Osmo, Sterling Moss, Chris Liberator, Darc Marc, Athar – Scythe Squadron 10 (Scythe 010)

Inside the Government comes from Chris Liberator, Darc Marc, and Athar, who’s otherwise known as Pawel Panczyk and is, along with Osmo (Tomasz Osmański), one of Scythe Squadron’s founders. The track has everything you’d expect of such a mighty pairing: fluid drums, plenty of changes and an Acid line that begins at lick and just builds and builds. Strong stuff, and on any other EP it would be the clear winner.

Any other EP, that is, apart from this one. Because after Sterling Moss’s Rebel Rouser, where the acid strolls a bit and a horn motif which promises much doesn’t really do a lot, leading to what is, by his high standards, a fairly restrained number, comes Osmo’s Acid In My Mind. Which is a destroying tune. A showstopping, how-do-you-follow-that? headfuck of a track. Gathering its elements patiently, it fireworks after a short break at around 1.49, after which anything goes. Fast – is it really just 142 BPM? – the foot only comes off the pedal for an Osmo speciality break, where you think the track’s going to flip out into something new, before all hell breaks loose for the next section, the main riff blasting away,  counter-melodies and choirs of acidic angels giving it a glorious busy feeling. I’m not exaggerating here. It’s glorious, exhilarating headrush techno, and the only problem, really, is how to get out of it without the energy dropping. You’ll manage, I’m sure.

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

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

Mobile Dogwash, Acid Choci, Osmo & Dark Rider – Scythe Squadron Digital 001

Mobile Dogwash – Don’t Fuck This Up
Whether it’s a rework or a reissue of the 2008 tune, I don’t know, but it’s got the usual Dogwash bad-assery in spades. In other words, loose, clattering drums, lots of noisy business and a mulchy acid line that burps like a sated cave troll. How they manage to get so much into a track without overloading it is most likely some kind of Jedi mind trick.

Acid Choci – Marijuana Kills
I love Choci’s stuff and played Xaxaxa to death but this hasn’t been doing it for me. Not sure why: maybe because the supremely insistent and bratty-sounding 303 doesn’t quite make up for an overall lack of wallop.

Osmo – Dark Rider
Pick of the EP is an epic, trancey builder from Poland’s Osmo that’s thrillingly dark, as sinister as a gleaming black van on the Washington beltway and builds up to a sample from – I think – Minority Report, before spinning off into kaleidoscopic waves of headfuckery. Listening to it sent me scuttling back to Osmo’s earlier release on SUF Projects and it turns out I completely overlooked that little gem ’n’ all.

Hectech – Screaming From Sao Paulo
Scream they do, borrowing Dogwash ideology for a storming intro, full of squalling, wrestling noise, and a wonderful outro, where the 303s are set to pant-shitting levels. It’s only the middle, oddly enough, arguably the bit where you really want the track to bring its A-game, that things fall a little flat.

 

 

Various – Scythe 09 (Scythe Squadron)

Cat no: Scythe 09
Get it from: Stay Up Forever

Tomei Kosoku  – Ant & K.N & DJ Nakahara
BPM: 142
Joined by record store owner DJ Nakahara and inspired by the Tomei Kosoku Toro expressway in Japan (probably), KN delivers a trancey, evocative tune underpinned by Powertools-friendly Ant music. The result is a perfect mix of techno power and hard trance melody, a Trans Europe Express for the harder generation, and the pick of the EP.

2424 – Ben Fraser
BPM: 144
Ben ‘Sabretooth’ Fraser returns with a ripsnorting hard trance track featuring multiple duelling acid lines that build and build to a series of peaks. As ever with Sabretooth tunes, it has a silky feel to it but rocks like a bastard, and that ascending 303 gives it an addictive quality.

Bang Your Bitch – Osmo
BPM: 145
A fat power riff kicks things off and sounds frankly stunning burbling away menacingly until the ‘Bang Your Bitch’ sample appears. The fact that it’s sampled from the Russell Brand film Get Him to the Greek slightly undoes the dark work done by that awesome riff in my opinion, but it’s still a welcome change of pace for the EP.