Ali Renault
Stone Tape EP

Solo album by Betonkust (Dutch for Concrete Coast). The vinyl comes with a booklet containing drum patterns used on the album, together with a download link of the original samples that you can use for your own music. This record includes a Bandcamp download code for the digital files. Short bio from Betonkust: I was born in Utrecht (1988). I grew up in a very small town somewhere between Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Hilversum. The so-called 'green heart' of the Netherlands. That means there's lots of nature. It was very boring and/or normal. A typical Dutch 1990s upbringing. I've been listening to house music for as long as I can remember. On cassette tapes, on the radio, it was everywhere. Now I live in Rotterdam and there's a lot going on, mainly in the area of electronic music. There is Operator Radio, Clone, Pinkman, etc. Most of my friends are involved in music in some way. The older I get the less I care about gear. I didn't use any expensive or exotic stuff. Korg Electribes (both the sampler and the synth), Korg M1, some Boss effects pedals, a cheap mixer, a Shure SM57 mic, a cheap guitar. For this album everything was recorded in FL Studio. Some tracks on the album started like five years ago with a melody and slowly developed into a full song. Other songs were made one month before mastering. It really depends. But most of the work was done in 2020 and 2021. I think most of this album is about transience, giving up, the infinite sadness of humanity.

»Infuso Giallo aka Philipp Carbotta originally hails from rural Western Germany, first cut his teeth in the music scene of nearby Cologne and conducts a host of activities in Berlin for a couple of years now – co-running the label Kame House, designing graphics and producing and playing leftfield electronic music. His debut LP Ocular Soda presents an intersection of these activities – self-released, self-designed and of course self-produced. Even before the first synth chords and reverse atmospheres of the two-part opener 'Every Waking Hour' tickle the ear, it is the eye that is drawn to the bright, cut-out style cover art – itself made up of two eyes on the front and what seem to be their rough shapes or discarded counterparts on the back.To stay within that metaphor, Infuso Giallo's music is indeed of a reflective and calm nature, taking cues from Berlin School, library and New Age musics from roughly the 1970s to the 1990s – steadily repeating and slowly evolving ostinatos, lush digital pads, quirky filtered toplines and electronic percussion that mostly eschews four-four monotony in favor of much more subtle syncopations. Balearic bomb 'The Big Rip' with its big drums and acid bass turns the energy level up a notch while retaining the somnambulistic, lingering quality that makes Ocular Soda such a coherent listening experience – music on the sheath of waking and dreaming, both worlds and their inherent logics freely bleeding into each other. There are moments of great expanse, such as in 'Mole Gaze' – I couldn't help but see myself hovering somewhere in mid-air while the music unfolds as if on a great deserted plane below me. Maybe this is what it sounds like once the mole leaves his tunnels and takes in the sound of the world overground. 'Hello World', indeed, in its multitude of information to eye and ear, in its gently overwhelming quality. The title track 'Ocular Soda' closes the proceedings with a whimsical nod to 1970s botany-centered library music, its brooding chord sequence and sweet lead lines gradually fading in the distance. A fitting ending to an impressive LP of highly evocative, at times sombre and at times blissfully naive pieces that leave me yearning for more.«Written, recorded & produced by Infuso Giallo in 2020 & 2021 in Berlin. Mixed by Philipp Janzen & Sebastian Blume at Dumbo Studios, Cologne. Mastered by Sam Irl in Vienna. Design by Infuso Giallo.

Communique Records USA, reactivated the superb house-sublabel Sensuist Records!Soon in the rebound: SEN006 by Chris Brann also known as part of famous Wamdue Kids!The first re-issue since 1997 will be available on solid 180 Gramm vinyl.Recorded from original DAT and re-mastered.

Rotterdam-based Beyun returns to Vault Wax with four deep cuts of Detroit-meets-UK influenced breaks and electro with lush pads, emotive strings, and cosmic acid lines.

Following a string of acclaimed releases in 2021 ONO Records is pleased to welcome homegrown hero Guy Contact for ONO002. The prolific producer presents a collection of masterful house music that hearkens back to a bygone era whilst remaining utterly contemporary.Dive into Side A with the driving peak time energy of the title track, Desert Portal. A propulsive rhythm keeps the feet steppin’ amongst choral synthesisers, complete with a healthy dose of slap bass tension. An excursion into entrancing downtempo styles follows. Cue the chugging rhythms, lightly bubbling acid and new age enlightenment of Aquavision and One Hand One Bounce.The tempo rises again on Side B with the opener, Spinifex Drum. A dreamy introduction teases before erupting into early 90’s prog-house mania, sure to send the dancefloor spinning. A similar functionality pursues on the closing track There Is No Orb boasting a hard hitting beat laying foundation for lashing acid and circuit tweaking bleeps.