That UK Sound • Roots Of UK Jungle

Nihiloxica • Kaloli

Kaloli is the debut full-length LP from Kampala’s darkest electro-percussion group Nihiloxica on cult Belgian label Crammed Discs. The album marries the propulsive Ugandan percussion of the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble with technoid analog synth lines and hybrid kit playing from the UK’s pq and Spooky-J. The result is something otherworldly. Kaloli journeys through the uncharted space between two cultures of dance music, where the expression of traditional elements mutates into something more sinister and nihilistic.

N I H I L O X I C A

Jah Wobble The seeking path by Anil Prasad

Photo: John Hollingsworth

There’s virtually no context Jah Wobble hasn’t explored with dub bass. Whether it’s punk, jazz, electronica, Middle Eastern, African, Celtic, Chinese, Japanese, industrial, or avant-garde realms, he’s figured out a way to make it work seamlessly and imaginatively. The British multi-instrumentalist and composer has built his career on defying expectations and taking chances. His prolific and diverse discography of dozens of albums serves as a testament to his drive to keep learning, evolving and morphing.
In just the last 18 months, Wobble has put out four albums, two EPs and many singles. Two of those releases, Ocean Blue Waves and Realm of Spells, were made with his multi-decade group Invaders of the Heart. He first formed the band in 1982 as a way of bridging the worlds of dub, world fusion, jazz, rock, and pop. Ocean Blue Waves is its tenth album.
Realm of Spells finds the band collaborating with bassist and producer Bill Laswell, who Wobble has worked with on several projects, previously. The album was inspired by Wobble and Laswell’s shared interest in Miles Davis’ Dark Magus period, during which the jazz legend was performing his most experimental, rhythm-based music...

Read the full interview  

HERE




 

Down The Line 'Lock Down Special' (Part 1)

Jon Hassell • Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two)

“Listen as if you were being told a secret” - Federico Fellini

A companion piece to 2018’s Listening To Pictures, this second volume in the pentimento series presents eight new tracks by the music visionary, continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing. Pentimento is defined as the “reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over” and this is evident in the innovative production style that ‘paints with sound’ using overlapping nuances to create an undefinable and intoxicating new palette.

In classic Hassell fashion, the title can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, but perhaps the most pertinent at the moment is the human instinct to sing and play through a rain of difficulties. A future blues of indeterminate and ever-shifting shape. The album is buffered by two 8-minute plus epics at the beginning and the end - the hypnotic “Fearless” with it’s metronomic, almost Can-like rhythm, and blurry, noir-ish texture of sound emerging like car headlights from the fog; mirrored at the end of the record by the beautiful sci-fi lullaby of “Timeless”, a track with a gaseous, billowing quality as electronic clicks and bubbles float over a landscape of shimmering, glacially paced complexity. The bridge between those two worlds is no less compelling, from the frantic, spidery IDM sketch of “Reykjavik” to the collapsed-time ballad of “Unknown Wish”. Whilst containing seeds of classic ‘fourth world’ fusion, this record finds the artist still questing to create new forms and mutations of music, a thrilling window into what music could sound like in a world to come.  

Jon Hassell

 releases July 24, 2020

Ableton Live is a Modular Synth

R.I.P. Tony Allen

Chris Bowden with 4-Hero • Hero

A beautiful set of soundscapes from Chris Bowden and the legendary 4-Hero! Although this is a 12" single, both sides have an awesome majesty to them – reaching forth with a scope and power far beyond any dance track. Indeed, both sides are more sound sculptures, in the manner of Bowden's Time Capsule LP – and they both extend beautifully past any expectations!

Dusty Groove

1. Hero
2. Lullaby 
3. Greedy

Get it Here

Label: Satellite
Catalog#: STL 002-CD
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: 1998
Genre: Electronic
Style: Modern Classical, Future Jazz, Drum n Bass

Macro Dub Infection • Volume Two

Virgin's second volume of experimental/new school dub extrapolations doesn't reach quite as far afield as the first. The organizing principle is still dub's insidious mutation through hip-hop, trip-hop, electro, jungle, and weirdo downtempo, but most of the tracks here are bunched about the murky midpoint of what could be considered dub's contemporary milieu, where the first volume seemed to move from extremity to extremity with each track. Most of the material seems bathed in a sort of vague, analog-y distortion, a point either of overall consistency or a bit of a cop-out, depending on your perspective. There are still some gems to be found, though, including Rhys Chatham and Martin Wheeler's "Altesse," and Techno Animal's remixes of Magnet and Palace (!), Mouse on Mars' too-brief "Sehn Sud," and the Underdog aka Skull's "Flump."

D i s c  O n e
1. Maurizio • M6 (Version)
2. Bill Laswell • Sacred System Dub
3. Rome • Beware Soul Snatchers (Black Nosed Buddha Mix)
4. Rhys Chatham/Martin Wheeler • Altesse
5. Pin • Libel (The Lost Book Mix)
6. HiM • Liquid Boy
7. Zulutronic • A Presente
8. Magnet • Miles to Go (Invisible Man)
9. Plug • Keen as Mustard
10. Mouse on Mars • Sehn Sud
11. Tao • Esoteric Red
12. Alec Empire • When You’ve Reached Your Peak

D i s c  T w o
1. Skull • Flump
2. Eardrum • Psycho System
3. Porter Ricks • Nautical Dub
4. The Disciples meet The Rootsman • Conscious Yout’ (Remix)
5. Gedulah vs. Cheesecake • El-Qadim
6. André Gurov Units • Revelation of Wrath
7. Prince Paul • Brother No Blood
8. Jammin’ Unit • Handbag Dub
9. Bio Muse • Rat Day
10. Third Eye Foundation • Shot in the Head
11. Spectre • Sub Version


Label: Virgin 7243 8 41764 2 6
Series: Ambient Series - AMBT14
Format: 2 x CD, Compilation
Country: UK
Released: 1996
Genre: Electronic
Style: Leftfield, Dub, Drum n Bass