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DIAG 055LP
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N0!zy blighter Russell Haswell returns to Diagonal five years after his label debut with a spontaneously combusting follow-up to 37 Minute Workout (2014) generated again from a mix of analog/digital synths and modular systems edited on a computer. It was inspired by a visit to CERN, The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Geneva; and dinner with Ted Nelson, whose theories of intersingularity and transclusion chimed with the direction recordings took. There are few artists who can genuinely make music that sounds like your needle and/or record is melting, but Russell Haswell is one of them. His second volume of extremely kinky calisthenics is a potent example of daring to be different in a world where exponentially increasing production options are leading producers of all stripes to the exact same conclusions. But, with thanks to Russell's iconoclastic intent, restless nature and ascetic aesthetics, he still sounds quite like nobody else, and, even better yet, doesn't give a shit if you like it or not. Since reincorporating his early love of freestyle electro and Industrial dance music into his patented n0!ze matrices circa the first volume of 37 Minute Workout, Russell has steered that rhythm-driven style into a string of fizzy bangers for Diagonal and even applied it to his production for Consumer Electronics with typically radical results. Russell's 37 Minute Workout Vol. 2 is cut from similarly (but never the same) ragged material as the first batch, and spits, kicks and claws with equal amounts of seething, pent energy and rambunctiousness ready to jab the 'floor in the eye or dissolve a party where needed. Crowbarring cues ranging from the Latin Rascals to Incapacitants and Jeff Mills into seven wickedly awkward designs, Haswell keeps his avant aerobics radically irregular as he hops from the tendon-twitching angularity of "The Wild Horses Of The Revolution Have Arrived Without Knight" to steel-hoofed clatter in "Central Crisis Management Cell" and the lacquer-eating dynamics of "Painful Memories From The Past Need To Be Acknowledged", before toning a proper nasty acid special in the UR inversion "Dancing On The Head Of An Eagle", and seemingly sucking your brain out through a straw with "Starting Something You're Not Able To Finish", with the dry witted, skeletal jazz-funk squirm of "Diplomatic Cocktail Circuit" closing the party down in style. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 300.
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DIAG 053LP
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Japanese crust punk and grindcore icon Eri Fuzz-Kristiansen, aka Gallhammer's Viviankrist, keeps the curveballs coming on Diagonal with a bloodied mastication of charred noise and rhythmic electronics, following up the label's acclaimed sides by Sote (DIAG 054LP) and Not Waving/Jim O'Rourke (DIAG 049EP). Co-released with the metal-minded Ritual Productions label, Cross Modulation is a brutal testament to the acridly personalized sound that Viviankrist has explored solo since 1995 in Tokyo, when she performing vocals, sax and SP-202 sampler in her first industrial/noise unit. 23 years later her music is still sorely raw, yet riddled with a new found poignance and atmospheric unease that places her music sometimes as close to Kali Malone's see-sawing dissonance as the power electronics of Pan Sonic or the possessed pulses of Conrad Schnitzler and Merzbow. Since the demise of Eri's main project Gallhammer at the start of this decade, when she moved from Tokyo to Oslo (home of her husband and bandmate in Sehnsucht, Maniac -- also former vocalist for BM legends Mayhem), she returned to her early Viviankrist alias from 2017 as a place to express her primitivist-futurist urges, resulting a trio of CDs including the vicious solo strike of Morgenrøde for Cold Spring Records (CSR 268CD). Now on Cross Modulation she intuitively tempers that album's phosphorous burn with a deadly incisive application of what black metal/techno pioneer Black Mecha terms "mentation electronics". Alloying avant-metal with rhythmic noise, ambient techno and mind-bending drone to a metallurgic tang, Cross Modulation serves a dense flux of energies in seven parts, piercing a path thru maelstrom electronics in "Eleventh" to churn up grizzled Vainio-esque rhythms in "Blue Iron", while the tenderly bruised ambience of "Midnight Sun" provides a bittersweet palette cleanser for the tart technoid prang of "Insects", a bout of slow gripping psychedelia in "Out Of Body", and the rugged North European pastoralism of "Behind Mirror".
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DIAG 054LP
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Pivotal Iranian artist Ata Ebtekar mounts a head-buzzing debut for Diagonal, pushing microtonal tunings and timbres into mind-bending geometrical designs that echo the modular synth and strings formulæ of Dariush Dolat-Shahi for Smithsonian Folkways, but keen much deeper into noisy, uncanny valleys of modernist perceptual exploration. Parallel Persia presents the latest iteration of Sote's restlessly searching sound which has been in action for 30 years now. Commissioned for an AV performance at Donau festival in 2018, the album is a natural extension of his stunning Sacred Horror In Design LP, feeding classical Iranian music tropes into a computer and modular synths to diffract and detach their meaning and operation, open them up to strange possibilities of electro-acoustic practice in the process. But more than ever in Parallel Persia, his focus turns from percussion to tonal relationships, combining various synthesis techniques and instrumental recordings at the service of a holistic voice and "locked timbre", or more simply a poetic way of uniting his sounds into a brilliant aural energy. As Ebtekar explains, "Conceptually, Parallel Persia deals with the illusion and creation of an artificial hyperreal culture manipulated and controlled by an imperious agency somewhere within all galaxies. Like all realities, greed and arrogance channels destruction of life. However, the path to havoc includes resistance via beauty, grace and symmetry. Snapshots of an apocryphal Iran is presented via sonic schematics for a synthetic 'Meta-Persian' experience. This experience can be in our present-day life or maybe somewhere else somehow differently in a parallel world..." In this surreal noumenal space, Sote triggers a series of beguiling chain reactions that resonate throughout each track, with electronic frequencies modulating the acoustic and vice-versa in a dizzying and mathematically sound "euphonious complete whole". Here, the tar and santur initially sound like themselves in "Modality Transporter", but by the end of this opener they are transformed into ribboning tendrils of extruded electronics, and continue to morph in fascinating ways, joined by unearthly voices in "Brass Tacks", and pulled into bittersweet taffy on "Atomic Hypocrisy", while utterly upending our proprioceptions in "Trans Force", and ancient-futuristic chants and dance rhythms working in parallel dimensions to Rashad Becker in "Pipe Dreams", until he's speaking in a purely singular language of unique intonation and shatterproof, beatless rhythm on "Pseudo Scholastic". RIYL: Dariush Dolat-Shahi, Marcus Schmickler, Florian Hecker, Parsa. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Edition of 500.
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DIAG 049EP
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In a dream hook-up for Diagonal, Jim O'Rourke reimagines material from the vaults of Alessio Natalizia AKA Not Waving and turns in a magisterial kosmiche synth-scape, backed with a sprawling slab of mazy rhythmic brilliance. O'Rourke has been a long-time admirer of Not Waving, and what started out as more of straight remix project quickly turned into a collaboration-at-a-distance, with Natalizia sending extra material and pushing O'Rourke to stray as far from the original material as possible.
In both parts, he does him proud. 'Side A' renders an original chromatic synth knot into a spiralling, heavenly superstructure worthy of comparison with Popol Vuh, before the flip envelopes listeners in a hyper-baroque rave hall of mirrors ? all iridescent arps and irregular, automated pulses that refract palatial imaginary spaces.
O'Rourke is, of course, a huge hero to Natalizia and the label, for his work with Sonic Youth, his countless collaborations with everyone from Keiji Haino to Tony Conrad, and the breath-taking breadth of his solo material. It's something of a coup/blessing/honour, therefore, for Diagonal to present this release with art/packaging from Guy Featherstone that does justice to this meeting of minds.
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DIAG 048LP
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Strange Rabbits is a bittersweet kiss to chill-out room jungle and ambient techno by Jimmy Donadio, using an early alias, StabUdown Productions, to mark his return to personalized, esoteric electronics after years of raw bangers under the Prostitutes guise. Pushed to write some melodic tracks for the crack of it by Powell, Jimmy drew from his current record buying habit for early jungle and ambient techno to produce an unusually affected batch primed for the kind of back room/chillout room sessions which used to be common in clubs, and have essentially morphed into afterparty/domestic rave soundtracks nowadays. Reacquainting himself with the shine-eyed wonder and sensuality of dance music's beta stream, Strange Rabbits refracts NYC deep house and European electronics via the prism of early jungle and Jimmy's fuzzy memory. Its ten tracks reveal his tender underbelly like just the right amount of Mandy, resulting a psychedelically sensuous and driving album characteristic of the sincerity and allusive impressionism that's long been key to his work, but rarely so thizzingly effusive. Hypnotic highlights such as "Wizard Upholstery" and "Teenage Scream Dreamer" recall Stakker's early techno prototypes, while "New Ogre" and the cubist-electro of "Warm Woods" shimmy like Richard H. Kirk in NYC. Yoghurt weaving, proto-Goa trance shares dancing room with the gnostic bleeps of "Wizard Upholstery", and the slow burn swing of "Totally Coral Reef" and "Koln Alone" properly nail a hair-kissing, head massage-worthy techno-hippy vibe that's been conspicuous by its absence from contemporary floors -- especially for anyone old to remember how it used to be. The deeply charming results amount to the most diverse, techno-spirited, and pop-friendly work in StabUdown's singular catalog, serving to lend a lush new horizon to Jimmy Donadio's previously furrowed rave outlook, and in a way comparable with everyone from NWAQ and DJ Sprinkles and Not Waving. Art by Guy Featherstone. Master and cut at Dubplates & Mastering.
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12"
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DIAG 047EP
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Self Split EP features Kouhei Matsunaga at his chimeric best for Diagonal, delivering two jazzy, freehand concrète collabs with Japanese sound artist and Eartaker noise maker, Masayuki Imianishi, plus two dance-offs with himself as NHK yx koyxen and Speedy K. The "Texture Foggy" pieces render a more reflective, cosmic aspect of Kouhei's character. For virulent examples of Kouhei at the rave, NHK yx koyxen and Speedy K's "StepMove #01" is quite possibly the wonkiest peak-time juggernaut of the year, and the acid wormhole of "Early Mellow Darkness" sounds like the bald acid offspring of Luke Slater and Ed Rush.
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12"
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DIAG 046EP
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Craig Clouse's Shit And Shine is an amorphous entity that's forever in flux, from scuzzed up, bass-heavy and raucous noise sessions to inverted dancefloor shenanigans. This time round Very High EP serves Diagonal with a 30-minute plunder-phonic special, curling purple funk, R&B and rap specials to order. This is essentially the Shit And Shine edit white label, scorched and blunted three tracks of madness somewhere between John Oswald and slowed-down Secret Mixes and Fixes tackle, bubblin' computer funk, like Material and Rhianna on a slow spin oozing summer vibes and blurred vision.
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DIAG 044EP
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Diagonal whack out a demented début dosage from unknown operator Handy, who probes a queered zone between the bandy-legged funk of Cylob and the sound of Evol on a bender with SOPHIE. Each track says its piece in a pop-wise blatz of daftness at the recommended 45rpm, which becomes only sleazier, stickier at 33rpm, if the mood takes you. Up top, that results in the comically tart and ruddy juzz-fank spanking of "Oink" and the speedy elastic scramble of "Stretch", whilst underneath you'll catch the hyper-colored splash-back of "Spit" and the nutty Talk Box workout, "Dump".
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DIAG 040LP
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Diagonal pull out a zinging art-techno curveball with Another Exhibition at the Modern Institute, the second EP by Glasgow's hottest new prospect, The Modern Institute; an iconoclastic trio of agitators comprising Golden Teacher's Richard McMaster and Laurie Pitt joined some droll, scaly Northern English vocalist, James Stephen Wright, for one of the freshest and vital blends of post-punk, art-school, and techno sensibilities to emerge in recent memory. Aimed as a snark at the middle-class art gaze as much as a slippery engine for the dancefloor, Another Exhibition at the Modern Institute reels six mercurial fusions of scudding, techy rhythms, and sheer electronic contours strewn with drily observant vocals describing hyper-sensual scenarios. It's a sound perhaps purposefully located lightyears away from Golden Teacher's charming retro-vintage styles, and effectively gives that group's rhythmic engine of McMaster and Pitt a space to express their more contemporary concerns. Forming the second blow of a Glasgow-centered 1-2 after Russell Haswell and Sue Tompkins's Respondent EP (DIAG 043LP), The Modern Institute swarm in formation from a white-hot electro-stepper "IV Cheeks" to somewhere darker, almost paranoid by the close of "Dozen Cocktails", taking in a sound like Errorsmith producing for MES in "Limitless Light", or Hecker doing footwork on the new beta anthem "Quicksilver Lips", whilst "Unbreakable Pulse" and the pinging ballistics of "Molton Gold" short circuit the deep-rooted transatlantic connection between Glasgow art punks' afterparties and Detroit ghetto styles with a deadly swagger. RIYL: Chris Carter, DJ Stingray, Toresch, Dale Cornish, Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget, John Bender, Smersh, LCD Soundsystem. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. Includes locked grooves. Red vinyl; Edition of 500.
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DIAG 043LP
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Russell Haswell returns to Diagonal with a new five-track mini-album called Respondent. Not quite an EP nor long enough for a full album, this record marks a significant shift in direction for Haswell, who collaborates with a vocalist, Sue Tompkins, for the first time in a career defined by its unorthodoxy, Haswell says Respondent is influenced by these formative years when he was exposed to new sounds and ideas but lacked the ability and equipment needed to express himself. "In a way I'm regressing, but I'm not trying to regress with the music," he says. "What I'm trying to do is think about how I felt and the energy and what this stuff communicated to me." Respondent's juiciest cut is "Special Long Version (Demo)" featuring Sue Tompkins. One second shy of ten minutes, this is Haswell's definition of house music. Taking cues from vintage Chicago tracks such as "Your Love" by Frankie Knuckles, Muff Man's "Sit On the Face", and Maurice Joshua's "I Gotta Big Dick", Haswell forces their essence through his filters, distilling the sexual energy to a crude groove, while Tompkins, a Glasgow-based artist formerly of the band Life Without Buildings, talks, shouts and sings, her voice distorted and dulcet. "I want your love," she says at one point. "Let Suffering Become You" is a mangled acid stomp that starts with a sample from the 1980 punk documentary D.O.A.: A Rite of Passage (1980), with Guinness heir Jonathan Guinness haughtily observing: "An awful lot of people who enjoy punk would really like to be back in those days when they could actually see physical people hacking each other to death." Elsewhere, "First In Man" is a cavernous dub-speckled track, with spasmodic lasers, dedicated to Diagonal co-founder Jaimie Williams. Haswell has chosen to release this material as a mini-album because he considers it an "underused format", citing as a classic example New Order's merger of their two early singles "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation" on to one five-track 12-inch, titled 1981-1982 (1982), for the US market. He views this release as a stepping stone to his next project, an album featuring a number of guests. So don't rule out that Kylie collaboration just yet. RIYL: Fad Gadget, John Bender, Smersh, LCD Soundsystem. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. Clear vinyl; Edition of 500.
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DIAG 041LP
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Powell loosens up and reaches out on the second New Beta playground for Diagonal, budging bones and buns in seven hot-stepping, curiously emotive permutations that swerve from Æ-style abstraction to pointillist electro-acid and a brace of mutant diskotheek breakers. As with the first volume (DIAG 038LP), he's clearly still gassed off his new hardware, resulting a nerve-jumping fizz and crack that sounds like he's jamming with fingers directly in the jack ports. Like some cyborg antagonist who can't stand to see humans plodding four-square do-si-do in the dance, Powell fractures and gels the groove in wickedly freakish exercises, increasingly finding himself attracted to near beat-less structures to give his dancers and listeners more jelly limbed options for kinaesthetic interpretation and fucking weird feels. On "PosTAe", he prangs out in sincere tribute to arch 'borgs Autechre with a hot mess of haywire modular plongs, before "Sneak 2_05" catches him cutting back to the ascetic funk of his earliest 12"s, this time sharper, serpentine, before "Rudeboy, Let's Funk" catapults us into something like a scrap between Trevor Jackson and Luke Vibert, all clipped drum clatter and acid zig-zags itching for the sweat, farts and perfume of the 'floor. "Slippy Pig" jabs the B-side into play with some of the EP's nattiest, stepping impulses drawing a line from The Normal through Ed Rush's Wormhole (1998) via The Bocaccio, then "Drumz VIP" darts like some deviant jazz-funk oddity from West London, with its dissonant flourishes making way for the febrile blatz of "Hoi!!" and the record's surprise standout in the richly colorful and dynamic phrasing of "Strobe", perhaps the smartest/goofiest iteration of Powell's new sound in circulation. RIYL: Autechre, Aphex Twin, Din A Testbild; all the best oddballs. Vinyl only -- no digital. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.
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DIAG 042LP
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Double LP version. Alessio Natalizia, aka Not Waving, rides the wave of a lifetime on his magnum opus, Good Luck. The London-based Italian artist's second album for Diagonal is an emotional but fiercely optimistic album of skewed cathartic dance pop written in the midst of these dark and uncertain times (made perhaps more uncertain by the recent birth of his first son). It represents the most ambitious album in his own unique catalogue, a discography that features acclaimed work as part of Banjo Or Freakout and Kompakt techno duo Walls -- plus half a decade spent at the axis of underground electronics via his own Ecstatic label and his recent, raved-up output for Diagonal. This latest record sees Natalizia fine-tuning 20 years of recording and rave experience into a vibrant, pop-ready statement that's never felt so necessary. It abandons the sensitive streak hinted at on Animals (DIAG 025CD/LP, 2016), his debut LP for Diagonal, to pursue a creative hunch for concision and social unity. This new perspective drives the album's flux of emotions and guides what some may find to be a utopian outlook, wrapping his trademark experimental urges, clever song arrangements, and winking edits in a larger narrative. After all, rave 'floors were conceived for many as a way to forget/abandon the dark undercurrents of late '80s political turmoil. Good Luck is constructed as an album proper and follows a novel narrative: from the ego-pinching computer punk of "Me Me Me", which jabs it into action, to the new wave thrust of "Tool [I Don't Give A Shit]" and the ambient flush of "Roll Along With The Pain Of It All [I'll Text U]", Natalizia clearly delights in taking us on a frenzied ride, but he never forgets his fondness for contemporary club culture (see the fulminating iridescent EBM-pop of "Where Are We" -- with Montréalais minimal wave chanteuse Marie Davidson guesting on vocals -- or the acidic punk jabs of "Watch Yourself"). Good Luck is a thrillingly positive record; it's delicious, sweet, creamy, and wonderful. And that's the thing: even the title feels like a much-needed injection of optimism, a return to the utopian ideals of rave. Contemporary politics/culture/life/love/music/media seem to be infected by a feeling of impending dread -- of fear, alienation, and division. It feels like there has never been a more important time for a record like this. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.
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DIAG 042CD
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Alessio Natalizia, aka Not Waving, rides the wave of a lifetime on his magnum opus, Good Luck. The London-based Italian artist's second album for Diagonal is an emotional but fiercely optimistic album of skewed cathartic dance pop written in the midst of these dark and uncertain times (made perhaps more uncertain by the recent birth of his first son). It represents the most ambitious album in his own unique catalogue, a discography that features acclaimed work as part of Banjo Or Freakout and Kompakt techno duo Walls -- plus half a decade spent at the axis of underground electronics via his own Ecstatic label and his recent, raved-up output for Diagonal. This latest record sees Natalizia fine-tuning 20 years of recording and rave experience into a vibrant, pop-ready statement that's never felt so necessary. It abandons the sensitive streak hinted at on Animals (DIAG 025CD/LP, 2016), his debut LP for Diagonal, to pursue a creative hunch for concision and social unity. This new perspective drives the album's flux of emotions and guides what some may find to be a utopian outlook, wrapping his trademark experimental urges, clever song arrangements, and winking edits in a larger narrative. After all, rave 'floors were conceived for many as a way to forget/abandon the dark undercurrents of late '80s political turmoil. Good Luck is constructed as an album proper and follows a novel narrative: from the ego-pinching computer punk of "Me Me Me", which jabs it into action, to the new wave thrust of "Tool [I Don't Give A Shit]" and the ambient flush of "Roll Along With The Pain Of It All [I'll Text U]", Natalizia clearly delights in taking us on a frenzied ride, but he never forgets his fondness for contemporary club culture (see the fulminating iridescent EBM-pop of "Where Are We" -- with Montréalais minimal wave chanteuse Marie Davidson guesting on vocals -- or the acidic punk jabs of "Watch Yourself"). Good Luck is a thrillingly positive record; it's delicious, sweet, creamy, and wonderful. And that's the thing: even the title feels like a much-needed injection of optimism, a return to the utopian ideals of rave. Contemporary politics/culture/life/love/music/media seem to be infected by a feeling of impending dread -- of fear, alienation, and division. It feels like there has never been a more important time for a record like this. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.
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DIAG 039EP
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Renegade ravers, Koehler and StabUdown Productions -- a new alias of James Donadio (Prostitutes) -- get loose and chaotic in a deadly stand-off for Diagonal, firing four barrels of belligerent electronic shrapnel and sawn-off techno. Koehler makes the first move with "Incoming Enemy", doling out a rictus tattoo of rail-gunning 'ardcore breaks and bleeps you'd expect on Berceuse Heroique and Skudge White. In response, StabUdown back a sort of two-stepped industrial shoulder barger. On "Outgoing Friend", Jimlad takes the first slap with a mighty twist of dancehall techno, which Koehler duly hypnotizes with a sort of drunken snake-style inversion.
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DIAG 035LP
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Bubbling up from his post-everything cesspit, Shit And Shine cups another killer album boff to the grill of Diagonal with Total $hit!, his second LP and third full release for Powell and Jaime Williams's indomitable imprint. A rancid ruck of rock 'n roll and industrial entrails squeezed for sustenance and sploshed with classic '80s disco, Total $hit! is nothing if not a definitive Craig Clouse record; insistently playful, scatty, and demented, in equal measures, but with a couldn't care less attitude that's always refreshing and welcome. Following his grind-core lash Teardrops for Riot Season (REPOSE 052LP, 2016), this one is a return to the heavy truckin' styles last heard on Everybody's A Fuckin Expert with Editions Mego (EMEGO 212CD/LP, 2015) and Good White Good Green for Glasgow's Heated Heads (2016), depositing nine examples of his nonchalant style at its most distended, unsettling, and, funnily enough, its most funked-up and effective. He makes a big entrance with the blind-drunk swagger of "Hot Shovel" trammeling rabid tribal drums, grunts and pitched voices in a febrile hot mess, before "Chklt Shk" possibly betrays his no f**ks attitude with some of his canniest, adroit tweaks applied to what sounds like Anthony Shakir and MMM fighting over the last cubicle after a plate of bad seafood, then it's back to twisted smiles and buckie-sloshing skank with the acrid disco nip of "Long Island City". The record's longest, murkiest section follows with the Jacko-shampling "Dodge Pot" dispensing a slimy hot streak of flatulent mongrel boogie that perhaps outstays its welcome, hence the entrance of two squabbling lasses who tell it where to go, which leaves us with a version of the recumbent coke standard "White Horse" ready for the knacker's yard, plus a trio of saltier, off-the-wrist jags that only serve to agitate and infect the sore he's been prodding at 'til this point. Let's be fair: Total $hit! is not big or clever but, it is messy and fun; like the soundtrack to a lock-in at a boozer exclusively full of mad c*nts who were chucked out of every other place. RIYL: Xão Seffcheque, Mika Vainio, Beau Wanzer, Powell. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered by Matt Colton. Edition of 500.
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DIAG 033LP
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Dance Tracksz is the body-checking return of Prostitutes, aka James A. Donadio, to Diagonal; a no pretenses rave set built minimal and raw for hard worked 'floors. The label's Cleveland, Ohio ambassador has cut out any sentimentality and gone straight for the rave jugular with no concession to ascetic consistency, knocking up one of his fiercest examples of brutalist funk in the process. It's Prostitutes' third and most substantial release for Diagonal, a swaggering and unzipped affirmation of the styles on 2013's Shatter And Lose and Ecstasy, Crashing Beats And Fantasy from 2015 (DIAG 015EP), and clearly catches the label's close ally in the mood for getting wasted. Prostitutes' Dance Tracksz are schooled with the sort of street knowledge and bluntness that perhaps comes from life as a techno-punk in a blue collar industrial city such as Cleveland, OH: the bullish, PCP-style hardcore bookends of "Ah Yeah" and "War Goes On" say their piece in no uncertain terms, whilst "Bottle Smashing" spits pure industrial street funk and "Prey" deals in riot-inciting jungle-techno. Even the album's sole moment of sentimentality, "I Luv U Bruv" - a gesture of affection for his label boss, Powell - is delivered with an acrid lash of electro-techno, but at least you know he means it. In a sound world spoilt for choice, Prostitutes' refusal of shiny tricks is admirable and almost subversive in the face of hands-in-the-air breakdowns, but there's something about the way he wrenches out every last drop of rusty, jacking funk from his machines that leaves no doubt about Dance Tracksz effect at close quarters. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Mastered by Matt Colton. Edition of 500.
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DIAG 032EP
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The incessant brain bogglers Evol present the nerve-gnawing acid pointillism of Right Frankfurt. Equivalent to an intravenous dose of acidic synthesis, Right Frankfurt nods to one of techno's most efficient power centers with a PCP-on-Modafinil-strength reduction and concentration of early industrial techno tropes with their skull-cracking beats. If you appreciate the lissome fluidity of a strong acid or synth lead, you will relish the piece's tumultuous, microtonal variations, see-sawing up/down and around the frequency scale in highly visual knots that are perhaps best experienced in synch with the strobes of their live show.
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DIAG 031LP
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Exceptional debut album of military space music and/or fluxus techno rave drills from the inimitable, acronymic duo. N.M.O. execute their crazed debut album for Diagonal, distilling the playful calisthenics of their laptop and drum kit live show in a totally unique manner that somehow deconstructs and alliterates tracky acid techno with avant no-wave rock, computer music and the kind of snare-driven tattoos coming out of Portugal's Príncipe label. Nordic Mediterranean Organization / Numerous Miscommunications Occur finds the romantic Viking duo ratcheting the psychotomimetic intensity of their previous tape and trio of 12"s for Anòmia, The Death of Rave (RAVE 009EP, 2015) and Where To Now? According to their central mantra of "As Strict As Possible", resulting in five alarming, powerful dancefloor raids intersected by infuriating locked grooves, or "Neoliberal Madness Offering 1-4", plus a series of barking trained "Unit" drills. The razor sharp and raucous results don't sit comfortably in any pre-ordained category, preferring to scythe their own route through the time-flattened field of contemporary music by employing the fundamentals of physical pressure and precise psycho-acoustic frequencies in a disciplined pursuit of new, syncretic sensations that toy with rave convention and serve to demystify notions of aerobic mysticism. Nose to tail, they spell out their ideas with playfully pedantic attention to detail, whether physically making you get up to nudge the needle from its pervasive locked groove, putting you through your paces in their "German Trained Unit" challenges, or simply driving you to delirium in the album's full blown dance tracks. Cut almost a side-a-piece for optimal intensity, those five dance cuts veer from the clashing sharp and wet, tight-but-distended dichotomies of "RIYL Roma" to the ploughing pneu-beta bass drum and giddy top end tickle of "New Bulgaria", to take in the scuffling, compartmented swerve and teeth-chattering acid of "Armchair Evader" and the squashed, mil-tantric cadence of "Double Arm". In essence, N.M.O.'s first LP serves as both a puckish middle finger and a sore thumb in modern dance music's bloated face, stripping it all down to muscle, nerves and bones in a way that's somehow intuitive and counter-intuitive at the same time, hyper-fresh but primordial and properly ravenous on the floor. RIYL: Belgian techno, SuperCollider, Powell, Lorenzo Senni. Deluxe art by Guy Featherstone. Mastered by Matt Colton.
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CD
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DIAG 034CD
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Kouhei Matsunaga's second album as NHK yx Koyxen - his label debut for Diagonal - is a pixel-pill gobbling, see-sawing wave of techno emotions presenting the Japanese artist at his most rugged and damaged. After recent LPs from Not Waving (DIAG 025CD/LP, 2016), Elon Katz (DIAG 029, 2016) and Russel Haswell (DIAG 024CD/LP, 2015), Diagonal now excel in drawing out powerful album statements from some of the most distinctive musicians in contemporary electronic music. As bonkers as the narwhal-cavorting-with-a-rhino artwork, Doom Steppy Reverb is the skizzo brother of new beta, a 3D spec'd rally thru some of NHK's darkest, most driven material, done with a gangster swang in deft minor key arrangements that hint at a certain rudeboy vulnerability. Its seven tracks toe a fine line between novel and nasty; sidewinding from warehouse acid to brukkin' garage techno by the brutal close of "1073+snare", or basic channeling Autechre/Reich-ian chords with sole-melting synth juice in "Y", only to unexpectedly turn out a baroque scally bubble, Zomby style, with "1082_s". Make no mistake, it's a record full of club bangers, though: "L gets on Lory D levels of neo acid house squirm and "1038_lo_oct" will demolish a big room at the right time thanks to some properly toned sub-bass, adding a new weapon to Diagonal's arsenal of world-scattered radge packets. It's proper fuel for DJs, dancers and headphone excursionists - and the artwork by Guy Featherstone, makes it just a good ol' laugh to look at. This is NHK's best work - and it demands to be felt. Mastered by Matt Colton. RIYL: Demdike Stare, Gescom, Blawan, Zomby.
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LP
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DIAG 034LP
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LP version. Kouhei Matsunaga's second album as NHK yx Koyxen - his label debut for Diagonal - is a pixel-pill gobbling, see-sawing wave of techno emotions presenting the Japanese artist at his most rugged and damaged. After recent LPs from Not Waving (DIAG 025CD/LP, 2016), Elon Katz (DIAG 029, 2016) and Russel Haswell (DIAG 024CD/LP, 2015), Diagonal now excel in drawing out powerful album statements from some of the most distinctive musicians in contemporary electronic music. As bonkers as the narwhal-cavorting-with-a-rhino artwork, Doom Steppy Reverb is the skizzo brother of new beta, a 3D spec'd rally thru some of NHK's darkest, most driven material, done with a gangster swang in deft minor key arrangements that hint at a certain rudeboy vulnerability. Its seven tracks toe a fine line between novel and nasty; sidewinding from warehouse acid to brukkin' garage techno by the brutal close of "1073+snare", or basic channeling Autechre/Reich-ian chords with sole-melting synth juice in "Y", only to unexpectedly turn out a baroque scally bubble, Zomby style, with "1082_s". Make no mistake, it's a record full of club bangers, though: "L gets on Lory D levels of neo acid house squirm and "1038_lo_oct" will demolish a big room at the right time thanks to some properly toned sub-bass, adding a new weapon to Diagonal's arsenal of world-scattered radge packets. It's proper fuel for DJs, dancers and headphone excursionists - and the artwork by Guy Featherstone, makes it just a good ol' laugh to look at. This is NHK's best work - and it demands to be felt. Mastered by Matt Colton. RIYL: Demdike Stare, Gescom, Blawan, Zomby.
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DIAG 029LP
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Elon Katz (White Car, Streetwalker) aligns perfectly with Diagonal in a prickling debut vocal release, The Human Pet; containing an intensely personal, puckered perspective on electronic dance music and experimental pop. Structured around a schizoid yet coherent juncture of EBM, IDM, curdled rock music and art school techno-pop, The Human Pet is riddled with idiosyncratic notions on "cryptic topics like rebirth, nullification in stream speed adaptivity, dependence and wealth inequality" to portray a unique intellect and sonic vocabulary operating at the crux of his expressive powers. The project began circa 2012, around the time of Katz's relocation from L.A. to art school in Chicago, and cocks a canny snook, both through candid lyrics and obsessive edits, back towards the megatropolis where he was born and spent much of his youth. It can therefore be considered an attempt to better understand himself in relief of big city manias by channeling and parsing his own stubborn outsider personality from the madness. It feels like a concise dissection of Chicago's industrial history and Californian digital psychedelia; probing at their twisted, fluoro-guts with the inquisitive nature of a mad scientist or psycho-analyst between the yelping, warped and hyper-piquant yacht boogie of "The Rhino Powder of New Sensitivity" and a heavily affected dislocation of harmonized pop hooks and whirring body mechanics in "Clean Crash". It all occupies a strange perch between introspective and exuberant, veering from mid-'90s Aphex Twin-like pop reflection in "You Are Alone", to signature Diagonal tackle in the gas-chugging EBM-pop force of "The Human Pet", whereas unarmed twists into fractal phantasies, all of which maintain a thread of logic that belies the record's period of refinement and distillation. There can be little doubt that this is one of the most complex, rigorous and distinctive in Diagonal's catalogue. Closer attention is required. File amid records by Luc Van Acker, Aphex Twin, Savant, Powell. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. Artwork by Guy Featherstone. Edition of 500.
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CD
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DIAG 025CD
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London-based Italian artist Alessio Natalizia aka Not Waving presents Animals, the project's most versatile album to date. It's an unruly yet emotive bender taking in dancefloor-mauling new beta and endearingly beery post-industrial synth music. Animals harnesses the wanderlust of Natalizia's spate of self-released albums and records for Ecstatic and Emotional Response but dials up the wildness, spitting out a careering sequence of tracks that feel as warped, deep-raved, and giddy as a night out in the city where they were forged. And make no mistake, although Animals occasionally bites hard at the business end of the dancefloor, this is Diagonal's most pop album yet, with Natalizia's songwriting sensibility conjuring moments of tenderness and beauty to offset the manic strobe lighting and dropping sweat. Opener "Believe" is one such moment, a twisting synth workout that bounces along over rock-ist live toms. The tie is loosened on "Head Body," as Not Waving unleashes a raging kosmic EBM showpiece that morphs across six sprawling minutes. Next up is "24," the album "hit" that delighted and destroyed dancefloors throughout 2015, with clear influences from Front 242 and Ancient Methods. The shunting "Gutsy" and whopping industrial stress-test "Work Talk" buckle down like mutant Powell cuts, whereas "I Know I Know I Know" and the thrashing EBM-pop of "Face Attack" run The Sound of Belgium (LMFLF 287CD/296LP, 2015) through a distinctly Diagonal filter, all smart edits and unruly arrangements. The great strength of Animals, though, lies in how Natalizia marries the clammy peaks of contemporary club music with oddly emotive runs into acidic Canterbury pop (as on "Tomorrow We Will Kill You") and cyborg despair (see "Punch") before the bittersweet "They Cannot Be Replaced." In short, this is Not Waving laying down some of his most sophisticated songwriting and finding an entirely appropriate home for his own distinctive sound. Animals is Diagonal's sixth artist album, following releases by Russell Haswell (including DIAG 024CD/LP, 2015), The Skull Defekts, Shit & Shine (DIAG 012CD, 2014), and Death Comet Crew (DIAG 006LP, 2013). Art by Diagonal whiz Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. CD version includes two bonus tracks.
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2LP
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DIAG 025LP
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Double LP version. London-based Italian artist Alessio Natalizia aka Not Waving presents Animals, the project's most versatile album to date. It's an unruly yet emotive bender taking in dancefloor-mauling new beta and endearingly beery post-industrial synth music. Animals harnesses the wanderlust of Natalizia's spate of self-released albums and records for Ecstatic and Emotional Response but dials up the wildness, spitting out a careering sequence of tracks that feel as warped, deep-raved, and giddy as a night out in the city where they were forged. And make no mistake, although Animals occasionally bites hard at the business end of the dancefloor, this is Diagonal's most pop album yet, with Natalizia's songwriting sensibility conjuring moments of tenderness and beauty to offset the manic strobe lighting and dropping sweat. Opener "Believe" is one such moment, a twisting synth workout that bounces along over rock-ist live toms. The tie is loosened on "Head Body," as Not Waving unleashes a raging kosmic EBM showpiece that morphs across six sprawling minutes. Next up is "24," the album "hit" that delighted and destroyed dancefloors throughout 2015, with clear influences from Front 242 and Ancient Methods. The shunting "Gutsy" and whopping industrial stress-test "Work Talk" buckle down like mutant Powell cuts, whereas "I Know I Know I Know" and the thrashing EBM-pop of "Face Attack" run The Sound of Belgium (LMFLF 287CD/296LP, 2015) through a distinctly Diagonal filter, all smart edits and unruly arrangements. The great strength of Animals, though, lies in how Natalizia marries the clammy peaks of contemporary club music with oddly emotive runs into acidic Canterbury pop (as on "Tomorrow We Will Kill You") and cyborg despair (see "Punch") before the bittersweet "They Cannot Be Replaced." In short, this is Not Waving laying down some of his most sophisticated songwriting and finding an entirely appropriate home for his own distinctive sound. Animals is Diagonal's sixth artist album, following releases by Russell Haswell (including DIAG 024CD/LP, 2015), The Skull Defekts, Shit & Shine (DIAG 012CD, 2014), and Death Comet Crew (DIAG 006LP, 2013). Art by Diagonal whiz Guy Featherstone. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.
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12"
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DIAG 027EP
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The Diagonal label, which FACT rated highly in its "10 best record labels of 2015" list in December 2015, presents remixes of tracks from Russell Haswell's dancefloor-generous 2015 album As Sure as Night Follows Day (DIAG 024CD/LP). Autechre's "Conformity Version" of "Heavy Handed Sunset" effectively dubs Haswell into submission. Not to be outshone, Powell pays dues to his mentor with a cork-popping "Cov Megamix" ov "Hardwax Flashback" littered with samples of Russell doing Russell for RBMA, making for his most DJ-tempered tools to date, while DJ Stingray delivers hollow-skulled clank with the darkside descent of his grimacing "Atropine Mix" of "Gas Attack."
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2LP
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DIAG 024LP
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Double LP version. As Sure as Night Follows Day is Russell Haswell's landmark second album for the London-based Diagonal label. Consolidating a quarter-century at the forefront of extreme computer music, techno, and death metal in 19 tracks and 49 minutes, it's Haswell's most coherent yet varied burst of activity to date, zigzagging from improvised n0!se outbursts and asphyxiated R&B to a brace of thundering acid bullets that positively froth for the 'floor. The album was extracted over a fast-working period in late 2014, and is best perceived as a sort of fractured regression to his formative influences; one can hear the picnoleptic recollections of grindcore shows in the Black Country, the refracted shades of mega-raves at Coventry's Eclipse, the conflating toxic texture-memories of early Japanese noise, and the incandescent stomp of Mills and Hood in that early-'90s phase. Fortunately for the ravers, this album includes some of Haswell's most direct dancefloor attacks to date. "HARDWAX FLASHBACK," for instance, finds him in pure tekno panik mode -- a four-to-the-floor wrecking-ball groove that someone, somewhere, may even be able to mix. "GAS ATTACK" distils his penchant for all things Belgium into a vicious strain of new beat lactic acid. Haswell then doffs his cap to Detroit electro legends Drexciya on "Underwater Electronic Struggle" -- a story goes that he once thrashed a jet-ski all over the Mediterranean while listening to 'Wavejumper" in his 'phones -- before he does the salty freestyle electro flex ting on "Extended Industry Knowledge (for OSCAR)" while reminding his trusty apprentice Powell that he still has a lot to learn. Between these 'floor-flexers, one finds more freakish disturbances and intrusive drum-box improvisations: the modular mind-floss of "RAVE SPLURGE NOISE FM" or "Noise Rave," for instance, or the self-explanatory "Improvisation #1." "In the Air Today" investigates warehouse-ready electroacoustic percussion, while the chaotic clusters of "INTERLUDE" swarm and invade the senses with psychoacoustic incision. This is Diagonal and Russell at their most fucked up and fizzy, and an important reminder of the artist's stream-of-consciousness genius -- and the pressing need for more chaos and unpredictability in electronic music today. Mastered and cut by Matt "The Alchemist" Colton at Alchemy. Soft-touch laminate sleeve design by Guy Featherstone.
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