DJ Life Reflex Blue
Meganeura

A new label, run by an old head, Paul Wise aka Placid is the driving force behind ‘We’re Going Deep’. Known to many who inhabit the realms of underground House and Techno, the imprint sprang to life at the tail end of 2020 from his hugely popular Facebook community under the same banner.Born out of a lifelong affair with the many shades of deep electronic rhythms, coupled with a thirst for collecting records since 1988, Paul’s mission is all about sharing and releasing new music for the dance floor, front room or even just your headphones. Rather than staying hung up on the past, his reputation for digging into the annals Acid, Electro, Techno, Deep House alongside the odd slice of Downtempo precedes him, as he readies the third WGD volume for release.Bubbling up with another 4 track EP comprised of cuts from equally brilliant artists, the opening shots are fired on Side A with the unmistakeable sounds of Moy “Ouroboros”. A finely crafted slice of robotic acid funk entices you into the wilds and waves of moody 303 action as machines collide with precision accuracy. Bringing you back to a calmer vision and seas of tranquilty, Rekab aka James Baker’s “Summer Dreams” demonstrates just how blissful ambience and slowing the pace in these testing times can soothe the soul. Leading Side B, fans of Chi-town grooves will not be disappointed with Garrett David’s “Cruisin Through”. A Smart Bar resident and Gramaphone Records employee, he’s no stranger to sumptuous jackin’ edged house jams packed full of bouncing beats. Blending an irresistible rump funking groove to synth-led melodics that build and build, the total sum of these parts will not fail to get you out of your seat. Signing off in style, Moody Waters takes us into hypnotic house territory as low slung beatdown vibes meet mysterious atmospheres and vocal fx, emerging from the haze of that 5am smog that all too often glazes your inner mind.

Ness has been on a mission for many years now, to bring back the psychedelic depth, warmth and subtle ecstacy of the original Trance sound into a contemporary Technoid context. With this, his second and long awaited, LP he has perfected his unique vision, with new influences, crystal clear production and a broadened sound pallette.Aptly titled "Flesh Of The Gods", this is a musical journey for body, mind and spirit to harmonize, individually and collectively; internally and externally. He has found a solid and mature way of honoring legends of the past, yet steering the ship towards a bright, multicolored future. Weigh anchor, captain!

After two archival releases, Raakvlak appears in the frontline of contemporary sonics, and it is the French collective Organizatsiya that gets the label’s feet wet.Vlug, Dutch for rapid, is a work marked by a sense of being in transit. Bent under lockdown circumstances and corresponding feelings, all tracks were created in a car (!) and on the road throughout various places in Europe. Haunted by good old escapism, yet already too remote from anything to really drive away from. This translates to a dreamlike album that provokes the past and the present by taking elements of both, and stirring it up until something in-between comes out. The organic and the digital blend effortlessly, as acoustic guitar and bass sit next to intelligent electronix and similar FX. Sometimes this takes centre stage, while at others it forms a natural canvas for spoken words.On Akzident and Een Lied Voor Jou these words are provided by that other lyrical maverick, Rik van Boeckel, whose archives had been subject of Raakvlak’s second release Deze Hoofden Praten. Here too, old and new blend, into an in-betweenness that forms an entity of its own.

Mannequin Records is elated to present for the first time on vinyl the reissue of Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici’s first video soundtrack, originally released in 1984 as an audiotape in less than one hundred copies. Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici (literally Mundane Mechanical Youth) or GMM was one of the most unclassifiable audiovisual experiences to emerge from Italy in the 1980s. Maurizio Dami a.k.a. Alexander Robotnick, a pivotal member of GMM, was responsible for the group’s music output.Founded in 1984 by Antonio Glessi and Andrea Zingoni in Florence, GMM was an art collective whose production represents the quintessential expression of postmodern transmedia hybridity. GMM pioneered the genre of computer comics, created video installations, developed “multiple identity” performances, and was involved in fashion, media, and music productions, and later on produced cyberdelic environments, artificial reality projects, and proto-memes.Alexander Robotnick’s first contribution to GMM was this soundtrack for the group’s eponymous first video, the animated version of a computer comics they coincidentally published on legendary Frigidaire magazine. Restored by Dami and reissued here for the first time by Mannequin Records, the composition was also split into two “suites” and released as an audiotape distributed by Materiali Sonori, also responsible for other releases by both Robotnick and GMM.Determining in this work is Dami’s adoption of the alphaSyntauri, also known as the first affordable digital synth (priced less than $2000 when it was released in 1980), which was playable through its own software, “alphaPlus,” on the Apple II computer. The same computer was used by Glessi to “draw” the 3-bit strips scripted by Zingoni recounting the joyrides of the Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici, three merciless cyborgs in black suit and sunglasses dividing their time between nightclubs, rapes and murders.As Robotnick, Dami developed an innovative formula of Italo disco that was attractive to the dance floor yet at the same time highlighted the expressive properties of the instruments he used, notably Roland drum machines and Korg synthesizers. For the soundtrack of GMM’s videos and installations, he left aside the danceable synth rhythmics in favor of ambient sounds that produced rarefied atmospheres, psychological tensions, and enhanced states of consciousness.Dami’s scores for GMM’s artworks could be associated with Italian avant-garde music of the 1970s and 1980s, ranging from composers who adopted electronics flirting with pop and songwriting to minimalist musicians exploring seriality and drones, including Franco Battiato, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Francesco Messina, and Riccardo Sinigaglia. Analogies could also be traced with the playful and humanizing approach to personal computers that characterizes the music output of Marcello Giombini and Doris Norton.The futuristic escapism of minimal synth and ambient music’s psychological nature is infiltrated by drifting harmonics typical of new age, as if in search of a spiritual dimension of technology. Characteristic of the postmodern ethos of GMM Suite, in line with the humanizing approach to technology that is at the base of GMM’s computer comics, is the melancholic take at speculative dystopias in which human beings would find themselves increasingly trapped into identity crises: a true cyborg’s melodrama.Limited edition of 500 copies, (orange vinyl)

UCC Harlo and NY Graffiti team up for the second release on Peace Anthem Records. Alternating between bleary-eyed impressions and tightly articulated expression the artists forge a path laden with plangent sound, muted color, and circular forms. Ketamine-paced grooves, baroque miniatures, hazy-humid sonics, and dub inflections populate this domain. Each delivers one original and a remix of the other’s track.

If there were a parallel universe, Silverlining would surely inhabit it as a devoted silviculturalist (one who cares and cultivates forest trees; a forester), empowered with superpowers to converse with the plants. But in this realm, the South Londoner can only daydream about a life in the woods from the warmth of his log cabin-inspired studio in the depths of the urban sprawl, accented with the aromas of forest air freshener. His latest Forest Dreams EP channels his pining for pine onto yet another slice of black PVA for your listening and dancing enjoyment. “The Lumberjack’s Call” laments the woodcutter’s cry for “timber” (or is it saying “deeper”?), stripping a disco-tinged house groove through a metaphysical sawmill, punctuated by Motor City-inspired synths. “Tepozteco”, named after the neotropical national park and mountaintop pyramid outside Mexico City, draws inspiration equally from US house grooves of Mood II Swing as it does the ethereal synthetics of early Warp Records. The release closes off with the title track “Forest Dreams” where the latter earthly tones are swept aside to meet the demands of dayglow techno sprites that haunt the electrics of Silverlining’s studio.