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Our friends at The Quietus always pick a strong stage – top tips for this year?

wet february

Rid yourselves of rain…

Hitting 50

Simple celebrates it’s 50th single release in the new year (and each one of those 50 have been released on that wonderful black stuff known to old people as vinyl). A release that will see the founder, A&R, label manager and tea boy Will Saul and his long term production partner Tam Cooper team up for a limited edition gatefold vinyl double pack EP (yep, they’ll loose loads of money but not many people get to 50 vinyl releases without loosing their house, car and mind… so we think its worth celebrating). The release will feature 4 new tracks from Will & Tam with remixes from Wolf + Lamb & Slow Hands, Sideshow and Art Department (Jonny White & Kenny Glasgow).

another bloody adventure

Another episode of is upon us!

Following an unforgettable launch night just before Halloween, featuring the unlikely melting pot of Oni Ayhun, Oneohtrix Point Never, Teengirl Fantasy and Minimal Wave’s Veronica Vasicka, BleeD continues to explore new and exciting territories at London’s latest and greatest venue, XOYO, tucked neatly behind the Old Street roundabout.

Aiming to bring together a diverse yet coherent line-up each and every time, BleeD is an ambitious attempt at reinvigorating Friday nights in Shoreditch by transporting the crowd to an alien world, soundtracked by true visionaries of past and present. February’s event is no exception, with the first ever live appearance on these shores of the master craftsman behind the wonderful ‘Glass Eights’ LP on Dial Record, JOHN ROBERTSs. Home to the likes of Pantha Du Prince, Efdemin and a recent Roman Fluegel EP, Dial is an imprint which never ceases to put out the most sublime and detailed music, which adheres to to ‘deep house’ but in the loosest, most ground-breaking sense. In this case, we’re blessed with an ‘album’ in the true sense, with each classically-informed, masterfully controlled segment relying on the next to create a sense of a very satisfying, transcendental whole. It’s hard to believe this is the work of a man who is still in his 20’s!

In support, we have two wonderfully dark, intricate and conceptual live performances from two acts which have set the underground alight in recent months. DEMDIKE STARE are a Manchester based duo, named after a notorious witch, who throw literally everything into one cauldron to create a range of tightly disciplined and fully realised concept records, which have become overnight collector’s items. Listen carefully enough, and you may just hear echoes of fragmented dub, drone, middle-Eastern library records and forgotten 1970’s BBC soundtracks, not to mention a well-versed understanding of essential techno and Chicago House.

An equally immense force to be reckoned with, Hackney’s own RAIME have been discussed in hushed, reverential tones ever since stealing the show at last year’s unforgettable Unsound Festival, in Poland. Releasing via Blackest Ever Black, a fitting name for a label if ever there was one, they bring to mind Shackleton at his most meditative with a bleak wall of sound approach, allegedly stitched together from a range of arcane industrial and post punk samples.

As is customary at BleeD, the DJs on the night will attempt to concoct a diverse and complementary blend of the abstract and dancefloor oriented, designed to wrong-foot and delight at every turn. Joining the dots and accompanying us into the light will be BleeD’s resident curator, Casper C, alongside solo sets from Skull Juice’s Benedict Bull and Alex Egan.

Early-Bird Tickets : Sold Out / £7.50 Adv Tickets still available via Resident Advisor so don’t hang about.

AITBF / Dollop Party

Hot News!

dollop have brought together a selection of their favourite music ambassadors in order to form a series of events in a temporary club space set in Shoreditch, East London. These collaborators include Border Community, Kompakt, FACT, Trailer Trash and Adventures In The Beetroot Field.

The infamous Scrutton Street warehouse is to be re-launched, for a short period of time, re-named the CitiPost Building. The first ever event was held there by dollop, almost exactly two years ago – and the closing party was aptly run by them at the end of last year.

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The following series launches on 18^th February, then every Friday until 25^th March.

Feb 18^th – dollop / LAUNCH – Very Special Guest Djs TBA, Mosca, Midland, dollop djs.

25^th – dollop / BORDER COMMUNITY – James Holden, Luke Abbot, dollop djs.

Mar 4^th – dollop / KOMPAKT – Justus Kohncke – live, Fra Soler, Walls – dj set, dollop djs.

11^th – dollop / FACT – Instra:Mental, KiNK, FACT djs, dollop djs.

18^th – dollop / Trailer Trash – Sinden, Homework, Trailer Trash djs, dollop djs.

25^th – dollop / Adventures In The Beetroot Field – Factory Floor – live (Quadraphonic Sound), JD Twitch (Optimo), dollop djs.

There’s a small number of early bird tickets for £5 – don’t miss out!

CROOKS & LOVERS

Easily one of the most eagerly anticipated album releases of the year so far, could Mount Kimbie’s debut full-length be the LP that kills off the ‘dubstep’ tag once and for all?

If Burial’s Mercury prize-nominated Untrue brought dubstep into the mainstream by virtue of being ‘the exception to the rule’, then the likes of James Blake, Joy Orbison and Mount Kimbie have now pushed the boundaries of what is perceivably ‘dubstep’ so far that the moniker is increasingly being ditched for broad-spectrum genre-identifiers like ‘UK bass’. Even that, however, hardly seems fitting for Mount Kimbie, who are comfortable creating all-encompassing soundscapes with occasionally only the sparsest hints of low-end. When the basslines do interject they certainly make their presence felt, but they aren’t the only thing crafted with detailed attention – the tracks are filled with layers of metronomic acoustic guitar riffs and incomprehensible vocal utterances which will no doubt invite some sort of neo-Burial comparison, although the spliced-up breathy inhalations on Crooks & Lovers conjure up an entirely different atmosphere from the ethereal apparitions on Untrue. At the heart of it all is a core understanding of pop-sensibilities that highlights exactly why Mount Kimbie have managed to overcome the ‘experimental’ label to play their live sets alongside some of the biggest names in the more dancefloor-ready ‘bass’ scene, as well as foraying firmly into the mainstream, supporting the likes of The XX. And who knows – this time next year they could foreseeably be playing to a capacity crowd at The Roundhouse just like The XX, if not necessarily getting airplay on BBC Question Time…

Crooks & Lovers is released today, and you’ll be able to purchase it in all the usual places.

OH!

Those who have been following We Have Band for a while now will remember that the track Oh! was actually one of their very first releases, back towards the end of 2008. Since that time it’s fair to say that the London electro-pop act have gained more than a few fans – you need only have taken a glance at the situation back in May at Stag & Dagger London for evidence of the hype that surrounds them, with sweat-drenched fans desperate to get into a heaving Hoxton Bar & Kitchen that was already at full capacity in anticipation of the start of the band’s set.

So really it’s only fair that the band should give everyone another chance to hear this little slice of electro-disco-pop perfection, complete with one of the catchiest vocal hooks you’ll hear all summer. They’ve also enlisted some top-class remixers for the re-release, including Ed Banger’s Vicarious Bliss, Glasgow-based producer Dam Mantle who we interviewed last month, and even our very own Filthy Dukes.

The single is out on July 12th – check out the band’s official site for details where to download it!

SHAPESHIFTING WITH DELS

DELS is one of the UK’s most promising producers, making hip hop with an intelligent yet playful approach – evident in both his free-flowing lyricism full of pop culture references and effortless wordplay, as well as the club-ready electro-pop beats. Americans are already fortunate enough to have the genre-defying Plastic Little injecting some much-needed individualism (not to mention comic-relief!) to the US hip hop scene, and DELS looks set to be a similar breath of fresh air over on these shores – his debut release even came out on the indie kid’s label-of-choice Moshi Moshi, rather than any of the more hip hop-oriented alternatives. His latest single is a collaboration with Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, with an ultra-sharp visual attentiveness that would have been evident to anyone who saw DELS debut his now-signature lightboxes during his performance at Stag & Dagger London.

Check out the video, which premiered today, along with a brief interview with the man himself, available exclusively over at Dazed Digital.