New Release Update

A brief list of some new and upcoming long players. Opinions on these at a later date.

Bodycode - Immune

On Ghostly International

Manuel Tur - 0201

Out now on Freerange Records

Ada - Adaptations Mixtape #1

Out now on Kompakt

Brock Van Wey - Clouds Drift On & On

Due soon on Echospace

Opinions on all these coming soon, but they are all definitely worth checking out.

Anthea - Ibiza Voice Podcast

Up and coming Londoner Anthea's Ibiza Voice podcast left me pleasantly surprised.

The deep house resurgence has been a bit hit and miss for me, whilst I do enjoy some of it, there are certain producers and DJs that I find very boring. 

I will be seeing Anthea at the well-established Leeds based mono_cult tomorrow night at The Mint Club, so I thought I'd best give the podcast a whirl.

The podcast finds the perfect balance between deep-and-tech-house. Very musical and groovy with some serious bass lines. Nearly every track has real bump to it and she manages to keep it interesting throughout. Special mention has to be made of the mixing and programming too, which is near-faultless.

Gotye - Hearts A Mess

I know very little about Gotye, in fact the first time I had ever heard anything by him was this very remix I am reviewing. A quick bit of research via Allmusic reveals that he is apparently a Belgian-born Australian cut and paste electronic pop artist. Whatever that means.

The original Hearts A Mess is a heartfelt piece of soul music, that defies easy classification. Somewhat electronic, somewhat acoustic. It is compiled of loops from a collection of records left to him by a neighbour and a friend. The track is very nice, although not something I would usually listen to.

The Kompakt heavyweights, Michael Mayer and Superpitcher, who collectively Saved The World a couple of years ago are on remix duty. They recognise what is a quality piece of work and leave the best elements of the original mostly untouched, adding little. In fact, other than a solid 4/4 kick and other light percussive elements, which are added to the warping bass of the original, and along with the guitar riff form the foundation of the music. Much of what they have done here is re-arrange and stretch out the existing elements. Supermayer allow the vocal to shine throughout, as the track gradually builds, picking up momentum for over half its length before it breaks down leaving only sparse elements. Supermayer let the music completely unwind in the final few stages as the track becomes completely acoustic, baring Gotye's soul. It's a powerful couple of minutes, that will stick with you for a long time after the music has stopped. A fitting end to what is easily one of my favourite tracks of the year so far.

Now if only someone would play the Supermayer remix as their last tune of the night.

You can hear the original below:

Wikkid Times

Released earlier this week, the 'Versions & Remixes' edition of Beat Pharmacy's Wikkid Times.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the original Wikkid Times. It had a few great tracks and although the production was excellent throughout, there were too many in your face spoken-word vocals for my taste. 

I'm pleased then, that Deep Space Media have released two new editions of the album.

The first of these releases features dub-remixes from Intrusion, Quantec, Deadbeat and Appleblim together with re-works from producers who are a little more dancefloor orientated including Cocoon's Minilogue and the man of the moment cosmic deep houser John Daly.

The second release, 'Versions', in Burial-mix tradition reduces but doesn't entirely remove the vocals from the tracks. This is the one to go for over the original album, in my opinion.

You can pick up both releases on Beatport - the Remixes and the Versions.