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

Sepalcure: Fleur EP
Hotflush Recordings

Long-time fans of the work Travis Stewart and Praveen Sharma have produced under their respective Machinedrum and Praveen aliases can be forgiven for expecting their collaborative project to feature music of astonishing density and dizzying complexity. How refreshing it is to discover, then, that not only do the Brooklyn-based producers complement one another naturally, but that they refrain from overloading Fleur's four tracks with an excess of detail—perhaps each over-compensated a little bit when they started producing tracks together as a way of ensuring that their resultant sound wouldn't end up sounding overloaded. Don't be mislead, however: Fleur is hardly minimal or stripped-down but rather jam-packed with ravishing sonic colour. The title cut floats in on a gentle synthetic wave before a beautiful beat pattern enters, the punch of its bass drum offset by the crack and pop of the snare, but Sepalcure doesn't stop there as a smattering of soul vocals, handclaps, and a trippy tinkling melody spruce up the track magnificently—five magical minutes of electronic soul. “Your Love” is as good, a dynamic, club-ready swirl of charging beats and lush vocals that oozes radiance and splendour. The duo brings so much energy to the material that even the EP's brief ambient closer “Inside” is pitched at about twice the volume and intensity level of a standard ambient track. Overall, the EP's material succeeds fabulously well on purely listening grounds but also features enough beat science (on three of the four cuts) to make it hold up on the dancefloor too. Fleur is a superb follow-up to the duo's earlier debut EP Love Pressure, so superb, in fact, the only question left dangling by disc's end is when a hoped-for full-length might materialize.

March 2011