her music recently on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and described her music as “quite rare and so exciting”.

Black Origami

Jlin - Nandi (from 'Black Origami' - out 19th May)

This summer Tom Scholefield a.k.a. Konx-om-Pax will release the very welcome 'Refresher' EP, his follow up to last year's album, the popular 'Caramel', which explored and disassembled the afterglow of warm rave memory.  

The EP kicks off with the joyous actual rave of Cascada, a piece of sunny techno with a modulating, catchy stab riff over strong kicks. Next up, 'Species with Amnesia' starts of with hazy bells and synthetic, warped bird-like sounds, before dropping into a chugging Italo disco bassline and a relaxed synthline which snakes around the chords in unexpected ways as the track progresses. 

The first of two remixes, the µ-Ziq mix of 'Caramel', is recast to maximise it's airiness, its soft chords building into epic slabs of choral sound over loose breaks. The EP finishes on the slowly evolving dawn ambience of Huerco S.'s 'Extended Stay - The Morning Version' of 'Beatrice's Visit', eleven pure minutes of gentle bliss to get lost in.

Refresher

Konx-om-Pax - Cascada (Aug 11th)

Purchase the 'Devout Remixes' E.P here: http://smarturl.it/devoutremixes
@mrmitchmusic x @palmistry x @silkroadassassins

Mr. Mitch - VPN ft. Palmistry (Silk Road Assassins Remix)

https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/98149-sami-baha-when-the-suns-gone-ft-yung-lean
https://ssamibaha.bandcamp.com/album/when-the-suns-gone-ft-yung-lean

This collaboration between up and coming London-based producer Sami Baha and Sweden's Yung Lean has an almost nursery rhyme feel. Sami's signature detailed production with Lean's laid back rap really sticks in your head with repeated plays. On the b-side is Sami's own remix of the title track from his forthcoming album 'Free For All'.

Sami Baha - When The Sun's Gone (ft. Yung Lean) BBC 6music rip

Buy: 

http://smarturl.it/ViciousCircles
https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/103510-sinjin-hawke-zora-jones-vicious-circles

Planet Mu are very happy to be releasing 'Vicious Circles', the debut EP by Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones, who aside from producing music also run the audio-visual production unit 'Fractal Fantasy'.

Zora released several collaborations on last year's 'Visceral Minds 2' including 'Dark Matter' with Planet Mu's Jlin, while Sinjin has collaborated with DJ Rashad, Just Blaze and MikeQ, and also produced music for monoliths like Kanye West and Frank Ocean.

Remarkably, given the breadth of their work, 'Vicious Circles' is their first collaborative EP, and the first time either have released on vinyl.

The EP is a great showcase for the duo's emotional, maximalist chimeras of abstract pounding beats. From the punchy, circular, grandiose build-ups of opener 'Vicious Circles', to the unyielding melancholy of 'God' with its sinister Bulgarian choir sample against a peak Timbaland-era rhythm, the record's potent synths and manipulated vocals are simultaneously fierce and friendly. 'Source of Conflict' is a poised dance between pulsing ambient textures and splintered 808s, while 'Lurk 101' pits a volley of abstracted juke toms up against a hammering drum-line. 'BabyboySosa' feels like drum-less drill, manipulating vocals into strange alien shapes before spiralling snares start to form a forceful march. The EP concludes on the love anthem 'And You Were One' with a pitched up vocal running through its chorus of bent sub tones and chimes.

Vicious Circles

Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones - God (August 3rd)

https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/107937-richard-devine-sortlave
https://richarddevine.bandcamp.com/album/sort-lave
http://smarturl.it/RDSortLave

After a break of 6 years, Atlanta based electronic musician, producer and sound designer Richard Devine returns with a new album ‘Sort\Lave’ on Venetian Snares‘ Timesig imprint. Recorded between 2016 and 2017 using Richard’s custom built Eurorack modular system and two Nord G2 Modular units, Sort\Lave features 12 tracks of intricate electronica that ranges from abrasive percussive experiments such as ‘Revsic‘ to ‘Astra’s dazzling juxtaposition of sounds and onto the radiant ambience of the album’s closer ‘Takara‘.

Talking about the album’s genesis Devine explains “I’ve been using modular synthesizers since I was 17, but have never written complete tracks using these newer systems. This was my first experiment to see if it would be possible and I probably spent about 5 years building up the systems that I used on this album.”

“I wanted the record to sound very different to my previous works which had been more cold, digital, clinical even, and had all been made using computers. The aim here was the complete opposite, to create something that felt very organic, detailed, spacious, big and warm and just as importantly, a record that you could put on and play all the way through that flowed in a seamless way.”

This new approach was to prove fruitful and enabled Devine to create music in an entirely new way. “I really wanted to break free from timeline-based music creation and do things with my hands on the fly,” he explains. “So the tracks are more like captured snapshot performances where I could experiment and play around with the idea of probability-based sequencing for every patch, string multiple sequencers together that would feed other sequencers to come up with interesting rhythms and melodies. It was really fun coming up with new sounds this way too, I felt like I created several I haven't heard before with this album. Some of the tracks on the album were complete accidents and evolved from something that happened spontaneously. In the end I feel this is one of the best records I have released to date, so I’m very excited to share it with the world.”

Making his debut in 1995, Devine’s releases for labels including Schematic, Warp Records and Detroit Underground have established him as one of the leading figures within the electronica community. In addition to his musical productions, Devine has enjoyed a lengthy and successful career in sound design, developing patches for many of the world’s leading music technology businesses and working with companies such as Google and Nike.

Sort\Lave

Richard Devine - Opaque Ke (TIMESIG009)

Taken from Silk Road Assassins - State Of Ruin 
https://planet.mu/releases/state-of-ruin/

Silk Road Assassins, a trio consisting of Tom E Vercetti, Chemist and Lovedr0id, return to Planet Mu with their debut full-length 'State Of Ruin' two years after their first EP 'Reflection Spaces'.

The trio recorded over two years, working together to start with, then across different studios and via the internet when their lives became more separated. They also finessed the album at Abbey Road studios, making use of some short time to add in extra layers. 

The three producers day jobs are in production music, music designed and created specifically for film and games, and this album uses these skills to explore the musical forms that they love. The album explores how trap and grime's minimalist form can be built and curved into musical architecture: elegant, opaque and layered, turning the sound into lush melodic world-building.

The work put into the album is revealed upon repeated listens, every sound on this record feels built to sit within it's delicate ecosystem. The fundamentals of the music are given their own sense of purpose: hand claps spray, bells tumble, guitars splinter and lush melodies waft over and fill the track's spaces like light, glinting across snapping, crisp rhythms and deep bass tones.

The album also features two Planet Mu alumini, Kuedo who features on 'Split Matter' brings some of his bitter-sweet shimmering melodies and on 'Shadow Realm' Russian producers WWWINGS give the music a violent metallic edge, providing the record with an epic and unexpected twist towards the end.

Silk Road Assassins music is built to last, and a pleasure to indulge in.

State Of Ruin

Silk Road Assassins - Bloom (8th Feb 2019)

Taken from DJ Nate - "Take Off Mode" Planet Mu April 2019)
https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/123722-dj-nate-take-off-mode
https://datrakgenious.bandcamp.com/album/take-off-mode
https://planet.mu/releases/take-off-mode/

In an unexpected turn of events Planet Mu welcomes back DJ Nate for a new album "Take Off Mode", a full nine years after his debut album "Da Trak Genious" was released on the label.

A quick update: DJ Nate is from the West Side of Chicago and was the label's first ever footwork signing back in 2010, when Myspace was still a place to contact artists. His strange, maximalist, trippy and sample-heavy sound was the acid test to introduce footwork to a wider audience, outside Chicago and certain aficianados, and it created the opportunity for Planet Mu to release the two "Bangs & Works" compilations and numerous albums and singles from the genre, introducing the world to such artists as DJ Rashad, Jlin and Traxman. 

In the decade since "Da Trak Genious" was released, DJ Nate has been a popular R&B and Hip Hop producer and performer with a strong local following. The highlight of this part of his career was "Gucci Goggles" which was an underground hit outside Chicago. His rise was slowed after he was paralysed from the neck down two years ago, an accident which he's recently recovered from. 

As well as his R&B, Nate has still been making the occasional footwork track, often putting videos out on youtube, and it's these tracks, uploaded between 2010 to now, which caught our ear. This selection of tracks feels like they're in direct continuity with his debut, perhaps not quite as chaotic as certain moments of "Da Trak Genious", but still with his trademark yearning vocal samples, cutting them into strange new pitched up and down musical motifs, his shout outs and rough beats intact.

Take Off Mode

DJ Nate - You Ain't Ready To Battle

https://planet.mu/releases/koh-ft-ecco2k-whitearmor/
https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/126479-felix-lee-koh-ft-ecco2k-whitearmor
https://felixleee.bandcamp.com/album/koh-ft-ecco2k-whitearmor 

Felix Lee, the producer formerly known as Lexxi and @5tarb01, Elysia Crampton collaborator and ex-organiser of the culture-clash Endless parties and its namesake NTS radio show, has signed to Planet Mu. The first fruits of his future album is 'KOH', a vocal debut from Felix, co-produced by Whitearmor with additional vocals by Ecco2k (@gravityboys)

Felix delivers his cascading verse through spiralling fx, as if in a haze of insomnia, "It's like I'm living inna daze", Ecco2k operating as a dual voice, as the delicate synths seem to shimmer back in response. "I'm the king of hearts I got missing parts"; the lyrics paint an ambigiuous picture of detachment and shapeshifting, dreamt through the lense of a petty thief; "I'm breaking thru your locks, jumper cable knots, run off with the engine block". A taste of what's to come.

KOH (ft. Ecco2k & Whitearmor)

Felix Lee - KOH (ft. Ecco2k & Whitearmor)

Taken from the album 'Ways Of Seeing' out 14th June 2019

Launch Events - 

05.06.19 - Berlin
07.06.19 - Glasgow
13.06.19 - London

Pre order via the label: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/126501-konx-om-pax-ways-of-seeing
Pre order on Bandcamp: https://konx-om-pax.bandcamp.com/album/ways-of-seeing
Listen to LA Melody now on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/61migHsxlWTUzLkm1bII83
http://www.konx-om-pax.net/

Ways Of Seeing

LA Melody

Konx-om-Pax - LA Melody

An intense 15 minute footwork mix by DJ Nate (photo by William Glasspiegel)

"Take Off Mode" out now https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/123722-dj-nate-take-off-mode

01 Demons In My Way
02 Planet Mu
03 I’m A Martian
04 We Lit
05 Get Embarrassed
06 Fuck Dat
07 Get Rid Of Em
08 I’m So In Love
09 Just Be Truu
10 Go Crazy
11 Oh Woooaaah
12 Free
13 Heat Squad
14 Bangs of Death
15 The Prayer
16 Talk 2 Me
17 Ima Burn Him
18 Aw Shorty

Planet Mu Records

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