textura

ALBUMS
Automotive
Benevento/Russo Duo
Benni Hemm Hemm
Caribou
[The] Caseworker
Eric Chenaux
Cineplexx
Claudia
Daedelus
J Dilla
Envy
Fond of Tigers
Formication
Grizzly Bear
Guther
Ike Yard
Kilo Watts
The Knife
Minimum Chips
Miss Violetta Beauregarde
North Valley Sub. Orch.
Quench
Sandoz
Dani Siciliano
Liam Singer
Stop Disco Mafia
Susanna/Magical Orch.
Vorpal
Wisp
Working Nuclear Free City
Peter Wright
Susumu Yokota
Zeebee

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Belladonna Summer
Cut Copy FabricLive
Mark Farina
Magda
Tandem 4
Tiefschwarz Fabric
Total 7
Until Human Voices...

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Allie
Barem
Deathprod
Ensemble
Extrawelt
Marc Houle
Loco Dice
Lost Trax
David Newlyn
Sandro Perri
Porter & Blain
Relay
Sirka Ragnar
SLG
Swat-Squad

Extrawelt: Doch Doch
Traum

SLG: Nine Hours
Trapez

Swat-Squad: Escoria Remixes: Audio Werner / Ryan Crosson / Franklin de Costa
Trapez

Three new EPs from the Traum/Trapez headquarters find Extrawelt, SLG, and others spinning compelling variations on the label's minimal tech-house template. First up is Hamburg-based duo Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe whose Extrawelt moniker (‘parallel world') is aptly-chosen, if the ethereal night crawlers “Doch Doch” and “Last Past” are representative of its style. Jittery, sleek, and stabbing, the former cultivates a foreboding mood, with percolating percussive patterns countered by surging bass squelches, while writhing bass lines and handclap slaps give “Last Past” a pulsating electro thrust. The duo's dark tunes are tailor-made for tooling through the deserted city-streets at 4 am.

SLG (Lukasz Seliga of Lodz , Poland ) follows up his Level Records 12-inch Quarter Past Eleven with the seriously jacking Nine Hours disc, the title cut a blinding, post-Detroit raver. With its lightly shuffling pads and nocturnal creature chatter, the B-side's “Sleepless” approximates the disoriented mental state of a desperate insomniac.

Commissioned by Trapez to remix “Escoria,” Audio Werner (Andreas Werner), Ryan Crosson, and Franklin de Costa devise three grooving variations on the Swat-Squad original. Propelled by a rolling bass undercurrent, Audio Werner's nine-minute take drapes an encyclopedia array of clicks, clangs, and whirrs over a swinging house strut, the tune segueing from an early breakdown into smothering overdrive before settling into a soft shuffle. Crosson gives his version a jacking overhaul, with engine revs adding steely grit to its banging strut, while de Costa sprays the tune with all manner of wiry splashes, buzzing squelches, and owl-like hoots.

September 2006