Do The Right Thing

Some more new electronic music for your enjoyment, from Mighty Force, from Paisley Dark and from Duncan Gray. I sometimes feel that writing about instrumental, electronic music leads to a certain amount of repetitive description, words like chug, synth, bass, cosmic, dark, dub and acidic re- arranged in various permutations. Needless to say, they don't always do the music justice. 

J- Lower (Jeff Lowes) records for Mighty Force. His latest album, Quanta, came out two weeks ago, an eleven track tour de force built on warm, soft drum pads, thick bass and light, ascending melody lines. Opening track Hive sets the scene, a track that builds into something that soars and lifts. The eight minute wonder Astral Awakenings has the same warm synth and drum sounds, a gently prodding rhythm and insistent melodies. You can play the whole thing from start to finish or drop in on any of the eleven tracks and find something to warm the heart and stimulate the mind. Get Quanta at Bandcamp. 

At Paisley Dark the latest EP comes via label boss John Paynter and co- producer Ben Lewis' A Space Age Freak Out complete with a full line up of remixes- Airsine, Cosmikuro, Hogt I Tak, Ben Hunt, Isis Moray, Keith Forrester, Plastic GRN, The Machine Soul and Viper Patrol are all present and correct. 

The original track is Song Of Siraba, a six minute dark disco outing that thumps along, high grade acidic chug. Airsine strips it down and slows it down, a slow burning acid churn. Cosmikuro follows suit, faint hint of ghostly backing vocals and increasingly chunky bassline coming to the fore. Keith Forrester speeds it up, strobe light, high tempo. Viper Patrol go metallic chug, lasers and widescreen sci fi. Isis Moray turn up the distortion and overload the limiters. Find those remixes and the others, all eleven versions, at Paisley Dark's Bandcamp. 

After Mighty Force in Exeter and Paisley Dark in Leeds we head to Slough where Duncan Gray is firmly back in the driving seat and releasing monthly tracks from his stockpile of recordings. In December he gave us Microfreaking, a seven minute throbber with synth and bass battling it out. January saw the release of Somebody Is Missing, a bassline and melodica heads down, slo mo, four four tribute to the departed, with a bass that never lets up- wonderful dubbed out disco. Right at the end of January Duncan dropped Do The Wrong Thing, a leftfield, off kilter delight that nods to Bowie and Iggy in West Berlin, Andrew Weatherall's Scrutton Street bunker and the never- ending thud of the four four kick drum. The wrong thing is most definitely the right thing. 

Midnight Echoes And American Questions

Out on Exeter's Mighty Force label, the home of much high quality electronic music in recent years, is this ten track album from J- Lower. The album is packed with deep, dynamic tracks. It opens in fine style with this one, String Theory, a punchy and powerful acid track that never stops giving. 

Vortex is one I keep going back too, more 303 action, busy drum pattern, a squelchy bottom end, the distinctive tink of the electronic cowbell and a mangled snatch of vocal. You can listen and buy here.

M- Paths released two albums on Mighty Force and also have a Bandcamp page adorned with electronic music, not just the optimistic ambient- techno of M- Paths but also Reverb Delay's heavy duty dub techno and more recently a track by a third outfit, Mars Geographical. America, What Have You Done! came out last week, an eight minute reaction to the election of Donald Trump and his first few weeks in office which have upended the international order, sold Ukraine down the river in order to make friends with Putin's Russia (appeasement has some powerful messages for us when the history of the 20th century is taken in to account) and sewn chaos and distrust internationally. America, What Have You Done! samples Trump at the start and then powers into a rolling, throbbing acid thumper with a message in the middle. Get it free/ name your price here.