Lady Sybil’s Last Words Mix

In memory of the lovely Lady Sybil Crawley, I present a mix of a few recent favourites, a couple of old ones…

Tracklist

Chris Hawkins – Canarian Island (Trevor Benz remix)
Mobile Dogwash – Usual Pharmacology – Mobile Dogwash Remix
Temperature Drop – Mosquito’s Tweeter 2012 Remix
OB1 – Random Act
Osmo – Fuck Your Lies
Starsky & Hutch feat Fazmo – Bitches from Brighton
Chris Liberator & Sterling Moss – The Swarm
Tassid – It’s Ridiculous
Jye Feelgood – Acid Swamp
Tik Tok – 303 Brotherhood
Nesbit – The Game
Fantompowa Meets The Geezer – Dadawas
Convection Criminals – Fajitta Swing
Mobile Dogwash – Lucy Int Sky Wi Dogwash

MPIA3 – Ely EP (Avian)

From the fog-bound end of the street scuttles this acid release on Avian, previously on 12-inch and now on digital. And not so much released as on the run, hugging the walls, looking over its shoulder, a fumblesome mass of sweating hands and facial tics. Both are – for this blog at least – slow (128 and 127 BPM respectively), and both have kicks thick with grime that no amount of Swarfega will shift. First up, Ely’s acid line starts off quite politely until the halfway mark, when it dissolves into full-blown psychosis and distorts off the matrix altogether. Meanwhile, whether track two Squatter’s Dog is intended as an homage to Rozzer’s Dog, only MPIA3 (aka Truss) can say*, but the fact remains that, like Ely, it’s stripped back and jittery, pairing those raw drums with a somewhat more restrained but still gratifyingly paranoid 303.

Get it from: Juno Download

* He has since said

The Badger, Fil Devious, Owen Acid, Nesbit – Bangin’ Out the Acid EP (Soitiz 001)

Badger’s The Low Down has a yowling 303 that reaches intense, rushy peaks, as well as couple more that tussle and scratch like squabbling puppies. Fil Devious’s Slur n Slice, meanwhile, is a tasty triptych, beginning with echo-soaked corrugated percussion before taking a deep breath and breaking out a grumbly 303 at around the three-minute mark, and then – mix out of this at your peril – employing a ravey synth to see us to the door. Darkside psychedelia, done to a tee. Next up comes Owen Acid’s True Warrior: with a fast, skipping kick, a sample from Street Fighter, and at least three beautifully developed acid lines, this is a tremendous track, with bags of atmosphere and a truly fearsome whipcrack to it. Lastly but not leastly, Nesbit’s The Game plunders Predators, not just for a dialogue sample, but also for that superb, Predator clicking sound, although the fat acid is his own. Fantastic stuff from Soitiz, who through the website, the radio show and now the label, are fast becoming Acid Techno’s premier pie-eyed polymaths.

Get it from: 909 London

Osmo – Osmo Exclusive 03

One of the founders of Scythe Squadron, Polish producer Osmo (Tomasz Osmański) has also been releasing via Bandcamp, where you’ll find this utterly essential twosome, Osmo Exclusive 03.

Informed as much by bass music’s claustrophobia and dark techno’s shadowy corners as it is by the London sound, 03 doesn’t so much roll as growl. Fuck Your Lies takes its time building, with torture chamber echo effects giving way to a chest-pressing bass riff, eerie bells and an indistinct vocal, before dropping out at the halfway mark, breaking down and resolving for an intense, speedy climax. Follow that, Mr Osmański. And, in Techno Generator, he does. After an industrial intro worthy of JG Thirlwell comes an assortment of dark and sadistic motifs, breaks and bleeps adding to a general air of controlled chaos. Hail the drum work. Hail the final acid freak-out that takes us to the bridge. Stunning.

Get it from: Osmo at Bandcamp

Convection Criminals, Owen Acid, Jye Feelgood, Nesbit – Analogue Juice Extraction EP (AER02)

An excellent second helping from AER records (their first is reviewed here). It’s all good, but for me a standout is Jye Feelgood’s Acid Swamp where I’m even prepared to forgive the ‘kiss my acid’ sample because the rest of it is so frickin’ good. With a loose feel, like it’s about to come apart at the seams any second, and 303 so deliciously stewed you can taste it, it’s like, if Rob Zombie made acid techno records he’d probably make this one.

Fajita Swing by Convection Criminals is another highlight. It’s got all the roll and bounce you’d expect from anything involving Fil Devious (Convection Criminals is him and Gav Feedback), as well as a vocal sample from The Big Lebowski that the Criminals have had the wit and style to mess with till it’s all pulled out of shape. The result is a track with proper tension and depth. As Nesbit, Jared Blyth’s Prephaser builds from a restrained, grid-friendly opening until a breakdown around the 4.15 mark when the acid fireworks into life, and Owen Acid’s Naughty Control mixes up hard, reverb-heavy drums with an old skool acid line and a masterly, fuzzed-up breakdown at 3.40. In all, cracking stuff.

Get it from: Audio Eargasm at Bandcamp

Tanz Organelle – Series 7 EP (Hand Made Acid)

Beautifully produced, just as you’d expect from a man of Jay Brown’s pedigree, Series 7 harks back to Sheet One-era Plastikman, over-rubbed for the warehouse set. On Filterfuck (135 BPM) cavernous drums fill all available space, thick and immense, and growing more intense and cloying, while a simple, contrasting acid line scans left and right. Likewise Blue Alert (131 BPM), which operates at a more gentle, but no less ominous throb, and again has the feel of empty industrial space, with echoing static pulses a counterpoint to a more insistent 303 line. M876 (132 BPM), meanwhile, has the brightest kick as well as crunching sound effects that resolve into a terrific riff and squabbling acid line, my only complaint being that the riff isn’t developed a bit more. In all, fantastic stuff, deep, rich and forbidding with more than enough bang for your buck.

Get it from: Beatport

The post with everything. Free Acid AND a Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers pic

Look below or scoot on over to Soundcloud for some tasty free acid from one of the best new producers around, Matt Knight AKA MK303. Topping off a good year, in which he’s graced us with the insane, V for Vendetta-sampling Acid Revolution for CDJ303 and stonking releases on Chase Yer Tail, Corrosive and Soitiz, MK’s laid on some super-fine tuneage here, both top quality but with Don’t You Know Who I Am? feeling my needle the mostest. That breakdown at the halfway mark seals the deal for me, and I love the X3 sample.

Dr Chekill, Ney, Tiago and Chris Liberator (SUF909)

My famous theory that Robert Louis Stevenson’s inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde involved trapped wind, two to three spoonfuls of bicarbonate of soda and twenty minutes uninterrupted on a chamber pot will just have to wait for another time. For now this is the estimable Dr Chekill with Dead Engineers, a (presumably Prometheus-referencing) release for SUF 909 that features nagging, looped vocals and – yes! – sirens as well as some surprisingly, one might almost say disappointingly, restrained 303 action.

Meanwhile on the flip is Fortaleza on Fire by Ney, Tiago and Chris Liberator. Well, obviously I’ve heard of this Liberator chap, but Tiago and Ney? Any information gratefully received. Whatever, this is bouncy and fun with breakdown riffs quite clearly recycled from around 1996, which is never a bad thing. I’ll be honest, though, neither track is what you’d call essential, but unless you’re here by accident I think you’ll probably want them in your collection anyway.

Get it from: 909 London

Justin E – Nailz EP (Viral Outbreak))

Cat no: VOD 016
Get it from: Juno

The drawback of being a lazy bastard and not posting since August – August! – is that I miss covering some great tunes, but this one I’m not letting slip through the net, no sir. Nailz you probably already know. At 146 BPM it’s just the rickety-ticket for taking proceedings up a notch; those cantering drums don’t do it any harm, and the main riff, hard and metallic, is as funky as it is scary,  something of a Justin E trademark. Red Herring kicks my arse from here until next week — again with the scary riffs, yo! Meanwhile, Psycosis and Chimera are just that little bit deeper, little bit darker. And then, woah, Outpost, easily the most brooding and soundtracky thing I’ve heard from Mr Edwards, a nightmarish wash of oxidisation – peeling, tarnished, a future already in decay. Awesome stuff.