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Debut album by Dutch producer w1b0, who passed away in August, to be released in November on U-trax.

Wibo Lammerts' sudden death on August 15thshocked the worldwide electro community, and also left the record label, that had been working on the debut album with the artist known as w1b0 for the past two years, dumbfounded and in grief.
Wibo had jokingly always called his upcoming debut album 'his legacy', which now sadly has become a painful truth. With the support of Wibo's family, U-trax is now doing the only thing that doesn't feel totally wrong: proceed as planned, and release 'When Humans Ruled The Earth' on November 11.

W1b0 made quite a name for himself with heavy electro tracks that he released on labels like Bass Agenda, Hilltown Disco and Discos Antónicos. Standing at 202 meters, and combined with a cheerful character, most people remember him as the gentle giant of electro. For this album, Wibo wanted to steer away from the dark and heavy electro he mostly made until then. The idea of having a platform to create delicate electronic music in different styles, and make it a showcase of his versatility, was very appealing to him. And that is where he and U-trax found each other.

The full-length album (over 75 minutes on cd and digital) comes after 'The Pilex Program EP', released in October, that featured a remix by Detroit's Ectomorph of 'Pilex Driver' and saw 'Program Yourself To Feel' remixed by a well-known Dutch producer that recently created the new 'techno alias' Human Form. As usual with U-trax, the album comes in three different editions, with the 11-track double vinyl version containing the Ectomorph and Human Form remixes. The CD and digital version boast original versions only, plus four additional tracks: 'Alternate Reality Interface', 'Mixed Matter Fluctator', 'Synthetic', and 'In There'. The cassette version more or less has the same track list as the CD/digi version, but has both aforementioned remixes and a bonus track in the incredibly hypnotizing 'I Wanted You', a track that unfortunately couldn't be on the CD and vinyl versions.

Buyers of the physical releases get treated on superior quality products, another trademark of U-trax. The vinyl edition boasts over one hour of music, on two 180 grams, green vinyl discs, in a black & white & neon green gatefold sleeve. The eye-catching artwork is created by Utrecht artist Leffe Goldstein, known amongst others for his psychedelic beer can designs for Utrecht brewery Maximus. Wibo, being the beer lover he was, had zero doubts about having Leffe Goldstein do the cover for his album. The CD has a total playing time of 75 minutes and comes in a beautiful 6-panel digipack, while the cassette will have full-color on-body print and comes in a plastic-free Maltese cross fold-up sleeve.

Buyers of the physical releases get treated on superior quality products, another trademark of U-trax. The vinyl edition boasts over one hour of music, on two 180 grams, green vinyl discs, in a black & white & neon green gatefold sleeve. The eye-catching artwork is created by Utrecht artist Leffe Goldstein, known amongst others for his psychedelic beer can designs for Utrecht brewery Maximus. Wibo, being the beer lover he was, had zero doubts about having Leffe Goldstein do the cover for his album. The CD has a total playing time of 75 minutes and comes in a beautiful 6-panel digipack, while the cassette will have full-color on-body print and comes in a plastic-free Maltese cross fold-up sleeve.

Opener 'Acid Whip' is one of the oldest compositions on this album, in which a dark 303 bassline hums over layers of spacey strings. Wibo named it after the legendary Whip It party in Amsterdam's De Melkweg. 'Alternate Reality Interface' then presents bouncy rhythms toying around with all sorts of analog (bass) synthesizers, before we go really deep with the epic ambient techno track 'Wandering Souls'. Then things get a little lighter spirited: 'Mixed Matter Fluctator' is an electro track that builds on sounds created by Matt Buggins. It has very strong Detroit influences, the city Wibo loved so much and that he made a pilgrimage to with a group of friends that called themselves 'The Techno Tourists'. The tempo goes up a notch in 'Program Yourself To Feel', that halfway opens up in wide science fiction strings that evoke memories of Star Wars, the movie series that Wibo was a great fan of, and that was the source of many of his tracks' names. The Human Form remix opens the vinyl edition of this album and is a downright belter of a track.

Next is a somewhat experimental intermezzo named 'Synthetic'. Erratic beats and pounding bassdrums get accompanied by very subtle eerie-sounding strings, before melancholic synthesizers and piano chords take over. This is an excellent prelude to the epic 'Hologram Computing', a track that is one of our favorites. It slowly and softly builds and builds, before a pounding bassdrum breaks loose and a hypnotic arpeggio takes you to higher planes. Not ready to letting the listener relax, w1bo then serves 'Beilstein Reference', which again presents his trademark cocktail of down-to-earth electro rhythms and catchy melodies, covered in all sort of little sounds and noises, giving the song a lot of energy. What follows is 'Hit me', a track loosely based on a song by Dutch indie rock band Mr. Joe Abe. Wibo met the band's singer on a camping site while being on holidays and the two decided Wibo should do a remix of one of their songs. Nothing was left of the original except the vocals, and the result is a remarkable cheerful, poppy electro song.

'Anticipated Input' is one of the more recent tracks Wibo made for this album, combining electro, acid and, yes: epic strings. But not all is peace and quiet on this album, as 'Pilex Driver' shows. This is w1b0 going experimental in a danceable fashion: Industrial sounds make the track sound like we're passing a construction site that is playing loud electro music. On the vinyl version of this album, Ectomorph totally decomposed the original and made it into a mysterious, almost subdued, and totally brilliant electro track that sees a main role for the retro Roland CR drum machines sounds.

TFHats, Wibo's fellow member of the Transhumanism collective, added lyrics to 'Cartesian Coordinates'. His vocals add a pleasant New Wave flavor to this song, that has breaks that remarkably reminds one of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. What follows is the most personal track on this album. 'Fornan' is a song that Wibo made for his wife Nanette, and was added as the last piece of the puzzle that creating an album is. The warm Detroit techno atmosphere in this electro song couldn't be a more beautiful tribute to his love, and mother of their two young boys. The album then takes a surprising detour through a 1980s landscape with 'In There', that features the Joy Division-esque vocals of another one of Wibo's friends, indicated only as Vincent. The super slow and gloomy track is a treat for anyone that loved the darker side of New Wave. The album has a worthy closer in the sensitive, yet playful 'Schlegel Diagram'.

First release from new label ANALOG CONCEPT from St. Petersburg, Russia! This EP contains four classic deep electro jams by new local talents CLOCKED DEVICES & STRANGE FM.

Patås premieres his new label LEK with 4 tracks toying around in the Techno/broken beat spectrum. "Måsans dødsleie" (Måsans deathbed) starts the EP following the last journey of Måsan, a character that everybody knows; the one guy in every group of friends that just cant stop partying, the re-uper to re-up them all.

Glitchy percussion, freaky synthriffs, and a heart monitor guides him all the way to the great beyond. Ethereal "Atlantic Potion" (made in collaboration with Canadian Jamie Cox) closes the side out with its cold lushness. On the other side the theme music from Final Fantasy 6 gets reharmonized and redrummed in "Hommage a Uematsu", for some guaranteed nerd chills to all you Jrpg clubbers.

Last track "tma 4ever (Patås remix)" turns Kim Dürbecks epic ambient tune into a broken beat journey with accompanying bird sounds and hectic percussion.

Limited TO 200 Copies! »Darkness & Abstract Art« is the debut single by Berlin based producer and songwriter Venetian Green. And what a debut it is. Two pop-pearls from a parallel universe, in which grand pop gestures of past decades live in harmony with the more bleak and disturbing emotional rollercoasters of recent times. The songs embrace a deep sense of nostalgia, while remaining firmly and confidently rooted within a contemporary pop context.

»Darkness« may be the most uplifting pop song ever that deals with mental health issues and depression. A topic that many can surely associate with after a challenging period of lockdowns and lack of perspective. The opening moments seem like a flirty exchange between an early Vince Clarke and Jake Shears but with a more bouncy and ›present-day‹ sound aesthetic. The bridge, »Was I ever in control, did my feelings just go rogue. Is it you or is it me, you’ve stolen my identity«, brings some major glam moments front and center and finally culminates in a heartbreaking auto-tuned chorus, an ode to the »Darkness« in all of our hearts.

In »Abstract Art«, we are jumping effortlessly between different musical eras. From late Roxy Music elegance to the plasticy melancholy of early Robyn all the way to the slow-rolling pop anthems of Christine and the Queens. A classic pop song about intimacy, trust, boundary issues and physical connection. Easy to imagine the line »You watch me dance with someone else, cause only you have me in strings and belts« on a sweaty recently re-opened dancefloor celebrating the return to a ›new normal‹.

Novo Line – aka Berlin's algorave maestro Nat Fowler – delivers a noisy, ultramarine voyage into the depths of his archaic hardware. Clawing at the periphery between leftfield electronics and avant-garde pop, Zeit is an entirely new sonic universe, eerily familiar yet utterly uncharted. A visionary synthesist, Fowler is renowned for his productions that make use of mainly '80s equipment including vintage digital synths, discarded Midi Hi-Tech, tape delay and even an ancient Atari ST computer. But, despite the aged technology, the result is far from nostalgic.

'Ain't That a Mess' slams in with Monica Kremidi's crooning à la Little Annie Anxiety with reeving car engines and guitar-rock static fed through a pan effect. Multilayered melodies soar on 'Stein', the pounding drums matched by gliding strings, crafting that holy grail of cavernous, booming textures and uplifting euphoria that mark out the most transcendent of rave tracks. The deceptively gentle opening bars of 'Morning Star' are interrupted by a viscously squelching bassline, Cass McCombs' vocals dancing deliciously with the raw beat.

Rejecting contemporary tech-fetishism, Novo Line has a near-supernatural ability to exorcise novel sequences, weaving together a record that speaks to the ghost in the machine.

After the heaviest of years, it should be time to take a little weight off with the playful sounds of The Person. Mapping its own Bermuda Triangle between dub-pop, sugary synthwave and Balearic boogie, ‘Tide Life’ transports Compass Point to Soggy Bottom, providing maximum fun, sun and bitmap escapism. The eagle-eared may recognise The Person from the aspirational Italo-rockers Steaming Jeans, whose chalet-ready romp on Bordello A Parigi scored a Winter Olympic gold back in early 2020. Now left to her own devices, Minna Wight swaps the slopes for a jet ski and takes a Wave Race from Summer Bay to Monkey Island across 11 cuts of vintage oddball pop. Whether she’s borrowing Brenda’s Beach Balls for the dubby daydream of ‘Snail Cafe’ and ‘The Place’, serving lost library cues to Snes club scenes on ‘Barry R Reef’ and ‘Elastic Shoes’ or spinning high school slow jams into synth soul ballads like ‘Nice Feeling’, Minna disguises serious musicianship behind a naive aesthetic. Disarmed by charm, we’re powerless to resist her tidal pull.

For Dekmantel Festival 2019, The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s RE:VIVE initiative and Dekmantel teamed up for the third time to invite four artists to bring fresh music to a curation of Dutch archival films. As debuted live in Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum, 2019 featured new scores from Safe Trip eclectic left-of-centre DJ / producer, Max Abysmal, 80s pastiche, keyboard wizard duo, Lamellen, Italian contemporary composer and saxophonist, Laura Agnusdei and heavy-hitter, Identified Patient. 2019’s films were as diverse as the invited artists. Three of the films come Academy Award winning Dutch producer, Nico Crama whose collection is held by The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision while Comeback (Poppenfilm) was made by amateur Dutch filmmaker, Otto Laan.
Comes with liner notes inlay and pressed on 180 grams vinyl.

Perhaps best known under his aliases Dalglish and O.S.T., Chris Douglas has been operating under the mainstream for the last 24 years, releasing on labels like Pan, Icasea, Phthalo, Highpoint Lowlife, Shitkatapult and many others.

Douglas has certainly had an interesting history and the places he’s lived unquestionably define his sound. From his early beginnings in San Francisco organising parties and DJing, he relocated to Detroit where, hanging out with the likes of Underground Resistance’s Mad Mike and the late James Stinson of Drexciya, he began to release his own work.

The competition in Detroit was fierce and the crowds were very particular so artists found themselves having to work a lot harder, which ultimately led to the consistent quality of the product at that time. His story then led him to Europe, after Autechre invited him to appear as their opening act during their Confield tour in 2002 and then at their curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2003, where he finally settled in Berlin.

This time we’re presenting the less familiar work of his moniker ‘Rook Vallade’ with a collection of his as yet unheard works from 1992-2000 – a very welcome addition to the Touchin’ Bass catalogue.

The 12 tracks featured on ‘Vestiges’ represent Douglas’ Detroit influences and early electro, techno and hiphop are all evident in these recordings. Each individual groove represents a warm and moving sound aesthetic, rich in texture and melody, providing an insight into the varying depths of machine and soul. Each track portrays a mood and feeling of its own, with the emphasis being firmly placed on the outcome and direction of each individual sound, reflecting a barrage of alternative feelings, thoughts and moods. The tracks are also documentative of Douglas’ first productions working predominantly with a hardware set up.

From the clear electro influence heard on ‘Aemldbr’, ‘Badlstmp’ brings captivating warm synths with fine metallic sounds surfacing above the layers, giving this track the feeling that it is much more current than the production date suggests. The blend of wavering strings, industrial ambience and chilling synthesiser pads demonstrated in the hauntingly dramatic short piece of ‘Scrintv’ leads to the punctuated percussion of ‘RI_25’ and the heightened tension, chaos and confusion of ‘RV7ScF’. ‘Endtb_’ is like going into the unknown, a bit like how Jacques Cousteau must have felt when first filming underwater.

Frustratingly, Douglas never seems to have gotten the recognition that he so richly deserves. His experimental attitude has always put him ahead of his time and this album still firmly places him at the forefront of electronic music. These are timeless relics from the past, coming from an era where the concept of atmospherics very much dominated the production. There may have been less to work with but Douglas has somehow captured more. Under ‘Rook Vallade’, his music stands the test of time.

As The Wire once wrote of him: “His music is one of the most striking evacuations of the life of the mind that you’re ever likely to hear.”. This still stands true to date.

The cult techno outfit "Teste" digs up and re-transmits sonic archives forming a new 2xlp for L.I.E.S. Full story below.....Artwork licensed from legendary NYC street photographer Richard Sandler in appropriate fashion....lp comes with a giant newsprint poster as well. Teste was still-born by the mid-90’s and with the ensuing Ptsd I had become a Shut IN working on the Amiga Computer for Audio and Video and completely immersed in grisly, depraved art-house cinema. This release pays homage to that time in NYC when I frequented Mondo Kims daily to rent the trashiest films I could find. Things like Richard Kern’s “Fingered”, Nick Zedds’s “They Eat Scum”, Makavejev “Sweet Movie”, Merhige “Begotten” all the classicks! The 42nd Street Mind forever! In retrospect I can’t believe they gave me a membership card! Wish I still had it! Micro Budget, Discontinued Formats. All of the tracks on this release are sourced from decaying tapes (vhs, 4-track, DAT, MD) some of which were encoded to early digital formats to add another layer of artefacts and grit. I can emphatically proclaim these ideas have taken three decades to come to fruition at my present Partner in Teste (Goner) Berlin Facility. One chapter closes and another unfolds! One day it’s 1992 playing absurd Teste gigs in a Sports Bar (Tailgate Charlie’s!) in scenic Hammer Onterrible opening up for Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials! You could just feel the love in that room! Referred to as the “Toilet Incident” by unsuspecting attendees. From that debacle another unfolded in an infamous “final” appearance at the Pure Party in Glasgow Barrowlands 1994 -which proved an unceremonious demise to the first incarnation of Teste… Details like most things from that era are foggy… No insta stories or tweets! Just instant cameras that didn’t always make it out of the rave! After the Teste fallout then embarking on another Techno adventure for an extended stint in NYC from ’95-97. This proved a pivotal time to say the least. Huren becoming a solo entity and the lasting shockwaves with Zhark which was a New York label in those days. Also in retrospect I can say I experienced the end of the NYC of old right when the “NO Dancing” by-laws were coming in. R.I.P Strange?, Sonic Groove (Manhattan),Liquid Sky/Temple, Save The Robots, Soundlab, Tunnel, Twilo, Limelight and others that slip the memory banks… All I knew of NYC when I got off that Greyhound the first time in Port Authority in 95 after an 11 hour drive was from movies. I thought the city was like what I had seen in Abel Ferrara films “Driller Killer”, “King of New York’ “Bad Lieutenant” or the Schoolly D, or Wu-Tang Clan videos! Turns out I wasn’t too far off in a way as this was the era of the Club Kids depravity. Upon reflection my formative clubbing years had an element of Crime in them as I’ve been in the proximity of two very well known serial killers. First in the 80’s when I attended a club Paul Bernardo used to Frequent in Ontario and later on the Limelight NYC with Michael Alig. Definitely casts a sinister tinge to some of the memories. Curious coincidence the party I performed at in NYC was called Killer… And I myself was almost murdered in 2012 but that’s another story…

With silent film cinematic aesthetics imbued with unique and 21st-century flair, Ukranian Coldwave Duo The Glass Beads invoke sorrowful sounds, both strange and sensual, on their debut LP Therapy, melancholic life stories focused on the search and struggle of trying to find your way as an individual way and to accept yourself. These themes explored on the record are filled with pain and anger as well as hope. The Glass Beads feature the talents of musicians Mark Arshynnikov and Morin Sane, a pair of musicians whose Slavic features construct an appearance that is altogether commanding, beautiful and timelessly Gothic, yet gracefully tempered with a modern and tasteful style woven between two eras of the centennial: 1920, and now. In collaboration, Mark and Morin conjure melodies that reverberate like footsteps through the hallways of an abandoned house, haunted by memories of love, sickness, and death. Their melodic music is interwoven with sighing keys, palpitating drum machines, sauntering basslines, and disaffected vocals like an eastern european version of Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico. It has been 4 years since the two made their debut with “Going”, a song that would two years later make itself part of The Glass Beads’ 4 track debut EP Phobia issued on cassette via Squall Records. For that release, The Wave of Things spotlighted the pair in their Sounds of Ukraine episode, Describing them as a cross between Lebanon Hanover and Drunken C, and highlighted their mesmerizing video for the title track “Phobia” where a blindfold vocalist Morin Sane drifts amongst a field of sunflowers in stark black and white.

Tacit Group is an audio-visual group founded in 2008 with a vision of creating new art for the 21st century. Based in Seoul but working globally, the group comprises composer Jaeho Chang and electronic musician Gazaebal(Lee Jinwon).

With audio-visual art as its core content, Tacit Group has expanded in a contemporary and experimental way in multimedia performances, interactive installations, and music installations. Representative works such as ‘Hun-Min-Jeong-Ak,’ ‘Game Over,’ ‘Morse ㅋung ㅋung,’ combine a systematic worldview weaved through intuitive materials and technology inspired by normal everyday activities such as games and text chatting. In particular, works that utilize the beauty and communica- tion power of characters are among their most striking.

“It’s like wind chimes,” says Tacit Group’s Jeaho Chang. “The creator makes the pipes, but the wind makes the music.” He’s talking about the algorithmic music that Tacit Group creates. Jaeho and Gazaebal create audio/visual systems using code that the pair work within to unleash their utterly compelling AV performances, each show, each track, as unique as a snowflake. The pair met at Korea National University of Arts in 2006. Jaeho Chang was a media installation artist and composer who’d studied classical composition in Korea and electronic music at Den Haag’s Conservatoire. Gazaebal, who’d moved to the US as a teen, had worked at the renowned Quad group studios as a sound engineer, recording acts including Rage Against The Machine, Wu Tang and Janet Jackson. Returning to Korea, he had found success as a K-Pop producer, (founding the act Banana Girl, and writing their No.1 Korean hit ‘Shake Your Ass’) and DJing under the moniker Gazaebal, before deciding to go ‘back to school’ to learn to create more challenging music.
The quiet and reserved Jae and the more outgoing Gazaebal bonded over a shared vision, forming Tacit Group in 2008. And until recently, everything they have done has been through the medium of their globally acclaimed live shows, playing all over the world from Lincoln Center in NY, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) and Nam June Paik Art Center in Korea, Aarhus Festival in Denmark, Stereolux in France and NYU Abu Dhabi.