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RUNNING A RECORD LABEL MUST BE A DRAG. Regardless of the music’s quality, logistics and industry politics can quickly sap any enthusiasm and before you know it your bedroom’s piled high with boxes of unsold discs that you never want to listen to again. Fuss-free new electronica label Ai Records appear to have got it right, though. Since the summer of 1999, this confident London imprint has released a handful of killer EPs and compilations featuring tracks by unknown producers, quietly establishing itself as a purveyor of first-class electronics in the mould of Warp, Skam and Plus 8. This year they’ve stepped up a gear. Leisure is Ai’s second compilation and introduces us to a host of nascent talents with silly IDM-ish names—Crel, FZV, Montag, Kone-R – who craft an enchanting and soulful blend of electro, techno and pop-ambient. If you’ve ever heard a record by Drexciya, Boards Of Canada, Carl Craig or Richard D James you’ll have a good idea of what Ai offer, but when their tracks sound this accomplished, there’s little to complain about. Leisure’s twin stand-out moments are provided by Claro Intelecto—a chap named Mark Stewart—whose debut Ai EP “Peace Of Mind” is a sure-footed excursion into deep electronic funk buoyed by sweet unfurling melodies. Discover more at www.airecords.com
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Another guy with a fine, if fairly demented, debut this month is fright-wigged Chicago synth-rocker Magas, whose Friends Forever album comes courtesy of Adult.’s Ersatz Audio label. You can tell Adult.’s Adam Lee Miller co-produced this: Friends Forever is nihilistic no-wave bare-bones electro at its most paranoid and perverse. Equal parts Suicide and The Cramps, Magas makes driving Doomsday disco sound like the best idea in the world and hollers echo-drenched psychotic-neurotic lyrics such as “Woke up this morning / I was looking for a fight” like Elvis with his lungs full of crack smoke and 21 groupies to get through in two hours. A star is born, in other words.
Luke Eargoggle styles himself as the playboy prince of Gothenburg’s flourishing underground party scene. After several sparse electro 12”s for the Stilleben and Bunker labels, plus his steamy collaborations with Legowelt as Catnip, master Luke delivers Audio Warriors, a double-LP on Bunker crammed with minimal mutant electro that’s flamboyant and raw and always gets the girls on the dancefloor screaming for more. If you’ve ever wondered what Dopplereffekt nicely high on lysergic love drugs might sound like, Luke Eargoggle provides an answer, and puts Gothenburg firmly on the Eurodisco map (just above Berlin, Ghent, The Hague and London) in the process.
Two of the best parties we attended last year were the Rephlex raves in Rome and Bologna in mid-December, when practically the entire roster descended on Italy for a weekend of unrestrained braindance. Aside from Aphex Twin, who hadn’t visited the city for eight years, the loudest cheers of the night in Rome greeted Lory D, the local acid house legend and former Italian DMC champion. Lory pummelled the crowd with a set of his slamming techno and dark, darting electro; the kind that’s instantly familiar even though you’ve never heard it before. Most of that fierce hour now appears on Sounds Never Seen, Rephlex’s collection of his hard-to-find singles on Lory’s Sounds Never Seen label; it’s another welcome crate-digging exercise that redresses techno’s canon.
This month’s hot live action: VICE favourites Legowelt and Bangkok Impact bring their deluxe electro-disco sound to London on Friday, March 28, when they both perform rare live sets at Eat Your Own Ears hosted by Clone Records and Haywire. Electro heavyweights Radioactive Man, DMX Krew and Matt Carter also play. This happens
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at 93 Feet East, 150 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QN; Aldgate East/Liverpool Street tube; doors 8p.m.-2a.m.; tickets £8.50 adv. Tel: 02072473293/ info@eatyourownears.com www.eatyourownears.com/ www.93feeteast.co.uk
Top guests Brooks and Richard X play records at our inaugural Cocadisco night at The Social (5 Little Portland Street, London, W1; Oxford Circus tube) on Thursday, March 13. It’s free and runs from 6p.m.-11p.m., so do come down.
On a similar tip, we recommend checking out superior internet radio station Cybernetic Broadcasting System—http://www.cybernetic-broadcasting.net—which focuses on electro, disco, techno and house new and old and is brought to you by I-F and The Hague’s disco elite. It’s on air, non-stop and in the mix, every Thursday through to Monday.
PIERS MARTIN
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