Various – Acid Sampler (Council House Recordings)

Cat no: CH009
Release date: 10/10/11
Get it from: Juno

I first came across Belfast’s Council House Recordings thanks to the free Moody B download, Dirty Acid, a cracking tune you can get by adding yourself to the Council House waiting, sorry, mailing list, here. The label’s unashamedly in thrall to old skool Chicago and Detroit sounds but has thankfully eschewed the usual route of smiley face logos and bandanas for a punky visual aesthetic that’s pleasingly counter-intuitive, while for those of us who saw the rave explosion as a kind of punk anyway, a perfect fit. The music has a similar sense of intelligently applied nostalgia. It’s inescapable that each of the tunes on this seven-track sampler will inspire Proustian rushes of yearning, but the influences never completely take over.

So, on Humandrone’s House Noir (121 BPM), sinister vocal samples and orchestral stabs combine with highly strung 303 to create a wigged-out old skool tribute that’s as funky as it is dark, while Acid is Safe & Wonderful (120 BPM), by Affie Yusuf is a gorgeous half-awake dream of a tune, more Sheffield than Detroit. dyLAB’s Acid Council (130 BPM) is a hypnotic Chicagoan offering, the Acid duelling beautifully with the percussion, all of it infused with his trademark analogue warmth. He and Council House are a match made in heaven. Meanwhile, Mark Forshaw’s Designer (117 BPM), is a squelchfest of the highest order, think Do You Want to Perculate by the Sweat Boyz, except with a bit more, oh, oomph. Alert the Nation (124 BPM), by label head Moody B is a jack track, pure and simple, raw and funky – the funkiest thing here, in fact. Acid Raw Mix (120 BPM), by Owain + Cliffy has tough, breathy vox in the vein of early Green Velvet, while the Chicago Distortion’s Together (119 BPM) is another irresistible jacking number. Great stuff, then, and proof that Council House has the musical muscle to match its ethos.

House Noir

Acid is Safe & Wonderful

Acid Council

Designer

Alert the Nation

Acid Raw Mix

Together

Jeeroj – Selected Acid Works 08-11 (Slime Recordings)

Cat no: SLM020
Release date: 10/10/11
Get it from: Juno download 

If Tangerine Dream had tweaked a Roland TB-303 in 1987 then this startling, engrossing album is how the soundtrack to Near Dark might have turned out. Opener Byebye sets the tone: a luscious electronic rail journey of a tune that conjures images of early morning mist and graffiti-strewn subway cars as nimble snare drums gradually speed up, leaving the city a pinprick in the distance. That same grasp of place and mood runs throughout the album. Though it’s a collection it’s feels like a cohesive statement, and while styles and tempo shift, the 303 remains a constant. Jeeroj’s acid reference points are the likes of Rephlex and Ceephax, his patterns bleepy, squelchy and pin-sharp, but where he truly owns the music is in partnering them with achingly atmospheric synths. Has a 303 ever sounded so reflective and sad as it does on Billow, as full of hope as it does on Emocid, or as bittersweet as it does on the jawdropping closer Now & Then? Meanwhile, on The Laserbots Final Stand (Against the Holodroids), things get almost danceable, while Eeru has the sound of a false dawn at the end of a Romero film, the fuzzed-up synthwork of Goblin being another reference point here. It rules, in other words, from beginning to end. Acid by its very nature isn’t a genre that lends itself to the album, but this tremendous set is an exception – as emotive as any number of M83 records, as crafted as the best of early Warp.

Some links:

Slime
Jeeroj Soundcloud 

Various – Corrosive 90902 (Corrosive)

Cat no: Corrosive90902
Release date: 15/10/11
Get it from: 909 London

Let Me Know – A.P & Josh Inc.
BPM: 148
The funk is well and truly brought here, thanks to a grimy rap and general sense of busy-ness that keeps things bouncing along – so much so that you barely even notice the lack of 303. Fans of the duo’s last release on Cluster should like this one.

Recharge Remix – Tassid
BPM: 150
Tassid gets his hands on Austin Corrisive’s Recharge and the result is a deep and dark techno workout. He’s taken out the acid patterns but retained the sinister, tribal beauty of the original as well as the chanting, which he ghosts in every now and then. Also new is a ‘recharge it’ vocal sample, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the 303.

Roll Em Phat – Mobile Dogwash
BPM: 146
Okay, so far this latest release from acid overlords Corrosive has been noticeably free of acid. A 303 free jamboree, you might say. But Mobile Dogwash put that right with a set of fat, filthy riffs that bark like angry guard dogs in the night. Powerful and dirty, filthy McNasty, it’s awesome stuff.

Raw ‘n’ Dirty – Tassid
BPM: 145
Tassid foregoes the acid for a techno sex workout. ‘Dirty!’ it goes, ‘Raw ‘n’ dirty, hot track!’ alongside a sleazy, hip-rolling kick that breaks down to the rap at 3.43 and resumes with even more power. Irresistibly funky.

Day Off – Zoid
BPM: 145
Itchy, bug-eyed acid flits in and out of paranoid percussion, then breaks down at around four minutes with samples of a news report (from what? I’d love to know) before firing back up into kaleidoscopic patterns. While the rest of the EP is pure head-nod, this one invites you to really listen, and you can tell Zoid’s stretching out here. In place of power is texture and the track has an urgent feel to it that extends beyond the demands of the dancefloor. We likey much.

Incidentally, Tassid, Zoid and Mobile Dogwash all feature in the Autumnal Acidity mix.

Freethinker – S9B (Acid 303)

Cat no: A3038
Release date: 12/11/11
Get it from: Juno

Release the Scud
BPM: 140
Watch yer bassbins, this has a chest-rattling sub-bass, countered by a lithe, metallic 303 which holds things together whenever the bassline takes time off for good behaviour. Somewhere in there is a sampled riff from a London classic, the name of which is going to come to me at 4am, and overall this is a hard, oppressive monster vibe that thunders along for an epic ten minutes or so. Brilliant stuff.

Roll a Fat One
BPM: 160
A filth-coated kick, surprisingly crisp snares, fidgety basslines and a rat-a-rat break – then, woah, cavernous drums. They sound like they’re coming through from next door’s dungeon as the sounds gradually erode, distort and decay, finishing in a murky mess of noise from which only the nifty 303 escapes unscathed. Brian Eno once said that listening to The Idiot by Iggy Pop was ‘like having your head encased in concrete’. This is like having your head encased in the whole of the M25.

Also on the EP are Gun Ship, S9B and Section 6.

Incidentally, Adam Derry’s Soundcloud can be found here. He does like a bit of hardcore, mind you. Meanwhile, Release the Scud appears alongside an older Freethinker number, the superb Terminator-sampling 401, in the Autumnal Acidity mix…

2011 Autumnal Acidity

Some NEW acid in the mix, mainly from the last few months.

Tracklisting is:

Alex Kenji & Luigi Rocca – Acid Monks
F+S (Franz & Shape) – Acid One
Adam Derry – 130 Jam
Woo York & Vegim – Bass Machinnen (DAVE The Drummer dub mix)
D.A.V.E The Drummer & Marcello Perri – Purpose
Justin E – Resistance
Freethinker – Release The Scud
Freethinker – 401
Chris Liberator & Sterling Moss – Acid Corrosion
Steve Mills – London Acid Techno
A.P & Josh Inc – Pure fuzz
Nitronoise – Drink & Drive
Zoid – Day Off
Tik Tok & Turtle – Boxed Up
Tik Tok – Fucka Hooka (2011 mix)
Justin E – Jacob’s Ladder
Mobile Dogwash – Roll Em Phat
Acid Chochi – Running For Fun
OB1 – A Little Something
Subutex & DJ D8 – Fuck That
Austin Corrosive – Recharge
Tassid – Recharge Remix
KitShunt – With A K (1st Edit)

Knarztand – Not So Bad (Acid Tracks)

Cat no: AT042
Release date: 14/09/11

Not So Bad
BPM: 134
Though it’s the slowest on the EP, Not So Bad is probably the most straight-ahead of the trio, thumping along and sporting a Pac Man acid line with Chicago written through it like a stick of rock. As with all the best 303 it’s an addictive, insistent track, but you’d better look sharp, DJs: it clocks in at just 3.27.

EFX 303
BPM: 140
Things heat up with a faster, more cavernous kick, a distorted snare and far more aggressive, snarling acid. Foundations laid, it thunders along, oozing a barely contained power, the kick dropping in and out, the acid burping beneath a film of muck. Just wish it was a bit longer, to be honest.

What Was I Thinking Man
BPM: 140
A hazy and narcotic kick underpins two acid lines, one fat and insistent, the other light, squiggly and disruptive. The pair of them fight, but not quite enough in my humble onion, and the track rather peters out rather than the fireworks.

Get it from: Juno