Collection: New Releases

Marseille-based DJ Jo SZT is from the Atipik Crew and now he steps out to launch his own new imprint Komplices. It kicks off with this first EP from his mate Atree over in Berlin and is a perfectly twisted mix of tech, minimal and acid. 'Outflow' begins with low-slung creeper and warped bass, then 'Sensible Counting Acab' spins out on a more lithe cosmic tip and 'Press Start' gets back to ragged synths, snappy hits and serrated basslines. 'Relaxane' shuts down with a nice mechanical rhythm and seductive vocal whispers.

Berlin's cultured Sushitech label is back with another of its superb reissue projects, this time focusing on a small but vital label from the 90s. Silver Pearl was where Los Angeles based producer Eric Spire released a small but steady and superb series of records that took house music into all new realms. He and his peers brought a touch of heaviness and psychedelic energy that paved the way for later developments by artists like Craig Richards & Lee Burridge's Tyrant nights at Fabric. Relive the magic of that time with this new series of carefully curated 12"s featuring high grade club weaponry.

Larry Heard offers up a mesmerising history lesson on this collaboration with spoken word artists Piccolo JT and Rio Love, from Sharpsburg, North Carolina and Chicago respectively. There's an educational, empowering purpose to these four tracks, as our hosts guide us through reflections on important Southern social gatherings and overall social observations accompanied by some of Heard's inimitable productions. There's variety to the music as it flows from mellow deep house to bugging melodic techno and back again - as vital as any Alleviated record you care to mention, but with an added message.

A hard to find sci-fi Detroit techno classic - it's featured everywhere from Marcel Dettmann to Zip's SW sets.- gets a timely reissue complete with a new, super solid Delano Smith remix. It's hard not to love the original in all its futuristic glory, led by a sturdy four-to-the-floor pummelling but boasting a throbbing neo-disco bassline - imagine a lost Gorgio Moroder classic being remade by Jeff Mills in PurposeMaker mode. But the Delano Smith remix updates it for modern palates, ironically by delving back even further, to the early 70s model Kraftwerk from whom he borrows some very austere but classy synth sounds and a touch of electro syncopation. Take your pick according to mood, they both do the job admirably.

Savor Music is fast approaching its quarter century but just ahead of that milestone comes another timeless EP from Alexis Cabrera. Everything from Chicago jack to Detroit soul is referenced in these well-crafted and club-ready cuts, starting with the cosmic cruise that is 'Funkhouser'. 'The Next Tomorrow' throws it back to the 80s in its bright synth chords and 'Guitars On The 5th Cloud' sinks into a nice deep and heady mood with its melancholic bassline and skittish synth-guitar sequences panning about the mix over a soft acid gurgle. 'Don't Give Yourself Away' brings a touch of silky electro rhythm though a menacing bassline keeps things firmly rooted on the floor.

Colombian house hero Felipe Gordon impressed (as usual) on his first outing on Clone's Royal Oak offshoot earlier in the year, so naturally hopes are high for this speedy sequel. Title track 'No Words' comes presented in three different forms: Gordon's ultra-deep, hypnotic original mix in which immersive pads and echoing organ snippets ride hushed machine drums and a raw TB-303 bassline, and two takes by Byron The Aquarius. The Atlanta producer first reaches for flutes, jammed-out boogie synths and looser house grooves on a fine 'Dub' mix, before presenting a shorter "remix" that gives more prominence to the wigged-out solos and fluttering flutes. 'Travel Through Your Mind', a more driving chunk of intergalactic deep house, completes a fine package.

For Erika's second album Anevite Void, she explores her live process as it permeates everything she does, including documenting the process of life in the elaborate sci fi mythology she created. Erika began performing live in Ectomorph in 1997 when she was gifted a TR-606 by BMG and asked to join the group. This grew to her building her own studio, performing solo as Erika, collaborating with people like Jay Ahern and Noncompliant, and performing as a member of Circle of Live. Anevite Void finds Erika organically writing songs for her live shows, allowing them to take shape through performance, and later recording them in the studio, making this the first album she has entirely written and produced on her own. Mixed by long time collaborator BMG, she finds this record as the launching point for a new process; conceptually, it was inspired by "the irregular life cycles created by three suns circling over a planetary organism that presents two major biomes: rocky crystalline desert, and deep layered forest, each of which exists above and/or below ground, depending on what phase the suns are in."

Fantastic masterpiece, considered one of the best Italo-Disco songs ever. A mega-classic produced by Stefano Zito and Carlo Favilli characterized by a heartbreaking melody and lush strings that exemplify the mood and rhythm of the Italo-Disco style with the use of some sounds of pre-bleepy keyboard and siren that technically make it one of the very first rave songs ever, inspiring the style of many artists that came later, like Duft Punk. However, many of them don't even come close with their imaginative computers to that bassline and string sounds that melted the souls of many of us back in that distant April 1983, even if it seems that part of the melodic line has been copied not very subtly by Casco from that of El Deux's Computer-Mädchen released in 1982 in Switzerland, where Salvatore Cusato was working as a club-DJ. On the flip another excellent remix by Danilo Braca which confirms the wisdom and foresight of the producers, aware that BPM would soon drop a lot. In the more than 8 minutes of "Cyberlover" the constant melancholy background together with the drums / bass / synth lines are preserved intact, giving us a complete reissue