Hello,
Extensive polling shows May firmly leading the race for the world's favourite month and we hope it's been treating you kindly.
At zero" we certainly can't complain, with a volley of great music having been flung our way in the past 31 days: Fantastic albums by Âme, Shackleton, Dave Aju, Claro Intelecto, Jam City, I:Cube, Laurel Halo, Oxia, Jimmy Edgar, Squarepusher, Lone, and much more to be discovered in this month's Essentials.
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FEATURED RELEASE
It's a challenge that 'Âme Live' - their first full-length since their self-titled Sonar Kollektiv outing from 2004 - stands up to in remarkable fashion however. While the album sacrifices some of its tracks' epic qualities, what it gains is an immediacy that will appeal to both long-standing fans and newcomers to the Âme sound.
The inclusion of numerous vocal tracks further benefits the album's listening appeal - remakes of Osunlade's 'Envision', Underworld's 'Crocodile' and UNKLE's 'Hold My Hand' for instance - and Âme biggest tracks are revisited as well, such as 'Rej', a true game-changer back in 2006, or their more recent 'Junggesellenmaschine'. Whether as an introduction to Âme's intricate musical universe or a journey down memory lane to some of the past decade's finest club moments, this is an album you shouldn't miss.
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FEATURED EXCLUSIVES
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A Made Up Sound and Dexter remix 2011's 'Nuclear Funk' by Arttu and Jerry The Cat on this red-hot zero" exclusive. Dave Huismans supplies a madly swinging funky house take in his unmistakable style, while Dexter aims for synth-padded acid electro. Both should get heavy club play. Essential.
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EP released 16-05-2012 on Trust
UK electro legend Clatterbox returns to TRUST with 'Semi-Automatic', a unique 140BPM banger whose relentlessly grinding bass is effectively offset by spacious pads. Jimmy Edgar delivers a great electro-tech-step remix under his Creepy Autograph guise, and more bounce is provided by Pomelo's Daniel Lodig a.k.a Lok44.
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TECHNO / HOUSE ESSENTIALS
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Following up his masterful 2008 debut 'Open Wide' Dave Aju returns to Circus Company for a second album. And 'Heirlooms' is indeed a worthy successor: Ten tracks fuse authentic George-Clinoesque electro funk, house, techno and jazz with more punch then ever before. Pure class.
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Manchester's Mark Stewart releases his first LP since 2008's Metanarrative, this time crossing over to Delsin. His deep and tactile forms of dub-techno are as pristinely carved out as ever, spacious and poignant playing with melting points between embracing dancefloor cuts and sprawling ambience. Immaculate.
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Having previously recorded for Circus Company and Floppy Funk, Sylvain Garcia a.k.a Le K releases his debut album on Karat. 'Freewheel' lives up to its title with 11 cuts of cut-up house, fragile electronica pop, and blissed-out broken beat experimentation. Gorgeous album, highly recommended!
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The new producer alias of Ukraine's Mikhaylo Vityk, better known as Vakula appears with a full album on Dutch label Dekmantel. Rugged, dark cosmic house, deep Chicago heritage embedded with old-school electro finesse, as an album an immersive journey. Highly recommended.
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Fantastic remix package by an all-star cast as a zero" exclusive: Marcellus Pittman heads off on a grooving deep house tangent, Kassem Mosse drops a killer reverberating electro/chi-house hybrid, and Shake shifts into slo-mo mode. Indispensable!
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Nicolas Chaix is a veteran of the album format (as I:Cube and with Chateau Flight) and perhaps this is what has prompted him to change up the routine for his latest long player: His '"M" Megamix' glues together 25 of his crunchy, electroid techno-house productions, most of them excellent. Check!
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Maxi-Single released 14-05-2012 on Unterton
All-star gathering on new Ostgut Ton sub-label Unterton with remixes fpr Tobias.'s recent album: Efdemin brings the ambient-like 'Leaning Over Backwards' closer to Rob Hood techno, while Villalobos and Loderbauer do what they do best with shuffler 'Girts': brittle, jacking minimalism. Essential.
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EP released 28-05-2012 on Dial
Once again the star of the show on his own Dial imprint, Lawrence treats us to three excellent cuts in his inimitable style. Title cut 'Etoile Du Midi' is an exercise in dreamy melodic abstraction, while two very different versions of 'Creator' explore deep and dubby house motifs. As always: sublime!
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Album released 07-05-2012 on Infiné
It's been eight years since France's Olivier Raymond released his first album '24 Heures'. His eclectic approach this time showing housier, jazz and downbeat touches in his melodic techno with vocal guests ranging from Miss Kittin, Mesparrow and Scalde. Smoothly grooving perfectionism.
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After those wild Villalobos remixes, the colourful yet low-profile stalwart of Amsterdam's scene San Proper unleashes his debut LP. A defiant sense of exploration make an utterly intriguing journey, his vocal guiding through haunting tribal beats, glimmers of Detroit with an uncanny psychedelic electronic spirit. Stunning!
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Jacking vocal Chicago house by Makam on the always great Dekmantel imprint. 'What Ya Doin' is a sure-fire dancefloor weapon, but Funkineven deserves equal applause for his acid-tinged big room remake on the flip. Highly recommended.
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Great single by Studio Barnhus' own Kornel Kovacs, who takes off on an early-1990 Chicago house tangent: Deep and grooving with low-slung drum computer rhythms and just the right amount of filtered samples to maintain the uplifting vibe. Highly recommended.
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Midland's 'Placement EP' was already a winner last month, but Lone and Motor City Drum Ensemble manage to even top this with two spectacular remixes: Lone with a stumbling, bleeping, yet razor-sharp house take, MCDE with a raw and killer Omar S / Levon Vincent style dub tech piece. Don't miss!
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Johannes Paluka, better known as Iron Curtis dishes out his debut album on Tensnake's Mirau imprint, his low-slung, Detroit and Chicago house flavours teasingly laid out. Deep house winners throughout with twists from haunting vocals of 'Closer' to blearier synths of 'Horses' and deeper funkin' 'To The Lv'. Recommended.
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The exclusive label for Echocord & Resoe's premium techno continues with its sixth installment. '6A' flying low in bass-led murky cavernous spaces and the '6B' grinding crunchier bunches of noise over minimal tuneful resonances, more functional quality with one each for the low and high-end.
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Patrick Pulsinger teams up with G.Rizo for Austrian label Houztekk, delivering a bassy title track that stands out with a UK funky touch and suitably cut-up vocals. 'Nocturnal Cat' comes backed by 'Fat Fast' and '6-7-8-9 c'mon' - two prime cuts of classic, quirky Pulsinger techno. Recommended.
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Despite its curious title Uncanny Valley's latest EP by CVBox is definitely not lacking anything in regards to deepness and raw soul. Its tracks deliver great variations on beatless ('Past the Eclipse'), dubbed-out ('Counterflow', 'Droid Swift 836') and melodic ('Orience') techno. Excellent.
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Album released 18-05-2012 on It's
Richard von der Schulenberg's selenomaniac pursuits continue with his latest moon-related release. 'Lunar Eclipse' oozing Detroit mystery with dissonant analog melodies whilst 'Strings In Black' slips in the 303 under scenic synth stretches. Ideal.
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Manchester's Trus'Me calls in the Germans for this remix treat; first up, Marcel Dettmann strips 'Sweetmother' to a dark and winding base, a mere shadow of its shimmying percussion remaining. Fellow Berghain resident Norman Nodge steps up and mutes the funk bass in an eerie, atmospheric version of 'Good God'. Brill!
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Seattle-born and now Berlin-based Camea shimmies on over to BPitch after previously keeping to her own Clink Music imprint. Stripped electro echos of 'City Watch Over Me', warmly bouncing techno of 'Body Magnet' and melodic techno-pop of 'Only The Shadow Knows' fit perfectly at BPitch.
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DUBSTEP / HIP-HOP / ELECTRO ESSENTIALS
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Night Slugs drops the hotly anticipated debut album of Jam City, and 'Classical Curves' is an epic full-length, epitomizing modern day bass music eclecticism with hard-hitting booty grime cuts, gentle post-dubstep raps and hallucinatory synth pop styles. All you could ask for - and then some!
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Phon_o, with releases on Shitkatapult and Cytrax of the past twelve years, became a firm member of the 50Weapons family with a stream of EPs last year. The full-length format gives perfect scope for his agile electronics infused with dubstep and UKG and poppier tracks with vocalist Tunde Olaniran. Great album.
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The final single from the 'Monkeytown' LP once more bears fruits of Modeselektor's and Thom Yorke's ingenious collaboration. 'This's abstract vocals and rolling sub-bass was one of the finest moments of the album is presented with an absolutely incredible video and the spine-tingling track 'All Buttons In'.
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Manchester-based Matt Cutler appears with his fifth album in just as many years, his signature sound reaching new territories. 'Galaxy Garden' adds a sleeker sheen to his brilliantly tempered rave-nostalgic atmospheres, as imaginative and rich as ever with collabs with Machinedrum and Anneka to boot.
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Fatima Al Qadiri's stunning 'Genre-Specific Xperience' EP gets a medley of delicious remixes, her original hallucinogenic synths get pumped for the 'floor by Girl Unit, Kingdom, Dubbel Dutch, Nguzunguzu, Ikonika's brilliantly pulsing rework, Dutch E Germ and DJ Rashad reaching killer intensities. Wow!
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New Kanada welcome in the summer with this neat EP from Toronto's Christian Anderson aka XI. 'Joy/Fear' strikes to the gut fusing bruk techno and woozy synths of London's vibrant scene, 'Nightlif' and 'Antikythera' continue in this nimble UKG-tinged techno. Sharp tunes!
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Manchester's Illum Sphere receives the full remix treatment by the likes of Ikonika, Om Unit, Kidkanevil, and, perhaps most notably, James T. Cotton with a rare outing of his hip-hop guise Dabrye. Recommended compilation of bass music, old-school and new.
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Ian Grant returns to Kindred Spirits for his first album since 2008's 'Zen Badizm', and once again 'Soulful Shanghai' is laid out as a sprawling journey through soul-infused hip-hop, with influences coming from jazz, latin, and electronic music. Epic.
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ELECTRONICA / AMBIENT ESSENTIALS
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His thirteenth album in sixteen years, Tom Jenkenson's albums seem to increasingly try to capture his incredible and ever-developing live shows. 'Ufabulum' takes a stance of electronic purism, glistening elastic synths wound up to snapping point, ecstatic rhythms twisting wildly, a hugely pleasurable headf**k.
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Late synth legend Conrad Schnitzler receives a worthy tribute at the hands of artists such as Pole, Borngräber & Strüver, and Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer, who deliver two epic and very diverse takes - one a nicely meandering piece of minimalistic techno, one jazzed-up dub electronica. Excellent!
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One of those remix packages which just succeeds in every way, the shimmery lush tones of Walls' Coracle gets a wickedly dark touch at the hands of Holy Other, Voigt&Voigt and John Tejada reworking melodic textures, Perc's brasher reduction, Esperanza & Capracara rounding out the house & disco vibes.
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Daniel Lopatin takes on Lindstrøm's 'Call Me Anytime', and the resulting fragile drone opera is a match made in heaven. Spacious chants are layered on top of each other until a subtly cut-up vocal break melts the ice, making room for an intense, chaotically strumming finale. Epic.
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Album released 22-05-2012 on Line
Frank Bretschneider's project exploring the unique East German electronic instrument the Subharchord dates back to 2007, this is the first release edited from a live performance. More 'technique' than 'techno', his creation of minutely detailed filter fluctuations, rhythmical pulses and eerie resonances are a pure joy.
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ALTERNATIVE / POP / DISCO ESSENTIALS
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Maxi-Single released 25-05-2012 on Gomma
Mash-up galore: The Gomma gang has teamed up with Peaches and a range of guest artists (including legendary NYC producer Arthur Baker!) to rework some gems from the catalogue of famous 70s dance label Casablanca Records. Don't miss the Michael Sembello 'Maniac' revamps!
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Vienna Wildstyle once again lives up to its name with the release of Johann Sebastian Bass' debut opus, an eclectic mixture of Ed-Banger-inspired rave-pop, Freddie Mercury on the vocoder, and - yes - a faux J. Sebastian throwing down half-way through track four. Weird fun.
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The newest talent to be added to the Crosstown Rebels roster is the Iranian-Canadian Amirali who appears with his debut album. Grooving between downbeat, house, electronic-pop with his own vocals threading through the tracks, a warm embracing album that matches the CR-ethos, yet offers something a bit different.
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Maxi-Single released 28-05-2012 on Infiné
Once again side-stepping all genres Infiné hire Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, Douglas Greed and Telefon Tel Aviv to remix 'Grass' off Cubenx's recent debut album 'On Your Own Again'. Three excellent mixes of the guitar/vocal original, from Guthrie's psychedelic folk to Telefon's punchy pop electronica.
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Former Sun Ra trumpeter Phil Cohran proves that he still has the edge at 80+, recording this wonderfully swinging album for Honest Jon's together with his extended family, The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Wobbly, percussive jazz, mellowing out in brass blues songs towards the end of the playlist. Excellent.
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You can't go wrong with this one: Our favourite Munich disco label sums up five years of output with 25 tracks (some unreleased) and a continuous mix, featuring Permanent Vacation stars and illustrious guests like John Talabot, Sally Shapiro, Antena, Lauer, Lindstrøm, Chromatics and many more.
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Wolfram's collaboration with disco legend Paul Parker ('Right on Target') receives the remix treatment by Daniel Wang and Massimiliano Pagliara, who deliver no less than three Metro-Area-style disco house treatments. Bonus dub of Legowelt's remix of 'Thing Called Love' (feat. Haddaway) included!
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Album released 28-05-2012 on Kitsuné
New Kitsuné signing Gigamesh hasn't chosen his name for nothing - his 'All My Life' EP is pure eclectic dance pop with strong 80s leanings, from the slow, anthemic title track to the opulent electro of closer 'Dream On'.
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