VA: Now 04
Underscan

Berlin's Underscan imprint keeps the electronic fires burning with tracks by Slemper, Lambent, 3tronik, and Fibla in the fourth and final installment in its Now compilation series. On side A, Slemper's (DenHaag's Maarten Meussen) “Dusdatikaf” rises from slumber to offer a perky lesson in how to marry crisp electro-tinged beatmaking with faded melodies and voice fragments before whirrs and clicks coalesce morph into a faded, hip-hop-inflected landscape of sprawling, rootless atmospheres in Lambent's (Berlin-based Akira Inagawa) “Kaudyoe.” Side B features 3tronik (France's Fabien Florin) and spa.RK head Fibla, the former's “Verwirrung” a slithering underworld of writhing textures and synth gleam and the latter's “International” charting a warmer course, offering bucolic sweetness that departs from the other tracks' more aggressive orientations. Keep an eye out for the Now compilation CD later in 2006 where all of the series tracks will be re-assembled.

July 2006