Hassan Abou Alam
Mesh Mafhoom

More Oligo reissued on the next Rota Bene!

Orphic Apparition is a new label born out of a transatlantic meeting of minds. Facilitated by a long, hedonistic party in one of present-day London’s ‘meanwhile use’ venues Grow Tottenham, Canadian producer Raf Reza and British acid house luminary Paul Chivers spent a precious day in the studio to record a 3 hour straight to DAT session before Reza's return to Canada. The result of this spontaneous yet intuitive collaboration blurs the lines between Chiver’s long-standing Ramjac Corporation alias and Reza’s genre-spanning approach to dub, breaks and house styles. Part of the early 90s rave scene and an important member of the blueprint-setting Irdial label, Ramjac locks heads with the self-professed ‘lazy music guy from Toronto’ to adapt their studio session into five separate mixdowns.‘In The Grow’ begins with a bouncy, cut-up sounding Errorsmith-esque rhythm, the recurring fright night melody that distinguishes the record coming in all quick and powerful. The A2 ‘Rotten Mix’ offers a more traditional house approach in its composition, with dub FX and a nice DJ friendly outro. On the final uptempo choice the pair opt for a head-scrambling electro take. Choose your fighter! The ‘Swampy Dub’ on the flip really dismantles everything we’ve heard prior, slo-mo drums allowing a much different DJ experience and altering the freaky synthetic propulsion into an almost modern classical sound. A little like Paul Dresher’s eternal ‘Channels Passing’ (tip). Combined with the other edits this version almost becomes a totally different track. The final ‘Rootless Dub’ gives its clues in the title, removing all the tough drum sounds and allowing for an ambient decompression.Orphic Apparition will return soon.

Nerve Collect is a new label co-founded by Dutch collaborators Identified Patient and Gamma Intel. The first release is Identified Patient's Elevator Music for Headbangers EP and it comes digitally with two bonus cuts, or as a six-track 12". It's a freaky journey into exactly the sort of leftfield electronics to expect going forwards complete with AI artwork by Nina van den Berg and Design by Sander Molenaar.

Amsterdam's Identified Patient has an off-the-hook approach that's seen him spend the last six years colliding techno, acid, breaks and dub into futurist sound worlds full of irresistible discomfort. With all that experience of playing Europe's most open-minded dance floors, he is now truly dialed into what works for him. He is making deeper-than-ever connections between what he hears in his head, what he plays, and what he makes. Now speaking clearly through his machines, Nerve Collect marks the start of an all-new conversation based around dark energy, paranoid tension and otherwordly seduction.

The first EP features music written between 2019 and 2022 and takes you deep into the netherworld. It feels both dystopian yet inviting, with hefty bass and twitchy acid that will make both brain and body dance. There's a taughtness right from the off when 'Walk With Me' marries cavernous and booming kicks with bright flashes of acid. 'You Are the Loop' is an AI hallucination with mangled synths, while 'The Fun Never Stops' is psyched-out mutant jungle. The b-side keeps on building with the dark and pressurised energy of 'Dead Demo' and screw-face swagger of 'The Devil is Blue' leading into the final cut 'Second-Hand Nostalgia' which is an industrial take on trip-hop. The bonus cuts spin out yet further into intergalactic electro-techno warfare and controlled rhythmic chaos.

The mind-melting sonics of this first release proves Nerve Collect is here to do things differently.Includes download code.

The transcendental ambiance of the Kāthā cassette continues its amphibian metamorphosis. Adapting to its new terrestrial reality.Cerebral elements spread through the spine of Kusuma’s double offering towards Nic Ford’s ‘Cyberd’ layering percussive realms with a delicate balance of obscurity and enlightenment. Bolstering into the raw energy of a scared rainforest at dawn.On the flip side, Konduku stays fearless on Khun Fluff’s ‘Daw’ with his signature style of ominous drum patterns, fluttering low-ends. Goosebump-inducing textures across the grid - keeping the feline’s voice and meditative presence reverberating throughout. Cosmic veteran, Higher Intelligence Agency, transforms Temple Rat’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights” through his trademark synthetic modulations into a spellbinding B2 dream.

Turn of Phrase is rooted in place and bound by time, yet is simultaneously unstuck in both of these things. The record spans a range of locales; the remote coastal town of Morecambe and its harshly beautiful surroundings, the technicolour glamour of the heart of LA, and London - a city whose maze of contrasting environments and tunnel-visioned bustle offers a totally blank slate.The music however is anachronistic, technically guided by a strict set of rules based in time, the record’s memories and environments are allowed to wander and overlap. The familiar and the personal swirl and collide within an unfamiliar soundscape. The result acts something like a decaying memory, brief shining moments of clarity fighting against something unclear and untethered.