Article
Lucy

Albums
Alphabets Heaven
AREA C
Aidan Baker
Black Devil Disco Club
Cluster
Dakota Suite & Errante
Davis & Machinefabriek
Deaf Center
Fancy Mike
FM3
Forest Swords
Frivolous
Hakobune
Kyo Ichinose
Juv
Deniz Kurtel
Sven Laux
Lucy
Stephan Mathieu
Joel Mull
Near The Parenthesis
Netherworld
nunu
Fabio Orsi
Penalune
Pleq
port-royal
Rainbow Arabia
Todd Reynolds
Roedelius
Rosenqvist and Scott
Steffi
Sublamp
SubtractiveLAD
Tapage

Compilations
Back and 4th
Future Disco Volume 4
SMM: Context
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo

EPs
Aardvarck & Kubus
Corrugated Tunnel
Debilos
Djamel
Tolga Fidan
Flowers and Sea Creatures
Anne Garner
Mike Jedlicka / Cloudburst
Mo 2 Meaux-2
Proximity One: Remixes
Darren Rice
Sepalcure
Sharma + Krause
Josh T
Talvihorros
Francesco Tristano
Widesky
Dez Williams

Dez Williams: Spinechiller EP
Concrete Plastic

Heady machine funk birthed at a laboratory in Holy Island, an island off of the coast of North Wales, Dez Williams' Spinechiller offers a thoroughly personalized and foreward-thinking take on the classic techno and house styles associated with Chicago and Detroit producers. Contentedly ensconced in the underground, Williams turned heads with his debut album Elektronik Religion for the SCSI label, and there's little reason to think he won't do much the same with this latest offering of six electro-techno jams.

The EP begins in a starburst of radiant illumination with “Zambu” but the track proves to be no ambient reverie: beats gradually emerge from the background and displace the listener's attention away from the synthetic radiance to a wiry churn of rollicking techno rhythms and claps. Bass throbs pave the way for the spooky splendour of “Blyz” until congas and house chords briefly hijack the track before a lightly jacking funk-house groove and a percolating acid line sends it off on its jubilant way. Sounding at times like Dez Williams hooking up with Demdike Stare, “Waited” underlays smudged voice samples with a snappy, bone-rattling groove that's as grimey as it is funky. Splatter-funk beats and clockwork electronics animate “Modern Day Slavery,” which gradually builds into something more monstrous until a breakdown collapses the intensity before winding it back up again even more relentlessly. Not surprisingly, “Hammer House of Horrors” wends a more atmospheric path through a haunted forest of cryptic noises and ghoulish tone-shifting, but though the vibe is woozy, even sickly, the track isn't lacking in the kind of base 4/4 propulsion heard elsewhere. With each grounded in machine-funk rhythms and spiked with subtle acid flavourings, Williams' tracks sound of a piece while also managing to individuate themselves from one another.

March 2011