[2012] Russell Haswell - Factual

Russell Haswell is enjoying a purple patch at the moment: Factual is effectively his third album this year, following the recent 5" Vinyl Series LP on Downwards and the Scandinavian Parts live document for iDEAL, and is if that weren't enough he's soon to unveil Concrete Fence, a new collaborative project with one of modern techno's most revered figures. Haswell's stubbornly abrasive recordings, not to mention his live sets, are invariably hard-going for even the toughest and most adventurous ears, and so it may surprise some of you to learn that Factual is a diverse, dynamic and - by Hazza standards - accessible work.

Tracklist:
01 Black Metal Instrumental Intro Demo
02 Urban No!Se
03 Killer Snakehead
04 Record Shop Day
05 Rave Nihilation
06 Sheffield


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[2012] Lorenzo Senni - Quantum Jelly

Russell Haswell, EVOL, Mark Fell, Lee Gamble - at the moment there's no end of rave-savvy sound artist types deconstructing dance music for the pleasure of sick and inquisitive minds. Lorenzo Senni is the latest to join the club (no pun intended), making his eMego debut with an album influenced by his love of "90s trance/hard-trance music and a growing interest in the musical structures and sound archetypes of these genres." What this amounts to is the Italian artist identifying generic characteristics - super-saw synth lines, ludicrous build-ups, instant-gratification melodies - and drawing attention to their strangeness through isolation and repetition.

Tracklist:
01 XmonsterX
02 Windows Of Vulnerability
03 Makebelieve
04 Digital ∞ Tzunami
05 Powerage Xion4


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[2012] Jim O'Rourke - Old News #8

For anyone unfamiliar with the breadth of Jim O'Rourke's incredible oeuvre - especially his electro-acoustic and computer works - Mego's Old News series must be a total revelation. This eighth edition is a remastered version of the 'Mere' section to his 1992 release 'Disengage' for Staalplaat recorded live at Depaul University in 1991, now with an additional 18 minute addendum 'Merely'. O'Rourke processes contributions from Jeff Cortazzo (Trombone), Sue Wolf (Cello), Michael Prime (Shortwave), plus the vocals of Geoff Fontaine, Gretchen Wells, Matt Guerierri, and Scott Shell into glowing, swelling microtonal drones and timbral scree, sweeping into pensile, gossamer ambience and plangent sonorities, opening the moment to near-infinity and exploring its depths to the fullest. Surprisingly, the final section introduces the rolling percussion of Carrie Biolo, gradually accumulating glassy tones until a crucial balance is tipped and a passage of slow, incendiary electro-acoustics consumes all, fading out to drone. Remarkable stuff.

Tracklist:
01 Mere Pt 1 15:19
02 Mere Pt 2 17:10
03 Mere Pt 3 13:48
04 Merely 18:23


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[2012] Emeralds - Just to Feel Anything

It seems like eons ago that Ohio weirdos Emeralds dropped their genre-baiting ‘Does It Look Like I’m Here?’ and single handedly re-routed their sound from the pensive overdriven drones of ‘Solar Bridge’ to something more progressive and rhythmic. ‘Just to Feel Anything’ picks up after a couple of years of ceaseless touring and a seemingly endless stream of oddities from John Elliot’s increasingly prolific Spectrum Spools label, and once again finds the three piece confounding their built-in audience. If its predecessor took the Emeralds core sound into more mainstream areas, then ‘Just to Feel Anything’ goes still further, giving their characteristic sounds a breathy sheen you’d rather expect to find on an early 90s action movie soundtrack than a basement noise act from the Mid West. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s followed their progress from the beginning, as this is simply a realization of the trio’s manifesto, but it might come as a shock for those of you hoping for a return to the dreamy synth-clouds that dominated their early catalogue. It’s propulsive stuff, and has been put together with the kind of defined narrative you’d more likely expect from a prog rock concept album – there are the usual elements of Ash Ra and mid-80s Tangerine Dream, but these are offset by what sounds like a keen knowledge of Pink Floyd, pre-electronic Bill Nelson and 90s chiptunes. Somehow these influences are melted together into glossy, coherent ‘songs’ and while they’re bound to polarize listeners, the hardline retro fetishism has forced the band to land on a sound that they can truly call their own.

Tracklist:
01. Before Your Eyes
02. Adrenochrome
03. Through & Through
04. Everything Is Inverted
05. The Loser Keeps America Clean
06. Just to Feel Anything
07. Search For Me in the Wasteland


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[2012] Fennesz - Fa 2012 [12'']

Past made present: 'Fa', from Christian Fennesz's 1997 debut album, Hotel Paral.lel, re-licked by Mark Fell and the man himself. It's easy to forget how techno the original record was - as eMego put it, it was intended as "an exercise in exploring alternate means of hearing club-based music" - and interestingly, not to mention pleasingly, Fennesz has done nothing to soften or slow the locomotive 4/4 throb of 'Fa' for his 2012 version, even as he makes the atmospheres that encircle and enfold the beat more complex, more crisp, more lambent this time around.

Tracklist:
A1 Fa (Mark Fell Remix)12:06
B1 Fa 2012 9:06


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[2012] Kassel Jaeger - Deltas

Coming from the hallowed corridors of the GRM studios in Paris, you know that you're going to be getting some ear candy, and this fifth album from Swiss-French sound artist Kassel Jaeger certainly provides. Made up of three recent compositions, 'Deltas' is an exploratory record, functioning on the fringe of electronic music. Opener 'Campo Del Cielo' is an ear-churning manipulation of field recordings of stones (seriously), offset in the second half by electromagnetic captures of meteorite resonances.

Tracklist:
01 Campo Del Cielo 17:30
02 Deltas 7:17
03 A Guest + A Host α 12:29


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[2012] Nick Edwards - Plekzationz

Since launching his Ekoplekz project a couple of years back, West Country boy Nick Edwards has released records on such esteemed imprints as Mordant Music, Perc Trax, Punch Drunk, Public Information and Further. To celebrate his signing to Peter Rehberg's Editions Mego, Edwards has even ditched the Ekoplekz handle, reverting to his real world name - possibly a gesture of seriousness or a newfound confidence, but also a nod to a self-released cassette he put out as Nick Edwards in 1994, the first public document of his long-standing interest in dub, industrial and toolbox electronics. Still, make no mistake - as its title suggests, Plekzationz is very much an Ekoplekz album, albeit the rangiest and most evolved to date, and it even sounds - dare we say it - definitive.

Tracklist:
01 Chance Meets Causality Uptown 16:24
02 (No) Escape From '79 15:14
03 Inside The Analog Continuum 15:48
04 A Pedant's Progress 15:39


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[2012] Mark Fell - Sentielle Objectif Actualité

Even before it was revealed that Mark Fell was behind the sensuous, unspooled but strangely disciplined house productions on Editions Mego's Sensate Focus 12" series, one might've guessed that the Sheffield-based artist was responsible, given his prior form deconstructing garage and techno as one half of SND. That said, his approach here differs to the ascetic, rhythm-obsessed approach of SND: the rhythms here are, in fact, the most conventional element, generally pretty rudimentary if still strangely compelling. No, it's Fell's digital synthesis where the real magic lies. The dreamy melodies and uncanny repetitions, not to mention the sheer unctuousness of the sounds employed, make this some of the most accessible, immediate material in the Fell canon, but nonetheless there's the usual rigorous formalism at work across the seen tracks here, all remixes of productions from the previously released SF 12"s.

Tracklist:
01 SOA-1 7:43
02 SOA-2 8:43
03 SOA-3 6:37
04 SOA-4 7:19
05 SOA-5 8:27
06 SOA-6 10:14
07 SOA-7 5:14


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[2012] Thought Broadcast - Emergency Stairway

Following a recent release on the reactivated Olde English Spelling Bee, California artist Ravi Binning lands on Editions Mego. That he's found a place on two such extreme and exacting rosters gives you some hint of the crafty, almost occult power of his junkshop electronic experiments. This is really grotty, lo-fi stuff, rooted in the murk of late 70s industrial, dub and even, reckon Mego, "a twisted form of Aktionism". Though there are several contemporary artists who share Binning's aesthetic orientation, few can be said to go about their business so uncompromisingly - in terms of polish and accessibility, Emergency Stairway makes Ekoplekz sound like Toto by comparison.

Tracklist:
01 Conflict Dub 4:02
02 Orgone Theater 2:16
03 03.18.2012 2:37
04 Breaking Test 5:13
05 Riot 2:35
06 03.10.2012 3:12
07 Portrait Heads 3:45
08 Silver Action 2:35
09 Beyond Self Immolation 4:05
10 Emergency Stairway 5:26


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[2010] Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal

'Returnal' is the fourth LP from the Boston/New York based synth dreamer, Oneohtrix Point Never. Last year's 'Drifts' set was a compendium of his previous - and very hard-to-come-by - albums for labels including No Fun, Arbor and Gneiss Things and was a clear favourite for many in 2009, held in high regard by the Wire magazine, and cherished dearly by anyone in its possession.

Tracklist:
01 Nil Admirari
02 Describing Bodies
03 Stress Waves
04 Returnal
05 Pelham Island Road
06 Where Does Time Go
07 Ouroboros
08 Preyouandi


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