I don’t know about you, but it’s been properly spring for a couple of weeks here. And the sun always puts me in the mood for a certain kind of bosh: something warm and melodic and gently propulsive. This record has been very much ticking that box for me this year. We have six tracks of Detroit-flavoured (although actually Welsh) electro/techno (plus an ambient skit to mark the halfway point). And all six are deliriously catchy. Just check out Glass Skin, with its swaying machine funk and its chopped-up vocal loop. It was love at first listen for me. The vibe is retro-futuristic, uplifting with just a hint of something darker under the surface. The sound is just a little bit fuzzy and scuzzy in a way that puts me in mind more of Chicago than the 313. Several of the tracks have glitchy interventions, drop-outs or (in one memorable case) an overlay of what sounds like someone trying to type an entry code into a keypad with a tone generator — but they somehow manage to fuck with the beat in a way which makes it feel even more danceable, which is a neat trick if you can pull it off. (Historical aside: Unspecified Enemies, then a duo consisting of Louis Morena and Simon Walley, released a bunch of tracks around the turn of the millennium, and also left a bunch of MIDI tracks around which never saw the light of day… until now, when Moreno dug out the old hard drives and decided to finish the production work. I kind of think that the wonky elements here are a nod to that back-story.) If you’re remotely into this sort of thing then I reckon this is essential listening. Put your hands up for Cardiff!
I bought this from the label’s bandcamp page.
dogrando writes about some records 