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viewing 1 To 5 of 5 items
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LP
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DIFFLP 009LP
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Two years in the works, Baroque follows from the D&B-styled flux of Ena's early 2019 collaboration with Felix K (F&E #1) to sound out more unorthodox areas of inquiry of abstruse, Chain Reaction-like sound design and algorithmic decomposition. In terms of the music's boneless construction and roiling spectral nature, it surely ranks among Different Circles' headiest and most psychedelic releases following the dread kinematics of Logos' Imperial Flood album (DIFFLP 003LP) and the cult acclaim given to their killer Raime and Szare 12"s in the past year. Variously recalling the sound of stressed-out machinery or the sferic mystery of The Conet Project, Baroque sees Ena transition further from recognizable styles into a richly enigmatic tonal and texture-rhythmic language. Over the album's six tracks he uses this futurist-primitive mode to express a detached, meditative state-of-mind that speaks to paradoxical ideals of club music and domestic listening: of being simultaneously in it, yet out of it; of finding yourself lost in the crowd of noise. It's a sound that resonates with the short-circuiting AI convulsions of Logos, Mumdance, and Shapednoise's EP for The Death of Rave as much as the hypnagogic mulch of Thought Broadcast or the most abstruse Chain Reaction releases -- think a rusted and sunken Dynamo or Porter Ricks in radioactive waters -- and comes primed in artwork by Raime that perfectly highlights the music's strange, semi-organic nature and austere yet psychoactive allure. RIYL: Porter Ricks, Felix K, Dynamo, Pendant. Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 300.
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LP
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DIFFLP 003LP
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2021 restock. Nexx grime mutant Logos checks the electric blue pulse of UK hardcore music on Imperial Flood, the stunning follow-up to his pivotal underground grime/electronica classic, Cold Mission (LDN 042CD/LP, 2013). Setting a new high-water mark for UK dance-related albums, Imperial Flood stakes a claim for Logos as a key dramaturgist of all things darkside, techy and schooled in the hardcore continuum. Where his debut album highlighted links between '90s Metalheadz D&B, Wiley's Devil mixes, and contemporary sci-fi cinema on its deliciously noirish soundstage, with Imperial Flood he expands that aesthetic in widescreen plasma HD. Pulling in broader influences from acid and dub techno, experimental computer music, D&B minimalism and the speculative literature of Jeff VanderMeer, Christopher Priest, Lando, and JG Ballard, the results vividly speak to the idea of a UK sound as a product of its brutalist, paranoid environment. Arriving ten years after his debut 12", and five after his seminal debut album, Imperial Flood comes after a significant period of creativity for Logos. Over the latter half of this decade he's been instrumental in new grime movements, co-running London's acclaimed club night, Boxed, whilst also diversifying his bonds with Mumdance and Shapednoise as part of improvising noise trio The Sprawl and most importantly with Different Circles; a label/club night catalyst responsible for boundary-pushing dances and a number of cult releases from Airhead, Rabit, Szare and Raime, not to mention his own EPs with Mumdance. It's not difficult to hear how this activity has fed Imperial Flood. From the bullet- time Matrix-style intro of "Arrival (T2 Mix)" through the hair-kissing weightless rave sensation of "Weather System Over Plaistow", he sucks listeners into a soundworld made all the more visceral and real through his exacting production, morphing from the sentinel-bot growls of "Marsh Lantern" to lush viscous/arid acid ambience in "Flash Forward (Ambi Mix)", and Dynamo-style dub on "Lighthouse Dub", before tagging in Mumdance on "Zoned In", and freezing the dance with commanding force on "Stentorian". Ultimately there's no shortage of imitators for this style, but Logos' combination of dedication to his craft and unique grasp of narrative places Imperial Flood in a rare echelon of UK music shared only by the likes of Burial and Raime. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. RIYL: Burial, Raime, Stingray, T++, Rabit, Mumdance.
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LP
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DIFFLP 002LP
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Chevel gives the prism-pushers at Mumdance and Logos' Different Circles label their first album release with Always Yours; a slanted new take on the "weightless" paradigm, floating somewhere between headspaces associated with the styles of Lee Gamble, Actress, and Logos. Paradoxically the longest and yet most minimalistic release on Different Circles to date, Always Yours says its piece in succinct yet expansive terms, rendering precisely tooled rhythms and technoid motifs in acres of suspenseful emulated space in a way that connects the brutally efficient dynamic of late '90s tech-step with a Raster Noton-like appreciation of pointillist reduction. In that imagined space Chevel moves like a Soviet gymnast or prototype robot fluidly executing a demanding routine full of intricate, rigid steps. From the ambient airlock of "One Evening In July" he pulls off the aerobic mid-air swiftness of "The Call", which comes off like a syncopated Sleeparchive workout, before twisting into the knotted quasi-step of "Bullet" and stepping into hyperspace on "Arp 2600". Another ambient interlude "Warming Bath" returns the LP to balmier states, before the jagged pulse of "Data Recovery" pulls back into the dance like a virulent Alva Noto piece, and "Dem Drums" pitch to the rave's darker side, but ultimately the lushly self-explanatory "Underwater" and "Always Yours" keep the LP hovering around the edge of ecstasy and the abyss with a grasp of heady, day-after feelings known to ravers the world over. Cover photo by Yusuke Yamatani. Vinyl master and cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy.
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CD
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DIFFLP 001CD
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Mumdance and Logos present a special 21-track DJ mix of exclusive new music, dubplates and tracks from the Different Circles stable - including 13 unreleased tracks. Mumdance and Logos survey a path through the Different Circles catalog guided by a shared love of UK rave music and its hidden echoes and tributaries. Spanning acousmatic sound design, from Shapednoise and Fis, to hollowed-out dancefloor abstractions, from Airhead, and weightless devil mixes, from Boylan and Rabit, and tracks from Mumdance and Logos as well. Different Circles launched in 2014 with the scene-defining EP Weightless Volume 1 which to wide acclaim re-contextualized grime through the lens of ambient and noise music. Vinyl-only plates from Logos (2015's Glass EP), Rabit and Strict Face (2015's Tearz/Into Stone) and Airhead's Kazzt (DIFF 004EP, 2016). The mix also features: Strict Face, Inkke, DJ Sinclair, RPG, Yamaneko and Sharp Veins. This first CD release for Different Circles comes as a digipak.
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12"
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DIFF 004EP
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Different Circles present Kazzt, Airhead's long-awaited return to vinyl. Label co-head Mumdance makes a rare foray into remix territory, twisting up the original and making it look really strange. Mumdance on Kazzt: "Kazzt is another milestone in the linage of our discography and is another very important step towards slowly carving out the different circles 'sound' - stripping things down to the very bare bones and focusing on sonics, weight and disorientation."
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