Emotional Response Electronic & Dance 12 Items

Two revered dance music institutions come together here as Pye Corner Audio steps up to Emotional Response with his debut EP for the label. What's more, it is a two-parter with the second half also available now. This one from Martin Jenkins finds him making an homage to the acid house he has always loved with opener 'Stegan Acid' starting with slow grocers and foggy moods run through with subtle 303 modulations. 'Magnetic Acid Three' is another deep and stripped-back sound with rumbling drums and bass coloured with soft acid contours and 'Thermionic Acid' gurgles a little more as the icy hi-hats cut through a mutant deep techno swamp. 'Magnetic Acid One' is one final meditation on acidic house depths.

Pye Corner Audio shows off his love of acid on the first of two EPs for Emotional Response that drop simultaneously. This first one is his debut on the label and comes with a gorgeous cover that perfectly encapsulates the sounds within. 'Dust Acid' is a sparse cut with dusty drums and meandering basslines that slowly sink you in, then 'Magnetic Acid Two,' which like all of these was recorded live, is another expertly reduced brew of murkiness with plenty of frayed edges and vintage analog sounds. 'Wanna Show U Acid' is a late-night acid dream and 'Magnetic Acid Four' shuts down slightly more bite. Four timeless backroom cuts, make no mistake.

You can never really pin down what the excellent Emotional Repose label does and that is exactly the sinking behind the title of its superb All Trades show on NTS. The sheer eclecticism of that show is now reflected in this new two-part compilation, also called All Trades, which offers up little morsels of what they do, something like a sonic tasting menu at a fancy restaurant. There is chugging electronic dub from Apiento & Tepper, industrial clatter from Black Bones, cosmic ambient breakbeat from Paperclip Minimiser and blissed out dub from Yamila & SoFa Elsewhere amongst many more highlights.

Emotional Response returns with a second volume of its All Trades compilation which is named after its own NTS show. It is just as vast both in terms of style but also the eras it spans with a mix of dub, new wave, slow motion electronics and plenty in between. Tolouse Low Trax kicks off with the filthy dirty and seriously heavy dub glitch of 'Ossia' to provide an early highlight before the likes of Al Wootton get percussive and tribal with 'Altai' and Hlm38 channels some African Head Charge on another devastating dub cut. Later on, London's Good Block brings a little more light and sunshine with their lovely 'Strong Relax.'

Emotional Response is delighted to present elsewhere LVI. The 4th of soFa's compilation series, this double LP takes us to the darker side of the elsewhere ouvre, via another 12 artist / 12 track travelogue. With certain future-retro feelings, this is club music for the open minded. An album that roams from dreamy ambient territories to rhythmic patterns - internationalism for the adventurous DJ. Rusty slow-mo bangers and post-industrial synth-wave kidnap the listener to a dystopic and shady wasteland. Elements of ethnic folk, vintage vocoders and Gamelan samples all united on one homogeneous selection. With artists now known to welcoming new brethren, this is an audio trip to leave reality behind. Exotic, hypnotic, tactile, trance-inducing meditations, washed down with a spoonful of magick.

Emotional Response presents Elektronik Body Girl, a musical alter-ego of artist Shelbatra Jashari, with production by soFa elsewhere. Spontaneously born out of 2 souls in an imaginary industrial wasteland of earthly survivors, this Belgo-Albanian postpunk extravaganza is perfectly suited for our unreal times.

Infused with raw attitude and improvisational approach, Shelbatra is an artist, dancer, performer, and singer in search of challenges and expressive forms into new territory, with an individual way in dealing with the ""empowering feminine" and its representation - a vision central to her artistic creation.

Teaming up with Brussels based soFa DJ, they debut an EP of challenging story-telling comes backed with a wonderfully conjured beatdown remix by label associate, Tolouse Low Trax, to act as a seal of dis)approval.

First known as a DJ and selector and then compilation curator of the "elsewhere" series of albums across multiple labels - including Emotional Response Ers042) - soFa recent collaborations as Mameen 3 on Bongo Joe, Cccvvv on Strangelove Music and the highly praised album with Houschyar and Okay Temiz on Second Circle, has established him as a producer of repute in an incredibly short time space.

Taking a production backseat to underpin Jashari's performance, his percussive, atmospheric oeuvre allows her vocals to explore roots in both Kosova and Belgium, molding a focus on the art of "the other" or the outsider. Outside the "normality"", a different energy is heard. Exploring elements of the human body, the human condition and its representation in various "thinking" systems and political contexts, EBG is manifestation in sound and movement.

Emotional Response celebrates it's 10th Anniversary in repressing a label's long held favourite - Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Alexis Georgopoulos wonderful Fragments Of A Season - coming together perfectly for an album of laconic story-telling and atmospherics.

Over the past decade, Cantu-Ledesma and Georgopoulos have been frequent collaborators. With one another - Jefre's recent ""On The Echoing Green' Mexican Summer), Arp's "The Soft Wave" Smalltown Supersound) and The Alps "Le Voyage" Type) - and with others. Jefre has worked with Grouper aka Liz Harris), filmmaker Paul Clipson and has released music by Harold Budd, Oneohtrix Point Never and Keith Fullerton Whitman on his Root Strata imprint, while Alexis has worked with visual artists Tauba Auerbach and Doug Aitken, scored dance for Merce Cunningham, choreographer Jonah Bokaer and made liminal classical music with Canterbury composer Anthony Moore Frkwys 3 / Rvng Intl.).(Emotional) Especial

In all of their projects, the two have always been masters of atmosphere. Veering between romantic abstraction, filmic ambiguity and suggested narrative, their music draws on personal and collective memory, letting things surface. Fragments Of A Season represents a new and distinct chapter in their ongoing work together, continuing this lineage of understated but resonant work.

Arising from conversations wherein each revealed that they'd been working on tracks with a similar feel in mind, the two quickly realized their songs fit together quite effortlessly. The goal was to do something immediate and spare - most songs simply use an old drum machine and a few chorused guitars, featuring live performances with minimal editing. The result, and indeed the goal of the project, was not to make an album that would simply sounds like what one would expect of the two - there are no modular synths or sequenced basslines, no motorik rhythms or overdriven distortions. Rather, to pursue a tangent of simplicity and clarity.

The result is an album of warmth and cool, sparse but evocative, earthy and luminous, narrative and abstract, taking influence from Les Disques Crepescule and early Cherry Red artists i the duo also cite Eric Rohmer's "A Summer's Tale" and the photography of Luigi Ghirri, whose image graces the cover.

Song titles provide narrative hints. As does New York-based writer Leigh Gallagher's short story enclosed within. Each song finds the story advancing - on the beach ""Marine""); at a discotheque ""Madagascar""); sleeping in the afternoon "Mirror The Sky"). Memory of cobblestone streets and a recent relationship ""Cleo"", "The Streets Are Filled With Rain"). A sense that this temporary idyll will end casts a shadow. Ultimately, for reasons unclear, it does ""Lost Summer"").

There is the sense that a distinct arc has taken place. On some faraway beach, the buildings are white, the skies and sea turquoise. Waves rise and crest. A shaft of light crosses an empty room. A discotheque can be heard in the distance. A mist burns off. Over the course of the ensuing astral summer weeks, an encounter sets the world known previously in relief. Days stretch out and the nights hum.

Cherrystones returns with the second of the "Aged" EPs for Emotional Response. Time propels and so does sound, thus orbiting nuances and motion leads us here, to present whatever maybe or interpreted as. Since the acclaimed Aged Of Bronze EP a symbiotic progress of craft arrives in the aptly titled Aged Of Silver. Again each track is like a coded syntax, unlocking the puzzle to aid a listeners journey and experience, building blocks to a utopian scape in form without form notes and pictures living and residing in the dimensions. Never pandering to trends, his art based on immediacy and the moment, no disposable sub genres that fade as fast as they emerge, transposing and emitting heard and unheard a way to communicate with himself and those that identify. A capsule of touched emotions bearing gifts for those in the present and wishing to be present, a key with keys analogue for Silver Tongues and Brass monkeys living in the shadow of a Scorpian's Tail.

"Emotional Response celebrates its 50th release with a special limited-edition from label stalwart Roy Of The Ravers. Following 2019’s magnum opus White Sunrise II is the accompanying “Soliel”, where our nom dee plume delves further into his archives of recently rediscovered disks to present an 8-track double pack, cut loud for DJ play.

The music too is more expansive, with the ambient and techno signatures matched with touches of jazz keys, Balearic sampledelica and even acoustic outtakes, all with that Ravers humour included.

The opening cinematic symphonies of The Smell Of Orange Peel and Kliszewicz Klopcic Klim highlight again a side not seen on his more acid / club cuts found on various labels. However, it’s the B side that compounds expectations with the deep house meets techno melodics of City Limits, before the ever-expanding feel-good vibrations of center piece Feathers hooks all. Sometimes a simple groove and catchy vocal sample is all you need to create a classic.

The second half then glides with 14 minutes of house dramatics via Versace 101624, a master of arrangement and beats, preempting the interlude of Clock House’s return. To close, EL-9400’s intense scatter percussion melds with anthemic acid undertones before its 2nd half melts to a choral ambience, leading to the closing acoustic jam dub curiosity My Brother And His Mate and the curtain for another stage in the Roy sagas. "

Following 2012's acclaimed Red Nail album, machine manipulator, DJ, collector and music auteur, Cherrystones has been consistently working - composing, producing, editing, educating, programming, soundtracking and performing.
Biding time, considering and now ready to present the latest instalment of his journey. After completing the Critical Mass compilation - with part 2 due late 2020 - he left London for Scotland for two years to isolate. An experiment to truly find himself, with no social circle or need to engage, the objective to alchemise and create.
Building an intensive, all analogue studio running to 1/4 & 2 tape, the majority of these recordings are the emotions and moods drawn from this detoxification. The widescream Rave Digger, horror-haus Lavid Grinch show a more expansive Cherrystones. The occult beats of Uhuru Glue lead to the anthem Amaziac, with it's organic AFX rising, before again down to future beats of Silver Soarde and closer, Sethodone Recess Plant.
A musical blacksmith, a magician, conjurer a part of me i knew existed but have never fully spoken to or back to, i saw the sun rise and the clouds swarm, i saw dark settle and as the process speaks for itself they were aged in Bronze, dawn of man-man of dawn.

Emotional Response is delighted to present a special project, a collection of music from Bartosz Kruczynski, recorded for "Selected Media" and presented here as a time-piece of his continuing works. Initially known as one half of sample based project Ptaki (The Very Polish Cut Outs / Transatlantyk), Kruczynski first appeared for Emotional Response as The Phantom for the first series of SchleiBen in 2015. Featuring two works of deep 'fourth world' sounds, they highlighted a shift to more mellow, synthetic and hazy compositions. His break out came, however, when he explored this sound further on his eponymous album Baltic Beat, for the acclaimed Growing Bin Records. This has been augmented with the recent club based music as one half of the wonderful Earth Trax (Rhythm Section International / Phonica Records) project. Here though, Kruczynski returns to the ambient and ethereal - plus a touch of dub techno - to showcase his expansive collaborative work with Polish studio, TVP Culture. Given free artistic license, the 15 'short form' recordings included here were for programming, in the main, on modern Polish Art including the likes of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Miroslaw Balka and Tadeusz Kantor, as well as some international aspects for Enrico Prampolini, Ai Weiwei and Monica Bonvicini. Taken from over 70 episodes the material included recollects imagery, video and memory to present a series of short vignettes that together create one whole. Minimal and hazy ambience (V, VII, VIII, XI, XII) envisages classic melodies and chords and is accompanied by further 'fourth world' pieces (I, II, III, VII, X)) that present an oeuvre that is recognisably the music of Kruczynski, while remaining fresh and perfectly meditative. A counter can be found in the atmospheric dub works (IV, IX, XIV) that hint at echo chamber environs to get infinitely lost in. As an album then, "Selected Media" can be heard as a snapshot to Kruczynski's music journey, a meeting of art and music that is oft overlooked but very much essential.

After the success of the 2 Late 4 Love EP, Roy Of The Ravers returns to Emotional Response with a double LP with a deeper perspective, experimenting in ambient and drone textures, lucid techno travails and acid interludes. Recorded between 1997 and 2017, the album was pieced together over the last six months after Roy's archives were first feared lost and then found. Approached by the label to release a follow up with something more introspective and personal, it was discovered that a recent move to a new studio had led to over 20 years of music being misplaced after it was believed they were mistakenly dropped at a local charity store. However, deep in a box of what were thought to be patch cables were in fact the decades worth of hard drives and here presented, is a sample of those lost recordings. The nature of the music is introspection, eschewing the acid beats and white noise for a personal encounter between man and machine. The orchestral opening of the title track gives way to the submarine beats, pulsing TB303 and gliding hats of Robinson College 10 to set the outlook to come. Even with the scattering A Dim And Distant Past waking lulled senses, the melodies and feel all lead to a pause and reflect rather than jump and shout. This is continued with the haunting drives of Bounce Erec and Oriental X0X-Press; the twisted, warped jams of The Weber Traum Boat Pt.3, Ichi and Roland Corp Labs 05; and the beautiful, heartfelt odes in Sade Lost Theme, The Clock House Pt.2 and closer, Nemesis '01. The album's melodic nature hums and shines as CS (6x8) appears as much a centre piece as a alternative consideration to the acid tinged, club bangs of Roy's releases to date. A surprise package maybe, but in the rolling, word of mouth phenomena that was Emotinium II, all this and more was sensed and so White Sunrise Music II, spreading across 12 songs of contrasting moods, is a further affirmation that there is something good and worthy of exploration.