Albums
aus
Aidan Baker
Big Farm
The Black Dog
Blackshaw & Melnyk
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Clockwork
Matthew Collings
Coma
DJ Koze
Djrum
Eluvium
Fredda
Freska
Hanging Up The Moon
Jenny Hval
Jimpster
Rena Jones
Mark Lorenz Kysela
Leonhard + Red
Naph
Petrels
Piano Interrupted
Pursuit Grooves
David Rothenberg
Saltland
subtractiveLAD
Terminal Sound System
Andrew Weathers

Compilations / Mixes
Joy
Kumasi Music Volume 1
John Morales
One Point Three (A & B)
Maceo Plex
Soma Compilation 21
Steffi

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Alter Echo & E3
Amiina
Badawi VS Ladyman
Bunnies & Bats
Diffraction of Sound EP
Gerwin
Heligoland
Hibea
The Monroe Transfer
Chris Octane
RSD
Katsunori Sawa
Andy Vaz

Bunnies & Bats: Little Colored Blocks EP
Anticipate

“Curiouser and curiouser!”—Alice's words from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland spring repeatedly to mind as the sounds of Anticipate's latest release flood the room. Why curious? For starters, it's the first release of brand new material from the NY-based label since late 2010 (when Morgan Packard's Moment Again Elsewhere appeared); secondly, the EP's slow-motion techno style is more emblematic of the style of the associated Microcosm label than Anticipate; and thirdly, the material by Philadelphia duo Bunnies & Bats (its first release, in fact) accounts for only one track on the six-song (including digital bonus mixes) release—four minutes out of a thirty-six-minute total.

In coupling clipped vocal stutters and found sounds to a soft'n'sleepy minimal house pulse, Bunnies & Bats' “Little Colored Blocks” plays like a bedroom-styled riff on the signature Microcosm aesthetic (even if the vocal expands into actual phrases such as “Don't you want to be my friend”). But without meaning to knock the original, the EP's more memorable for remix treatments that take the duo's raw material and twist it into unusual shapes: David Last refashions it into a rollicking, dancefloor-ready joint that boogies with single-minded purpose; Nicholas Sauser hews to the Microcosm style in overlaying a jacking house pulse with all manner of wipes, tears, smears, and voice fragments; and Anticipate and Microcosm manager Ezekiel Honig morphs the track into a signature Honig setting that sees a sleepwalking shuffle peppered with vocal murmurs and wrapped in haze. On the digital front, Thomas Hildebrand recasts the tune as a banger by pumping it full of bounce and vigour, while Borne takes the long route home in a submersive techno version that flickers between voice cut-ups and noise flourishes for ten woozy minutes.

The cover's pure Anticipate, but the music's more Microcosm. No matter: it's good to see Anticipate operating again, though for how long isn't (yet) clear.

May 2013