Huerco S.
Plonk

Adding a percussive and experimental edge to the current class of post-dubstep pioneers, Mount Kimbie, the duo of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos - are set to release their highly anticipated debut album 'Crooks & Lovers' on Scuba's Hotflush label in July. Mount Kimbie's first two EPs - 'Maybes' and 'Sketch On Glass' - seemed like explorations of spaces so private that all within earshot were instantly turned into voyeurs. The experience was less like listening to music and more like eavesdropping on the machinations of a lone mind - albeit a lone mind surrounded by and retreating from millions of other minds. Difficult to categorise, the lush EPs caused a commotion when released last year with 'Sketch On Glass' recently undergoing reworks from the likes of Faulty DL, SCB (Scuba's darker techno alias) and their sometime collaborator James Blake. With their own remixes (Foals and The xx) becoming hot property, Mount Kimbie have been a core part of the growing scene in London often associated with labels like Hyperdub and Hessle Audio. Dom and Kai met whilst at Southbank University, pushed together in a student halls that was previously a mental asylum - where the ceilings were still ridiculously high to stop patients hanging themselves: 'a cold, joyless, concrete building - the sort of building where you'd drop a pen and the sound would just go on and on in an echo.' Armed with found sound snips and a siege mentality, Kai and Dom set about turning London's ambience into rhythm, its chaos into coherence. Traces of influence remain - the hard-earned spaces of Burial and The Bug vie with the berserk melodrama of Xiu Xiu and Grouper's sad-eyed glow, D'Angelo's pervert soul gets cleansed in the intimacy of Phil Elvrum's Microphones, Angelo Badalamenti's swollen 'Twin Peaks' atmospheres find a cradle in Madlib's lax lope. The band's sound and response to the dubstep moment is very much their own. Sceneless and untethered from etiquette and genre codes, 'Crooks & Lovers' floats through dubstep and hip-hop, jazz, techno and ambient, post-rock, UK garage and film scores to startling effect.Mount Kimbie - who play as a live band - have announced a string of European festivals & shows for the summer.

Words from the Author:'Here comes another alias...These ideas were originally drafted and prepared for two live performances in Paris and Amsterdam in 2017. I took a reactionary approach to these performances, specifically in that I would not “perform” anything but rather “present” what could be called a snapshot of my studio explorations at the time. To be presented on record, outside of a live performance setting, some amendments have been made but the live sequence has remained intact.Play it loud.'Comes with printed colour insert.

Francesco Messina is perhaps best known for his collaboration with fellow composer Raul Lovisoni on the album Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo, originally released on seminal Italian label Cramps in 1979. Along with contemporaries Franco Battiato, Juri Camisasca and Giusto Pio, Messina would help reshape the world of modern composition with an organic rawness and haunting beauty.In 1979, Messina was asked to perform at the Teatro Quartiere in Milan. As the composer writes in the liner notes, "Due to the limited availability of key technical features, it would have been too complicated to perform Prati Bagnati, and therefore I opted for these three pieces instead. We had never actually tried them all together, so I thought about renting a recording studio the previous afternoon. In that way, we could rehearse in a suitable place and use the opportunity to record the music on tape."Unreleased for over thirty years, and rediscovered thanks to Die Schachtel label (and included in their Prati Bagnati CD edition), the recordings on Reflex have an unadorned, almost improvisational feel. "Untitled" (featuring Lovisoni's plaintive flute) and "I Nuovi Pescheti" are full of meditative piano passages that lend an aura of new age, while the title track is more insistent with unfurling chords layered in real time via a reel-to-reel tape machine, resembling Steve Reich's mesmeric phase-shifting works of the '60s.A central figure within the Italian avant-garde, Francesco Messina gracefully expands his country's contribution to Minimalism. This first-time vinyl release is recommended for fans of Joanna Brouk, Luciano Cilio and Charlemagne Palestine.

Composed, mixed and masterised by Welders Hifi en 2016Vocal by Alpha D and Sersha RockMelodica & flute composed and recorded by Alpha DProduced by Elise GZ (association Faut Qu’ça Son)

Californian artist Diamond Ortiz makes his Neon Finger debut and in doing so brings plenty of his homeland's sunny soul to the fore. This magnificent 7" brims with West Coast influences and low riding beats. The original version on the a-side, '4 Really Tho', is all filtered vocals and squelchy boogie bass that is impossible warm and smooth. Dazzling chords and big hand claps complete the vital cut and then the flip removes the vocal and allows the majestic chords and bass to really shine. This sure is an essential cop for all funk lovers.