Parviz
Le Cyprès d'Abarqu

Delsin marks its milestone 150th release in a rainstorm of gorgeous arps with a full EP from Voiski. For Luc Kheradmand it's a return to the label which carried his 2020 collaboration with Wata Igarashi and where he issued early single Breaths Written Outside Gloom. For Delsin it's the perfect way to sum up different dimensions of the label's identity - richly melodic, machine-powered and yet distinct from any illusion of a typical 'Delsin sound'. The End Of Fiction EP marks a new chapter in Kheradmand's approach and intention. His prolific back catalogue reaches back across countless releases for labels like L.I.E.S., Dekmantel UFO, Bassiani and his own Super 95. Here his established overdriven snarl is tempered, but not at the expense of the energy and emotion readily associated with his music. There's a trace of trance and early Detroit about the powerful lead lines on 'Blazing Star' and 'Hazy Suns', while 'Unreality' basks in blissful acid and 'Ideodelika' charts a course through progressive, psychedelic techno. The End Of Fiction still bristles with the peak time energy Voiski is often known for, but it's the melodies which dominate the overall narrative as he sets out a renewed clarity in his sound.

Berlin-based Frag Maddin bursts onto STRCTR with four hefty cuts. Maddin, whose hard-hitting sound has touched Mistress Recordings, Madhouse Records, W&O Street Tracks and Snatch! in the past makes his way into 2020 in style.

Ikävä Pii’s vinyl debut is a collection of three original songs, complemented with two recent remixes by Arif and Monty DJ. The three original works (Palau Figment, Rampage and La Conga Di Corto) are some of Ikävä Pii’s early productions – but were recovered in London between 2020 and 2021, to be released on Flippen Disks. Opener Palau Figment is a dive into a non-chronological sonic archive, a reluctant visit of a time past. Its saturated, driving drum machine beat is hesitantly accompanied by floating synthesizer play and takes us right into dream-land, grounded by a mono bass line that throughout the song is joined by a doubling replica in stereo - a memory of itself if you will; A nostalgic narrative told by a hardly comprehensible voice, while “Rampage” does a good job shredding it it right up, exposing the distortion of memory in its growing destruction of it’s driving force, the synthesized string sound that is eventually rendered nearly unrecognizable.This painful process of acknowledgement finds its cathartic reconciliation on the flip. “La Conga di Corto” combines the tropes of the A-side into an ecstatic 5 minutes of loopy, shifty drums and broken up synthesizers. Arif’s Woo Reduction keeps it’s titles promise, taking few elements from the original track into a minimal club track that will make dancefloors pause and bounce alike. Monty DJ’s Transformation Dub is a much less minimalistic approach, stacking layers of percussion on top of each other, shifting form constantly.

»Infuso Giallo aka Philipp Carbotta originally hails from rural Western Germany, first cut his teeth in the music scene of nearby Cologne and conducts a host of activities in Berlin for a couple of years now – co-running the label Kame House, designing graphics and producing and playing leftfield electronic music. His debut LP Ocular Soda presents an intersection of these activities – self-released, self-designed and of course self-produced. Even before the first synth chords and reverse atmospheres of the two-part opener 'Every Waking Hour' tickle the ear, it is the eye that is drawn to the bright, cut-out style cover art – itself made up of two eyes on the front and what seem to be their rough shapes or discarded counterparts on the back.To stay within that metaphor, Infuso Giallo's music is indeed of a reflective and calm nature, taking cues from Berlin School, library and New Age musics from roughly the 1970s to the 1990s – steadily repeating and slowly evolving ostinatos, lush digital pads, quirky filtered toplines and electronic percussion that mostly eschews four-four monotony in favor of much more subtle syncopations. Balearic bomb 'The Big Rip' with its big drums and acid bass turns the energy level up a notch while retaining the somnambulistic, lingering quality that makes Ocular Soda such a coherent listening experience – music on the sheath of waking and dreaming, both worlds and their inherent logics freely bleeding into each other. There are moments of great expanse, such as in 'Mole Gaze' – I couldn't help but see myself hovering somewhere in mid-air while the music unfolds as if on a great deserted plane below me. Maybe this is what it sounds like once the mole leaves his tunnels and takes in the sound of the world overground. 'Hello World', indeed, in its multitude of information to eye and ear, in its gently overwhelming quality. The title track 'Ocular Soda' closes the proceedings with a whimsical nod to 1970s botany-centered library music, its brooding chord sequence and sweet lead lines gradually fading in the distance. A fitting ending to an impressive LP of highly evocative, at times sombre and at times blissfully naive pieces that leave me yearning for more.«Written, recorded & produced by Infuso Giallo in 2020 & 2021 in Berlin. Mixed by Philipp Janzen & Sebastian Blume at Dumbo Studios, Cologne. Mastered by Sam Irl in Vienna. Design by Infuso Giallo.

Exploring hybrid music styles and outernational, borderless musical influences, DJ soFa’s Elsewhere compilation series continues with a sixth instalment, and the second to appear on Kalahari Oyster Cult.Always ahead of the tide, the Kalahari Oyster is a fine specimen when it comes to the discipline of next-level sound-snooping. Meticulously curated by Belgian sonic globetrotter soFa, Elsewhere XX showcases a dozen outstanding tunes, each dwelling in their own personal space between the imaginary worlds of post-kraut, DIY synth-punk and odd-pop ballads.Melting these genres with contemporary club music is the mission here. Doused in a thick fog of arcane machine talk, tribal rhythms and cosmic synths, Elsewhere XX is an invitation to escape the hall of LED-backlit mirrors that we’ve so mistakenly come to call our “reality”.Gathering artists from all corners of the globe – including Radio Hito, Anatolian Weapons, Eylul Deniz, Dame Area and Electronic Body Girl – soFa’s curation lays the groundwork for a unique and thoroughly immersive listening and dancing experience. Through a carefully selected suite of like-minded, yet diverse joints, we run the gamut from distorted funk (“Anita”, “Confiture") and cross-pollinated electroid blueprints (“Walk Away”, “An Abhainn Mhor") to oddball synthpop (“Credo” & Twin Peaks cover "She Can't Die"), reverb-soaked audio safaris (“Fifty Fifty (Anatolian Weapons Dub)") and static-filled postpunk (“Umani”).soFa's Elsewhere series started in 2017 and this is the sixth compilation to date. Shifting focus with every new instalment, the compilations have previously appeared on labels likes Music For Dreams, Emotional Response and Crevette Records.