Electro/club spring 2020

While other genres and sectors have recently witnessed a massive rediscovery of the Ep, especially as a format for launching and promoting new talent, the world of club electronica has always held the format in the highest regard, still considering it the prime vehicle for spreading new tracks and bringing fresh talent to light, allowing artists to build a solid following while waiting for bigger, more ambitious projects. Practical and versatile enough to suit the most varied occasions, with the added advantage of offering a broader perspective than the standalone track, the beloved twelve-inch remains the preferred currency among club-culture devotees — a means of communication as fascinating as it is dizzyingly vast, especially amid today's overwhelming flood of releases. To bring a bit of order to an often all-too-chaotic distribution landscape, this article attempts to offer a selection of the best Eps/12”s released over the past four months, drawing on cult names, connoisseur's gems and fresh talent seeking the spotlight. Without hierarchies or particular preferences, here are the most enticing new releases in house, techno, electro and beyond, gathered from every corner of the globe. Now dance, dance, dance till you drop!

Asmara – Deviant Eyes (self-released)

Having burst onto the scene as one half of Nguzunguzu, and since then having ventured into a series of successful solo outings as well as fruitful collaborations (most notably last year's excellent mix "Aquaphoria" alongside Kelela), Asma Maroof is a curious, elusive personality who follows her own trajectories and pursues them with a thoroughly singular approach. The complexity of her language finds expression in two dense tracks, synthesizing the most disparate stylistic threads into a fluid, gripping mix with a theatrical touch, where polished r&b samples coexist with the most ruthless production treatments, and bass-heavy soul meets dancehall echoes to chart new rhythmic paths. Beyond the limitations and clichés of so much deconstructed club music, this is a one-two punch that recalls all the fire at the heart of Asmara's music. Let's hope a fuller-bodied project comes along soon. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

Axel Boman – Eyes Of My Mind (Studio Barnhus)

Eighteen minutes split across just two tracks: that's all it takes for Axel Boman to lay out the full extent of his talent, and to make clear that you don't become the founder of a label — especially one with such a sharply defined aesthetic — by accident. The latest single from the co-owner of Studio Barnhus finds the Swedish producer unspooling, on the title track, between soft house pulses, gentle vocal samples (drawn from one of the many versions of the bluegrass standard "20/20 Vision") and muffled atmospheric dynamics, played out over blurred melodic contours and enveloping bass loops. Where the delicacy marries an enticing club context, on "Echoes Of My Mind" he drops every rhythmic element altogether, replacing the beat with a lulling ambient progression, as gripping in its spaciousness as it is substantial to listen to — a sonic prism that recalls masters of the genre like Orb and Banco De Gaia. Eighteen minutes, but more than enough reason to keep singing the praises of this Swedish label. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

Baronhawk Poitier – Temperado Tornado (Honey Soundsystem)

If your idea of a club rhymes with "shake your ass," then there's really nothing more overwhelming than "Temperado Tornado," the opening track that also gives its name to the whole EP: a frantic jungle rhythm, drums, bells, whistles and percussion everywhere, knife-blade stabs of sampled brass, energy, sweat and excitement for the endless possibilities that open up in the mind of anyone who finally finds the courage to let go. After all, besides DJing and playing percussion, Baronhawk Poitier is also a skilled dancer with strong ties to the ballroom and warehouse scenes frequented by the African-American queer community, places where the very idea of body movement is born from the gut. In line with other releases from the Honey Soundsystem collective, Poitier also drifts into inscrutable ambient-techno atmospheres where rhythm and electronic textures move in lockstep ("Phakie Phatty"), flutters like a butterfly over ethereal pads in a 90s dream-house vein ("Lowside Heights"), and then surges back to life on a closing track where techno smudges and synth brushstrokes turn the dancefloor into a giant secular church, encouraging a kind of spiritual communion ("Gasp & Grasp"). In just four tracks lasting twenty minutes, Poitier gives us a rich, varied listen assembled with the thematic care of a full-length album. Simply irresistible. (Damiano Pandolfini)

Christopher Rau – The Keys (Smallville)

A refined play of contrasts drives Christopher Rau's art. On one side there are the soft synth textures, the melodic hooks, the polished, sophisticated keyboards that have elevated him to cult status within the most discerning deep house circles. On the other, the propulsive basslines, the pounding beats, the technoid progressions that showcase the German producer's more muscular, aggressive side. With this velvet fist, Rau lands punches that infect body and mind alike: "Slu Terms" grafts psychedelic grooves and minute electro harmonies onto a vibrant techno pulse, almost echoing the pensive mood of the soft piano work on "Who Am I." And while the title track throws a left hook, working a terrain far less concerned with tonal duality, "Beamer" ventures into the body of dub techno, adapting its rhythmic sense in the light of plastic deep forms worthy of the best Galcher Lustwerk. Repeat listens are all but guaranteed. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

DJ Lycox – Kizas do ly (Príncipe)

Anyone familiar with Príncipe knows well how the Lisbon label has, over time, honed a vision of pliable yet rigorous clarity, geared toward showcasing the most creative and uncompromising side of the vibrant Lusophone diaspora. In this sense, an EP like "Kizas do ly" might almost seem like a step down, if it weren't for the fact that, through its pensive, even romantic approach, DJ Lycox (author of a key batida record, "Sonhos & pesadelos") pushes the label's exploration into uncharted territory, toward an unusual sweetness that never turns saccharine. Drawing on the floating touch of kizomba, the producer conjures four tracks of persuasive, gentle smoothness, structured almost like velvety love songs at sunset. "Hábitos" steals the show, with its streaks of strings and its suspended tone, lost in its own thoughts. "Babygirl" too, with echoes closer to the Lisbon scene, plays with clear narrative constructions and a diffuse ambience that softens the rhythmic pattern to an extreme degree. Like a contemporary storyteller, DJ Lycox narrates and reveals himself in a charming little poem, confirming both the good health and the deep personality of the musicians on Príncipe's roster. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

Ilana Byrne – Strange Adventure (Naive)

House in the purest, most instrumental sense of the term, but also house devoted to an intimacy that's both relaxing and conceptually thought-through. American producer Ilana Byrne offers a second EP of candid electronic explorations where a driving rhythm is paired with velvety basslines, rhythmic samples rearranged in elegant cut-and-paste fashion, and keyboards that caress the ears like a Balearic chillout breeze. Four previously unreleased tracks (the closing "Lemme C U Squiggle" available only in the digital version), all well over five minutes long, designed to help the mind detach from the present and sail off into the imagination. The work is further embellished by an additional remix version of "Theoretic Medical Genitals" courtesy of Russell E.L. Butler, which stretches the track past the eight-minute mark through cyclical inserts where the composition dries out into stripped-back rhythms, only to slowly pick up pace again across an imaginary flowering meadow. A listen that's admittedly uniform and at times inscrutable, but one that finds its strength precisely in its blurred edges. An invitation to let go, in short — from behind the decks, Ilana Byrne still inspires plenty of trust. (Damiano Pandolfini)

India Jordan – For You (Local Action)

The photo of India Jordan's face on the cover of "For You" was taken in the toilets of Dalston Superstore, the storied East London venue that hosts those fringes of the queer community left on the margins of the muscles-and-jockstraps mainstream gay scene of Soho, Clapham and Vauxhall. Curiously, the opening track "I'm Waiting (Just 4 U)" is built on a disco-music idea that couldn't be gayer, but one that India reassembles into a frantic cut-and-paste where female vocals and a string riff are compressed and interlocked into an inextricable rhythmic fabric. The following title track follows the same formula: a vocal sample repeated ad libitum to the point of becoming an integral part of the rhythm, while the beats push steadily forward — almost a reworking of the usual ass-shaking hits for an audience with noticeably different needs. But the choice to take a photo in a toilet is no accident; the bathroom is also a place of quiet retreat during a particularly intense night out, as well as a necessary safe harbour for free expressions of love, so a track like "Emotional Melodical" touches something deeply intimate, slowing the pace right down to dip into ambient territory. With "Rave City," "Westbourne Ave" and "Dear Nan King" the rhythm picks back up, spilling into trance and drum'n'bass to stir the floor again, India's skilled hand working the knobs with real elegance. A superb EP, equally capable of entertaining a dancing crowd and satisfying the solitary listener. (Damiano Pandolfini)

Kouslin – 2020 Vision (Livity Sound)

What if the future didn't want to keep accelerating at all costs? What if it preferred instead to calm the tone and prove that even relative slowness can carry an equally intriguing/destabilizing charge? Having landed on Peverelist's Livity Sound, Kouslin seems intent on answering exactly these questions: across four solidly, maturely composed tracks, the London producer swaps out the label's usual techno aura for the slowed-down warmth of Jamaican dembow, exploited here across a wide range of possibilities. Whether immersed in glacial synthetic atmospheres (the title track), thriving on underlying major-key melodies (the exuberance of "Sharper"), or even taking on technoid trails (aptly reinterpreted through a digital-dancehall lens, see the nod to Equiknoxx on the splendid "The Beast Of Bolsover"), this seasoned producer (who also runs the Le Chatroom label) knows how to give his tracks backbone and character, never overly hectic yet always endowed with just the right personality to stand out ("Ice" and its busy ambient frame). Four midtempo bullets, ready to go straight for your jugular. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

Osheyack – Memory Hierarchy (Svbkvlt)

From the United States to China, into the fold of Svbkvlt, to dismantle every kind of convention. Osheyack's tenure with the Shanghai label already had an intriguing preview with "Empty Hell," which paired a raw hardcore frame with the label's usual post-club underpinnings; now, however, it matures into a language of gripping complexity, in which the production's touch embraces an apocalyptic, almost orchestral dimension. "Liar's Dividend" reaches the darkness of Tzusing's industrial techno but amplifies its apocalyptic feeling tenfold, mixing refined gabber-scented charges, vaguely Oriental melodicism and human gasps meant to scatter every trace of humanity into a violent digital magma. While "Mutual Shaping" sharpens the industrial edge through a stuttering glitch progression (pushed to a new level of alienation by heavily distorted human contributions), "Tertiary" disintegrates every distinction of space and time, fusing gqom's gqom's menacing aura with "Celtic" overtones and a bizarre martial edge. On a label with an already remarkable roster, Eli Osheyack delivers what is perhaps his most exciting release yet. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

Park Hye Jin – How Can I (Ninja Tune)

Ninja Tune has never lacked a good ear: having noticed the modest cult that formed around her debut EP "If U Want It" (helped along by a deep-house bomb like "I Don't Care"), the label didn't think twice before taking Park Hye Jin under its wing, adding to its roster one of the most enticing names in Korea's thriving house scene. Where that first EP squandered much of its potential on repetitive structures and overused sounds, "How Can I" pushes decisively further, playing with moods and contrasts with a wholly new freshness. While the velvety softness of the single "Like This" might suggest a move toward the ambient-electronic designs of Yaeji, the beats devised for the record speak of a growth in the handling of space and rhythm, one confident enough to tackle techno tracks ("Can You", laced with hip-hop touches) and jungle-house structures modulated with surprising sharpness ("NO"). Her voice, stripped of much of the rap brashness of her debut, comes across suspended and lulling, inviting us into a mature project - far more overwhelming and abrasive, but never off-putting. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

Yak – Dire Hit (3024)

With John Randall's projects, it's all a matter of rhythm: complicated, intricate beyond measure, surprising at every turn, handling constantly shifting patterns that branch out from drum'n'bass foundations in the most disparate directions, flirting with every genre within reach. Back once again on Martyn's 3024, the Sheffield producer shows real character across three tracks that cement his distinctive, otherworldly touch, capable of producing beats as translucent as glass (the crystalline keyboards of "Esper", beneath which the rhythmic bed twists and stretches while keeping a brisk jungle pace), or of weaving in jazzy cadences played over odd 2-step accents (the opening title track). In this peculiar mini-showcase, "Knothole" pushes further still, packing a crowded frame around a fragmented percussive skeleton that recalls the glory days of Warp in the Nineties. Rarely have three tracks sounded so adventurous. (Vassilios Karagiannis)

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