You may already know Steve Cobby: one of Hull’s most talented residents, co-founder of Fila Brazillia and a chronic remixer/music maker. During 30 years of musical service he’s forged remixes for acts as brilliantly diverse as Radiohead, Busta Rhymes and A Certain Ration. Déclassé, his own imprint is also home to 2014’s critically acclaimed Saudade and the upcoming (and brilliant) Everliving LP.
“We Start Over” is an International Feel baby though – the result of Cobby and vocalist Trudie Dawn Smith combining for a bout of Balearic bliss. The ‘Private Acid Mix’ comes from two of house music’s current treasures, Gerd Janson and Phillip Lauer a.k.a Tuff City Kids, holding nothing back and dropping the 303 in a fine style with looped and twisted vocal snippets. Ltd heavy-weight 180-gr vinyl deluxe packaging to be released to the stores in June.
Jóse Padilla has managed to convert the Ibiza lifestyle into music like few others.
Born in Barcelona, Padilla is the originator of chill, the daddy of Balearic. He moved to the island in the mid-70s and launched his residency at Cafe del Mar in 1991, providing an alternative to that period’s acid house and hyperspace techno with a calmer, more relaxed sound that exists permanently at sunset.
For this profile, FACT TV travelled to Ibiza to meet with Padilla and talk about his legacy, the future of Cafe Del Mar and his latest album So Many Colours, which sees him collaborate with younger artists like with Mark Barrott, Telephones, Wolf Müller and Tornado Wallace. The album will be released through International Feel in June.
Armed with a few DAT tapes and a fax machine, Morgan Geist launched Environ from his college dorm room in the spring of 1995. With the label’s inaugural release, Geist’s own Premise EP, he established the core principles the label continues to employ today: innovative songwriting and production, attention to detail, and most of all, a commitment to the highest quality standards. Since then, over its nearly 20 years of existence, Environ has released an average of just two 12”s per year, plus a scant handful of albums: proof that every release had to be essential, with no filler.
Environ is home to previously-unknown artists who went on to make serious waves in dance and indie-pop music: Metro Area, Kelley Polar, Storm Queen. The Environ aesthetic is recognizable, yet the spectrum is almost surrealy wide: from Daniel Wang’s debut artist album and obscure disco nuggets like the Unclassics reissue series, all the way to accidental pop crossovers like Storm Queen’s “Look Right Through” (which metamorphosed from underground 12-inch to a UK #1 pop chart hit) and Kelley Polar’s “Ashamed of Myself,” utilized by Madonna and Pharell.
Morgan Geist will launch his new project, The Galleria, with a new EP on his own Environ Records imprint next month. Calling Card features vocal contributions from Hyperdub’s Jessy Lanza. In the meantime you can listen to Fireside Chat with Morgan Geist below.
Twelve tracks from a long-distance collaboration by Black Merlin and Musiccargo’s Gordon Pohl to drop in June.
Spectral Empire man George Thompson has had a productive few years since emerging as Black Merlin, with releases on Bird Scarer, LN-CC, World Unknown and Crimes Of The Future. Gordon Pohl meanwhile has enjoyed a more long-standing, if decidedly potted career thus far. Starting out with occasional outings as DJ Gordon in the ’90s and a contribution to The Isolators for a one-off Viewlexx single in 2006, it has been as one half of Musiccargo that he has enjoyed his most recent activity. Based in Düsseldorf, the majority of the Musiccargo output has appeared on local label Amontillado Music, bar a recent appearance on Emotional Response with the Harmonie LP.
Listening to the samples of the album Thompson and Pohl have pieced together as Karamika, it’s definitely possible to hear a little of that Salon Des Amateurs worldly funk worming its way into the expansive instrumentation, while the psychedelic synth lines fall in line with the kosmiche leanings of the Black Merlin sound just as easily. It’s a comfortable fit for ESP Institute, who have been taking it steady in 2015 so far with the Mark E single wementioned earlier in the year the only other slab of wax issued before this week, when Nenad Markovic’s third and fourth installments in the Mecanica series landed. You can get a feel for the exotic, dense sound of Karamika via the SoundCloud clips below.
ESP Institute will release Karamika by Karamika in late June.
“Joe Davis is the man who opened up Brazil to the entire DJ culture around the world. There’s no one else.” – Gilles Peterson
In what began as just a youthful curiosity and grew into a voracious interest in his teens, Joe Davis’ reputation as a figurehead in Brazilian music remains deeply entrenched in the work of his label Far Out Recordings. Marking its 20th year last year, Far Out has become a dominant presence in movement-defining releases from Brazilian artists, with the likes of Milton Nascimento, Arthur Verocai and Azymuth to name but a few that the label have worked with to date.
Alongside providing us with a great mix of music from the label’s back catalogue and his own collection, Joe kindly took what we expect was a welcome break from sorting through a collection of over 30,000 7-inch records to sit and chat one late afternoon in Spring. Whilst he insisted that these records weren’t in fact anything to do with the label itself, the constant firing of his mobile in the background was quite telling as to why Far Out Records continues to go strong after 20 years in the business.
Far Out Recordings’ brand new Brazilika compilation celebrating 20 years of the label and compiled by Joe himself is out now. Previous Brazilika’s in the series have been compiled by Gilles Peterson, 4hero, Kenny Dope and Andy Votel and have marked landmark years in the Far Out story. This truly special comp includes mixes from Theo Parrish, Paul White and Nicola Conte, be sure not to miss out. Full story
At the start of the week, Kr!z’s Token Records released Cantor Dust, the latest EP from Parisian producer Antonin Jeanson (a.k.a. Antigone). The EP is Jeanson’s inaugural release for the Belgian label, following on from ø [Phase]’s Tunnel Vision/Internal Conflict 12”.
Cantor Dust explores Jeanson’s penchant for unusual sounds, mixing abstract elements with more functional club-ready beats. The release opens with a spacial and ambient piece, before rolling into the producer’s dance-floor focused techno cuts. The anthemic “Prime Mover” fuses a heavy low end with driving percussion, icy pads, reverberant synth stabs, and dense, evolving atmospheres, using tension and release to great effect. You can stream “Prime Mover” in full below.
