A Tribe Called Kotori Vinyl, CD & Tape 4 Items

Following a cascade drop of singles that kept everyone on their toes this past couple of months, time has come to unveil Fabian Krooss' eagerly awaited debut long-player, 'Colorfuel'. A portmanteau word for the vivid colourful spectrum that infuses Krooss' blends and that role of energetic provider it plays, 'Colorfuel' oozes a vibrant mix of dance floor-ready dynamism and effervescing curiosity, packed with surprises at every corner. Completed and finished in the Autumn of 2023, Krooss' debut album takes you on a smooth journey from start to finish, showing the variety in his productions, spanning from melancholic to uplifting, playful to funky and deep to chill.

Starting with the soulful 'Oh Darlin', Krooss steers us on the path of laid-back Chicagoan rhythms and feelgood Afro soulfulness, weaving solar-powered sensitivity with vaporous floor dynamics to hypnotic effect. A further balmy slice of atmospheric electronica tinged with hints of dream-pop and balearic house, "Staring" cruises at its own tranquil pace across colour-shifting horizons and gently jagged reliefs. Pumping out an exquisite blend of sluggish house jack alongside archetypal Andalusian flavours and bass-driven manoeuvres, 'Phoenix' (feat. Frida Darko) ticks all the boxes of a festival season-ready chugger, whereas 'Move Your Booty' relies on a slightly more low-slung melody and further languid swing.

All in bounce and playfulness, 'Your Soul' pulls out a bass-heavy chassis mounted with EBM synths' firepower, nostalgic riffs and orient-flavoured melodic flights, injecting a sense of spiritual elevation to its solid club-focussed engineering. Drawing in a more subdued palette of rhythmic elements, sprinkled with an eerie melody and stripped-back synth funk, 'Inside of Me' makes for a perfect transition track, with 'Manaki' going a further jagged route, as Krooss draws further deep into the Italo style, infusing his stellar arps and brittle piano chords with a thick FX gravy. Contorting itself at the junction of straightforward jack and a more prog-minded construction that seem tailored for stadiums, 'Elasticity' (with Atish) finds Krooss at his most precise and adroitly versatile.

Beaming up unadulterated joy and sunrays across its six minute-ish ride, 'Coquin' bounces back and forth, ushering us into a jam-packed hacienda where the thick volutes of freshly lit havanas coalesce with the exhilarating scent of ron. A trippy ride down memory lane, 'Back To The Oldschool' conjures up images and components straight out the 90s, buzzing with that fun swash of hip-hop and tech-tinged hybrid. A delicate slab of balearic-informed deep house, 'Mtende' serves up a lascivious mishmash of coastal iridescence and sub-Saharan style polyrhythms. Topping off that broad sweep across house's manifold colour chart, 'Tied In Knots' (feat. Harry Charles) treats us to an elevating mix of Spanish guitars and 303-marinated acid bass, taking us from classicism up the modernist ladder in the blink of an eye.

A long-in-the-works project of ours, here comes A Tribe Called Kotori's first foray into full-length territories, as the immensely talented Rampue takes us on a melancholy-riddled ride across his phantasmatic mindscapes. A true sound explorer, deftly steering his ship down the junction of electronica, abstract and balearic-infused prog house, the Berlin-based vibist has us transfixed and elevated throughout the twelve cuts that form the backbone to this lushly textured promenade in sound - at times understatedly euphoric, at others rivetingly exotic.

Of the creative process that lead to 'Bubblebath Trance', Rampue explains "It all started and ended in the same moment: my cherished feline companion, my laptop awash with an unintended bath, and alas, a dearth of backups. The resultant calamity, an echo of chaotic tranquility." Under the generous layer of irony lies some unaltered truth about Rampue's debut long-player for A Tribe Called Kotori: this sense of serenity that goes with stepping into this warm and bubbling primitive chaos of sorts infuses the listening experience far and wide. Distantly emulating the "euphonious strains" of iconic PS1 video games soundtracks from his youth days, the album has us surfing a constant paradox of emotions, wistful but not abandoning itself to sorrow, dynamic yet suspended in some sort of mind-expanding stasis. As if you were looking at the world beneath you in exploded view, conscious of all thing, slowly moving up the many layers of our atmosphere towards uncharted skies.

A paragon of Rampue's most poignant take on classic electronica tropes, 'Harmonie' blazes with a poetic fire that engulfs about everything in its wake. Just figure yourself riding a chocobo across the sand-covered expanse of North Corel (toasting to the FFVII nerds here) as this blasts out in the distance. From this trancey bubblebath emerge lots of musical shades and nuances, from the nicely dubbed-out, brass-heavy coastal jazz of 'Schattenschranz' to the choppy, trip-hop-adjacent future electronics of 'Inside', via the exuberantly joyous mess of faux-organic number 'Tripomatic' and cinematic charisma of 'Ich hasse Sonne' high-flying orchestrations.

Connecting the dots between that trance-indebted ebullience and further downtempo-friendly attraction, 'Verfahren' perhaps encompasses best what 'Bubblebath Trance' is about: gracefully walking the tightrope in-limbo nostalgia-soaked inner movements and a powerful outward thrust, burning to let the feelings ooze out from the shell that holds them.Clad in purely 90s-compatible breaksy motion, 'Salz' is another attempt to reconcile emotional and physical dissonance, like kneading all states - solid, liquid and vaporous - into an impossible mega-vibe of its own; malleable, strong and enveloping in equal measure. Borrowing from two-step and UK garage, 'Take Away' is a definite high in Rampue's master unfolding of musical twists and turns, summoning a Boarder Community-esque atmosphere and clashing it alongside floor-ready footwork motifs to fascinating effect.

An ode to his studio companion, 'Buchla Trip' finds Rampue's exploring his machinic friend's quirky yet soulful array of electronic potentialities - making it sound like a conversation you'd have with R2-D2 in the heart of a Sandcrawler, whereas 'Kajal' beams us up to a fragmented headspace, halfway altered PC-Pop and arps-loaded electronica on amphetamines. Effusive and transporting, the title-track 'Bubblebath Trance' could well figure as the album's no.1 medley in essence: a bountiful lucid dream of dancing forms, colours and sentiments to wrap your head around, confidently drifting from a liminal state of consciousness down the rapids of one's troubled inner workings.

Rounding off the package, the languid ambient finale of 'Die Leiden des hungrigen Fruehstuecks' rubber-stamps the feeling that 'Bubblebath Trance' belongs to that rare category of albums. The ones that mint their own alphabet aside from typical norms and expectations, teaching you the ropes of their new language as it unreels between your ears - real and unreal, elusive to any other meaning than the one your guts and brains will be inclined to give it to, in real time. A crystal-pure object if you will, that shall not reveal its secrets, even after a thousand listens and just as many wowing moments.

Better known as one half of the Stavroz quartet, Pieter De Meester and Maxim Helincks turn up on A Tribe Called Kotori with their self-titled third studio effort as Shady, following up to "Your Skin" EP on Beat & Path last year. Grinding a wide set of influences through oddball, genre-bending compositions, the pair has been carving out its own wonky, cross-curricular sound grammar away from normative restrictions and creative-hindering behaviourism - like the weird brainchild to Soulwax, Nicolas Jaar and Connan Mockasin.

"Can I Be Yours" gets the ball rolling on a spectral pop tip, blending together the vaporous spook of ultra-processed riffs with mischievous drum play and hypnotically smooth-tongued vocals dissolving in rippling delays. A further nocturnal affair, "Cruisin" goes a more sensuous, electro-friendly route, beaconed with hints of washed-out folk and cosmo-ambient spaciousness. The Cali vibes meet spoken Brit post-punk motif'd (think Baxter Dury out for a quick surf session with the Beach Boys) "Sun" rounds off the ride on a catchy Mod-like note, merging to perfection the swinging London's debonair charm with that of the west coast's typical carefreeness of being. That's ocean-spray bottled in a tune.

Free Download Code. Up next on A Tribe Called Kotori, please welcome Berlin's very own Madmotormiquel - all set and ready to storm the house after several transmissions on an array of quality outlets, including our good friends at Katermukke. His maiden incursion on the label, "Bombo", will not only be released in digital shape as per usual for the rest of our catalogue, but also in 12" vinyl format - with the special and endearingly peculiar trait that each cover is hand-designed by Chrisse Kunst and Madmotormiquel himself, making these collectible one-off pieces of art to adorn your shelves with.

Opening cut and lead-single "Bombo" sets the wheels in motion at a slow and steady rate, progressively fleshing out its initially stripped-back funkiness with a polychromatic webwork of tribal rhythms, spectral synth murk and frizzling machine talk. The quirky "Kohiko" serves up a mischievous buffet of further syncopated moves and chirpy chimes pouring in cascades as a sturdy bass unfalteringly dictates the momentum.

Shifting the scope to no-nonsense floor-busting objectives in its first stages, "Timezone Chaser" slowly evolves from sheer DJ functionality to jazzed-up abstraction through perfectly inlaid superimpositions of processed clarinets, dubbed-out drums and an overall hazy sound design to satisfyingly lose yourself in. EP closer "Rodrigues" opts for a more jagged approach, as it fuses skittish snares and hats at the fore with deep and vaporous pad tapestries in the background, resulting in the kind of heavily FX-layered, acid-leaning sleepwalker that'll keep the dancers' legs in motion even though their eyes seem shuttered.