In recent years, Blackploid has come to be one of Central Processing Unit’s signature artists. The German producer has averaged more than a record a year for the Sheffield imprint since he first landed on CPU in 2021. This prolific run continues with Cosmic Drama, Blackploid’s second LP for the label. The album takes the baton from its predecessor Enter Universe in style, delivering twelve tracks of top-quality machine-funk that draw down from electro’s classic artists while also imbuing proceedings with a playfulness that very much gives things a signature Blackploid-ish flavour.

Cosmic Drama sets its stall out from the off. The opening run of ‘Alien’, ‘World Construction’ and ‘Virtual State’ all deliver piston-snapping beats which anchor pleasing melanges of B-movie synth lines. Alongside this, Blackploid adds little flourishes which add buoyancy to each joint - a syncopated bassline reminiscent of I-f’s late-90s classic ‘Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass’, crackling robo-voiced commands, skittering synth chords which wash across the mix and so on. It’s the work of someone completely at ease with their craft, comfortable enough to take risks without upsetting the apple cart of their sound’s core appeal.

Blackploid’s idiosyncratic approach to synth work is something which distinguishes Cosmic Drama from the pack. Electro has long been a genre which prides itself on innovation on the keys, but few producers are willing to push their sonics as far as Blackploid does - take the seasick churn of pads and processors on ‘Multiverse’, for instance, or the way John Carpenter-esque single-note lines dovetail with gurgling synthetic pulses and eerie, spacious chords on ‘The Lab’, a highlight of Cosmic Drama’s midsection.

Cosmic Drama skips along at club tempo throughout - every one of these joints will get bodies moving in dark rooms across the galaxy. However, even when tracks maintain their single-minded pursuit of machine-funk perfection, they never forget to deliver on the hooks. Blackploid has lead lines (and counter-melodies) to burn here, and each track knots them together in ever-more intriguing ways as they plough onwards. Drexciyan heads will be thrilled by the sci-fi delights of ‘Species’, for instance, while Blackploid brings melodies as cold as they are catchy on the aptly-named ‘Polar Dunes’. By the time Cosmic Drama hits upon the vroom-vrooming bassline line of closer ‘Contact’, you’re fully enthralled to the album’s combination of broken-beat heft and synthetic melodiousness.

RIYL: Drexciya, I-f, Cygnus, AFX

Cosmic Drama

Blackploid - Cosmic Drama

TAWL

Go Find Home

Road Back Home

It's Hard To Get To Know You

The Reflection of A Pebble On The River Of The Gargrave Stepping Stones - Side B

The Reflection of A Pebble On The River Of The Gargrave Stepping Stones - Side A

Circadian Radical

BACKROOM

dinna

90ROMPE_green

From «Warped Garden» EP by @SHKLV out 11 July on Mystictrax

SHKLV - Polyovik

the snake eating it's tail

harsh vaporwave ; )

I always seem to be working on something musical, this is where the best results of ongoing experiments work their way out into the world.

Until the next phase is through, this will be an incubator only.

Central Processing Unit, commonly referred to as CPU Records, is an independent British record label, founded in Sheffield in 2012, specialising in electronic music.

Distributed by Kudos Records London UK.

We are not currently seeking unsolicited demos. Due to the volume of digital submissions, it is impossible to listen and respond to each one.

Ukrainian Experimental Laboratory of Sound
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world by @lostlojic

ALL UNDAGROUND GET THE FOLLOWBACK
ALL MATERIAL BACKED UP ON BANDCAMP ALBUMS

http://malisima.info

Malísima (it/she/they) understood art for the first time on a Tuesday at 8 a.m., crying in the streets of La Seu D’Urgell on the way to class at an arts-focused high school program they would drop out of three months later. Self-proclaimed "avant-garde experimentalist" and referred to as "malísima (in the head)" by those close to her, she draws on pop culture and her fragile psycho-emotional health as influential elements in her work.

With no clear sense of where she's from or how old she is, she seeks to build a sonic home (and make a living—because hey, that wouldn’t be so bad either) through bastardly contemporary productions that mix all the ingredients—internal and external—from her everyday environment.

And sometimes, no-input mixing, because who doesn’t love an impossible love story?

“Sometimes I thought about what time it was. Then I was on the verge of tears. Then I laughed a lot.”
-Amnesia Scanner, AS ANGELS RIG HOOK

New tracks tagged #BRAINDANCE