Video: Lone – Inlove2

In 29^th October, the Nottingham-raised and highly-praised musician/DJ/producer Matt Cutler, AKA Lone, presents his 8^th album – and first in 5 years – ‘Always Inside Your Head’. It marks two major changes, with both a new label and new approach – featuring vocalists for the first time. 

This deeply textural and ethereal artwork is situated high above the clouds, amidst the heavens, occupying a stratospheric state where swathes of synthesized vapour and azure rays sound like a literal breath of fresh air. 

A varied selection of music influenced the record, but two main influences were Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine. “I wanted to approach a range of different styles, but attack them from their angle in a way, so for example on ‘Inlove2’ I tried to imagine what a Balearic / acid house tune might sound like if it were produced by Kevin Shields”, comments Lone. The ‘InLove2’ video is an analogue juxtaposition of colours and movements, where ghostly, distorted entities are melted into a psychedelic dream.

Lone – Mouth Of God

Lone shares new single ‘Mouth Of God’, taken from forthcoming album ‘Always Inside Your Head’.

Whereas ‘Hidden By Horizons’ – the first single to be released from Lone’s forthcoming album – explored the influence of Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine in collaboration with vocalist Morgane Diet, on ‘Mouth Of God’ Lone is back in solo mode, making music for the club. ‘Mouth Of God’ marks a shift in energy at a crucial point in the album, kicking things up several gears with a tearing electro-breakbeat-acid monster. But, like all music from Lone, it also tugs at your heartstrings, with his trademark lush pads and halcyon synth lines.

Lone’s new album, ‘Always Inside Your Head’ released 22^nd October on vinyl, CD, download & stream, via Greco-Roman

Video: Joe Goddard – Music Is The Answer

Joe Goddard’s Music Is The Answer video, taken from ‘Electric Lines’, the debut solo album out April 21 on Greco-Roman/Domino.

JeanGa and George – European Repetitive Beat LP

JeanGa and George, the international producers, music enthusiasts, and gentlemen DJ duo, release their debut album European Repetitive Beat on Greco-Roman today.

European Repetitive Beat – or E.R.B. – exists in a place firmly set in Europe where the rhythms and melodies of Gallic House meet those of Northern British Techno, with the Balearic fusion happening somewhere between Auld Alliance and friendly misunderstanding.

An eclectic range of influences, the album is aptly named as an attempt to best describe the music it contains. JeanGa and George make music based on electronic repetitions, melodic idiosyncrasies and their strong sense of being European; one being Scottish and the other French.

The duo’s penchant for experimentation rings through tracks such as ‘Showtime’ and ‘New Generation’, with an undeniably 80s tone to the vocals and elements of disco and electronic funk blended with the unconventional percussive sounds of steel drums and cowbells.

‘Sunscreen’ and ‘Compromise’, which are accompanied by a pair of drug-fueled but child-friendly videos, act as the audio-visual manifestation of this album. The characters were illustrated by Georgia Sawers, who created for JeanGa and George a psychedelic world of pen and ink, somewhere between Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Shrigley. Whilst sonically, ‘Sunscreen’ is a delightfully, playful piano led electronic ode to the summer, ‘Compromise’ feels more experimental, the piano playing a more arresting and dramatic melody as the protagonist questions the meaning of the word compromise.

A diverse, yet cohesive body of work; this intriguing album is held together by two emotive instrumentals. Opener, ‘Vista Del Mar’, sounds as it is described. A pleasant concoction of arpeggiated synths, twanging and isolated strums of an electronic guitar and a gentle percussion that builds up to crescendo and retreats just like the tides, lapping gently forward and back. The closer, ‘Gates of Dawn’ follows a similar structure as it moves along with constant introductions of extra layers of texture building to a crescendo. Gently crashing cymbals and flecks of vocoder sit above the continuous, calm hum of the harmonic chords.

JeanGa and George was born after a chance meeting at a London auction where the two producers were bidding against each other on the same Roland 707 drum machine. To avoid tears, they decided to share it and used their new acquisition to create their own breed of House, Techno and Balearic beat.

European Repetitive Beat marks the final creative product of a meeting of minds and a shared PayPal account.

European Repetitive Beat is OUT TODAY 20th January, 2017 via Greco-Roman.

LIVE:
28 January – JeanGa and George Live – East Bloc, London
11 February – George T DJ set (support Joe Goddard) – Jaeger, Oslo (NO)

Video: Joe Goddard – Lose Your Love

Hot Chip and The 2 Bears member Joe Goddard returns with his new solo house single “Lose Your Love”. The video is directed by Fred Rowson. Out now on Greco-Roman; get it here.

Roosevelt – Colours (Tyler Pope Remix)

Marius Lauber AKA Roosevelt recently released his self-titled debut album to worldwide critical acclaim, including praise from Pitchfork, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, NPR Music, among many others, and just kicked off a North American tour with sold-out shows at LA’s The Echo and San Francisco’s The Chapel. Other upcoming dates include Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, a sold-out show at NYC’s Mercury Lounge (9/27) and a soon-to-sell-out show at Rough Trade (9/28), and more- see below for a full schedule.

Today, Roosevelt shares a new remix of the single “Colours” by Tyler Pope of LCD Soundsystem. Pope says: “I really liked the melodic sensibility of the original track so it was easy for me to remix. I imagined my remix to be a combination of the pop disco that was already there mixed with techno.” Listen here:

Roosevelt – Colours (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)

On August 19th Marius Lauber AKA Roosevelt releases his stunning, self-titled debut album via Greco-Roman / City Slang records. Now, the official remix of single ‘Colours’ by Norwegian maestro Prins Thomas takes Roosevelt’s already uplifting original and works it into a deep, piano laden hypno-euphoric dancefloor masterpiece, which is primed for maximum festival and dancefloor madness this Summer. As well as this original remix, Prins Thomas will be providing an instrumental version and Roosevelt will be releasing his own dub take on the single.

“The Oslo disco scene has always been a big influence on my own productions, so it’s a big honour for me to have Prins Thomas remix one of my tracks.” Lauber tells us, “I would often play his remixes in my own DJ sets, because his way of creating club-friendly tracks – that still include a Krautrock and effortless 70’s vibe – is really unique. I saw Prins Thomas play one of his 5 hour sets and was blown away by his ability to build a sonic landscape with so much patience, educating the crowd with his selection and creating tension over a few hours, rather than feeling the urge to please them every 2 minutes”

Written, recorded and produced by Lauber over a period of two years. ‘Roosevelt’ the album is a pillow-soft hallucinatory dreamscape of nocturnal reveries and a lilting sense of melancholia, where sounds build and swell like waves.

Roosevelt’s signature hazy sound which ascends ever skywards is still present and correct – but this time it’s honed, crafted and less loop based. ‘Roosevelt’ showcases Lauber as a fully developed recording artist, with an instinctive synthesis of different soundscapes. This is a record with a deep affinity to the dance music world unified with sophisticated, classic song structures.

Roosevelt’s growth was catalyzed by an early DJ residency at Kompakt’s Total Confusion party alongside Superpitcher & Michael Mayer, with the label also releasing an early remix of his for COMA. These experiences helped Lauber realize how dance music connects to its audience in a different way to what he’d experienced from earlier days spent performing in bands. “What I really enjoyed about DJing was that you could see the results immediately – there was feedback and interaction from the crowd”, he explains.

Following this nightclubbing baptism, his career as an electronic artist gathered momentum. With praise from a selection of taskemaker media, mixes for Boiler Room, Electronic Beats and i-D, support tours with Hot Chip and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and a litany of high-profile festival slots around the world, Lauber steadily built up a dedicated following.

Photo by Brian Vu.

Tracklist
‘Colours’ (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
‘Colours’ (Roosevelt Dub)
‘Colours’ (Prins Thomas Diskomiks Instrumental)

Video: Roosevelt – Colours / Moving On

On August 19th Marius Lauber AKA Roosevelt releases his stunning, self-titled debut album via Greco-Roman / City Slang records.

To mark its launch Roosevelt unveils this video, which features two tracks from the album – ‘Colours’ and ‘Moving On’. This double-bill approach gives more insight into the album than the usual standard one song video format, but the intention was creative as much as it was practical.

With a surreal sensitivity akin to his previous videos, ‘Colours’ stars Roosevelt alongside various characters in an abstract exploration of the five senses (touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing). The segue into ‘Moving On’ then follows the protagonists’ walk from their dream-like state into an everyday street scene, where they find themselves lost in the sensory overload of real world modern life.

Roosevelt’s signature hazy sound which ascends ever skywards is still present and correct on the album – but this time it’s honed, crafted and less loop based. ‘Roosevelt’ showcases Lauber as a fully developed recording artist, with an instinctive synthesis of different soundscapes. This is a record with a deep affinity to the dance music world unified with sophisticated, classic song structures.

The glistening and gently undulating disco of ‘Night Moves’ features uplifting layers of delicately constructed guitars atop propulsive beats and expanding acid synths lines, whilst ‘Moving On’ utilizes Balearic slo-mo percussive grooves to mesmerising effect. The Tangerine Dream-esque ’Belong’ is pure euphoria, ‘Heart’ is a bright and breezy airborn anthem, and the stunning sunrise instrumental hypnosis of ‘Daytona’ blends seamlessly into the sublime, cooly life-affirming ‘Fever’.

Influences span continents and decades – from a pinch of French electro pop, a smattering of LA yacht rock, the hypnotic repetition of German pioneers like Ash Ra Tempel/Manuel Göttsching and Neu!, to classic floor-friendly 80s pop from Chic, Talk Talk and New Order. Nu school figureheads like Floating Points, Todd Terje and Metro Area are also partially audible – all weaved into his own unique sonic tapestry.

Roosevelt’s growth was catalyzed by an early DJ residency at Kompakt’s Total Confusion party alongside Superpitcher & Michael Mayer, with the label also releasing an early remix of his for COMA. These experiences helped Lauber realize how dance music connects to its audience in a different way to what he’d experienced from earlier days spent performing in bands. “What I really enjoyed about DJing was that you could see the results immediately – there was feedback and interaction from the crowd”, he explains.

The darkness hinted at in the title of ’Night Moves’ is also a nod to the energy you can get from a well-timed crowd climax. “It’s about the situation at night in a club when the energy is created as the night comes to an end,” he says. “The later the night gets there’s this peak of energy and people are having the illusion that there’s no end to it, and that power is incredibly strong.”

Following this nightclubbing baptism, his career as an electronic artist gathered momentum. With praise from a selection of taskemaker media, mixes for Boiler Room, Electronic Beats and i-D, support tours with Hot Chip and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and a litany of high-profile festival slots around the world, Lauber steadily built up a dedicated following.

Written, recorded and produced by Lauber over a period of two years. ‘Roosevelt’ the album is a pillow-soft hallucinatory dreamscape of nocturnal reveries and a lilting sense of melancholia, where sounds build and swell like waves.

Tracklisting:

1. ‘Intro’
2. ‘Wait Up’
3. ‘Night Moves’
4. ‘Belong’
5. ‘Moving On’
6. ‘Heart’
7. ‘Colours’
8. ‘Sea’
9. ‘Daytona’
10. ‘Fever’
11. ‘Hold On’
12. ‘Close’

Pre-order the album here.

Video: Lxury & LA Priest – Show

Here’s a collaborative track from Lxury and LA Priest called ‘Show’, coming on the Greco-Roman label and backed with the fun and ultimately, pretty damn cute if not slightly weird video. Cute and weird is good though.

The guys met when LA Priest was recording his debut album, recently released on Domino. They went in the studio to work on some of those album’s demos and ended up collaborating on some completely new stuff, of which Show is the first offering, an infectious spaced-out smooth jam as you’d expect from these two.

Tirzah – Make It Up

London-based singer Tirzah is back with a new single called “Make It Up”. The track is once again produced by Tirzah’s childhood friend Mica Levi, aka Micachu. The same titled EP is out now digitally via Greco-Roman. Get it here.