“There’s an empty elegance to Time Tracks, a techno album that glides along with ball-bearing smoothness, allowing all thought to evaporate as you tune into the infinite. This is Stockholm artist Elias Landberg’s second LP as Skudge (previously a duo) and over the past decade he has polished his 1990s-inspired hardware sound to a shine, blasting out the grit and grime that characterised his early records and thus chiming with the current preference for clean-cut tones. There’s no stand-out among the ten tracks but the titles of “Ifach” nods the one his influence: the 90’s minimal label run by Baby Ford”. – The Wire Magazine
Stream Time Tracks on Spotify.
Skudge Records will release Time Tracks on June 26th, 2020.
25 iconic 12″ vinyl are going to be reissued for the first time, including unpublished tracks made for the occasion.
Emblematic French techno label F Communications, originally founded in 1994 by Eric Morand and Laurent Garnier, has announced a series of releases to commemorate turning 25 in 2020.
First up, the FCOM imprint is set to reissue Laurent Garnier’s 1994 The Alliance EP, alongside St Germain French Traxx EP, Mr Oizo m-Seq, Toni Mono EP, Scan X F Com 25 remastered EP 1.
All will be available end-April, with more releases on the way in 2020, by Jori Hulkkonen, Deepside Ludovic Navarre, Sound of K, Alexkid, The Youngsters and more.
Musique Pour La Danse is proud to release Collected: Ambient Grooves1993 ~ 2001, an anthology of music created by Osamu Sato, the Kyoto-born, Tokyo-based digital artist, photographer, and composer whose career began in the early 80s. In 1983, he released a cassette accompanied by silkscreen prints on Kaoru Sato’s (EP-4, Vanity Records) sought-after Skating Pears label. He gained worldwide notoriety after creating cult video games Eastern Mind for Mac OS and LSD Dream Emulator for Sony Playstation, and composing groundbreaking soundtracks for both. This latter game, quite unlike anything before or after is often praised as a masterpiece that started a new era in the gaming community.” Osamu Sato remains one of the most sought-after and intriguing personalities in the world of cult gaming, a spirit that haunts those who hunt the surreal and those who clamor for more like he produced in the past” as VICE once put it.
The previously unreleased and exclusive music gathered on this release explores the interzone between ambiance and a certain sense of groove and motion. Emotional melodies, deep and mystical moods, psychedelic progressions, along with electronic and organic instruments with Eastern influences are masterfully used by the composer to create tracks where the listener is always offered with a variety of layers to admire or get lost in. Some tracks fit more in the ambient category, while others are of a groovier persuasion but in reality, each track displays in its specific way a meticulous balance between both.
A timeless collection of artful music that exists in a genre of its own, with cover and design created by Osamu Sato himself, this is a total work of art created by the artist who celebrates his 60th birthday in 2020, find details here.
Musique Pour La Danse will release Collected: Ambient Grooves 1993 ~ 2001 on May 24th, 2020
Avondlicht to release his debut album on his own Formosa record label.
Avondlicht is the stage name for Matthias Dziwak, a young Antwerp-based producer who uses dark, abstract rhythms and glowing, evolving synthesizers to weave his musical stories. After an earlier release on the London label Fent Plates (2014), he co-produced the very well received Amalgamation EP for Fog Mountain Records, together with his lifelong friend oaktree. As a live act, they had a long string of dates following the release, supporting the likes of Max Cooper, Portico, Eskmo, Squarepusher and Darkstar.
After years of searching for the elusive sensation of heart-rending beauty, Avondlicht releases his debut album on 5 May, 2020. Hyperromance is the culmination of an emotional and geographical journey, as Belgian producer Matthias Dziwak sought to find and examine idealised moments of true romance within the less-than-romantic reality of existence.
With visceral life experiences woven into the fabric of the record, Hyperromance is expressive on the most intimate level. It’s a record that dazzles with searing bright wonderment and casts creeping shadows as the time passes – a journey as nuanced as life itself, elevated by romance and grounded by reality. Below, you can hear Avondlicht’s album in full.
Formosa will release Hyperromance on May 15th, 2020
The rise of Amelie Lens‘s career has been extraordinary. Within only a few years she has developed into one of the top techno DJs worldwide. With her passion for techno, her penchant for perfectionism and her uncompromising sound, she has risen from being a raver to a techno superstar – and there is no end in sight. Telekom Electronic Beats TV visited Amelie in her hometown of Antwerp and accompanied her to her own event, “Exhale”.
Over the course of a career spanning two decades, the Parisian pop genius Sébastien Tellier has forged his own unique journey. His eclectic strand of pop-electronica has been sampled by The Weeknd, he has collaborated with everyone from Jean-Michel Jarre to Daft Punk and Sofia Coppola, gatecrashed the Eurovision Song Contest in a golf cart and has seen his masterpiece La Ritournelle described by NME as “basically Unfinished Sympathy part two”.
Recent years have seen Tellier apply his synth-focused sonics to other projects: two soundtracks and the writing ofDita Von Teese’s debut album.
Now he shares brand new single A Balletas he prepares to unveil more material later this year.
With A Ballet, Tellier captures the keen melodies of classic pop songwriting and combines with the flair of the dreamy French electronica that he’s renowned for. His vocodered vocals deliver lyrics which feel part romantic and part cryptic, while a hazy sax and laidback beats echo the yacht rock era. The song’s title is a pun which plays on artistry and domesticity. A ballet sounds much like the French word balai – a broom.
