Nights In Siolim And Coconut Groves

Paisley Dark is one of the smaller UK record labels that has been coming up with the goods all year. Based in Leeds and run by John Paynter Paisley dark specialises in dark, electronic psychedelia. It's releases this year include chuggy, synapse twisting stuff from Jay- Son, The Machine Soul, James Rod, MAN 2.0 and Warriors Of The Dystotheque (whose single with Joe Duggan, Fitzroy Avenue, is a fantastic combination of Joe Duggan's Derry tones, acid house with a slew of great remixes). You can find all of those and releases from 2022 and 2021 as well here. 

The latest emission from Paisley Dark came out at the start of the month, a seven track EP  by Hogt I Tak made up of  A Night In Siolim (with three remixes) and Coconut Grove (with three remixes). A Night In Siolim is not a track that is messing around, it gets straight down to business with a dizzying acid squiggle, kick drum and synths coming in sideways. Gnarly, tripped out acid house. Listen and buy here. The three remixes come courtesy of The Machine Soul (stripped down heavy duty acid), John's own Space Age Freak Out Remix (fairly self explanatory, both space age and a freak out) and this one from Keith Forrester, a deep, dark twisting journey into an acid underworld. Keith is from Urmston, not far from here and somewhere I know fairly well and not necessarily somewhere I associate with deep, dark acid underworlds. 

Coconut Grove  is cut from similar cloth, Hogt I Tak riding the sine waves and kick drums into an acid sci fi dancefloor, blinded by the lights and throwing shapes as the strobe goes off. Keith returns on remix duties and is joined by Mindbender who goes all in on the mindbending. 

Viper Patrol And The Machine Soul

These two tracks are both recent releases, one from Duncan Gray's Tici Taci label, the other from John Paynter's Paisley Dark. They inhabit a similar space and when burning a CD of recent music to listen to in the car on my commute they ended up next to each other- and they work together very well. The fact that the artist's names rhyme just adds to them being connected for me. 

Viper Patrol are on Tici Taci, a label celebrating it's first decade this year. Not Of This World is slinky, chuggy techno/ sci fi/ disco, a spaceship of a track. The bassline bumps away beautifully, an acidic squiggle burbles around the mid- range and the synth melody dances around on top.  There's an alternate version too, the Rule Six Glitterball Mix, which makes it all sleeker. 

The Machine Soul's Engineered State is at out now on Paisley Dark, the original mix plus four remixes. This one, the UFO Club Remix, gets down to brass tacks immediately, with thumping kick drum, bubbling bass, twinkling melody lines and a serious acid/ techno edge. 

The original mix is a winner too, hitting in from the off and building, insistent and hypnotic synth sounds, repetitive, entrancing dark cosmic disco- it and the other remixes (courtesy of Hogt I Tak, Ian Vale and Jay-Son) can be found at Bandcamp.