Fan­tas­tic label 2600 Record­ings has brought the qual­ity again with their lat­est release, Aupheus’ Exca­vated EP. The eight song salvo is full of dark atmos­pheres and relent­less drums. It all kicks off with the title track’s omi­nous intro. The intri­cate drum pro­gram­ming is tied with a lightly syn­co­pated bass that gives the whole thing a slightly futur­is­tic sound, Blade Run­ner by way of Wild Style. “Insec­toid” feels like 90s turntab­lism updated to the new cen­tury, com­plex scratch rou­tines float­ing atop pound­ing per­cus­sion and cin­e­matic waves of noise. This widescreen feel to Aupheus’ music is one of the most inter­est­ing traits of the EP, with each track being a mini-film expe­ri­ence. The seven-minute “Fourth Dimen­sion” is a good exam­ple of this, shift­ing through heady move­ments that evolve and mutate, all the while keep­ing up a con­sis­tent tone. Even the titles of tracks evoke a nar­ra­tive, from “Exca­vated” to “Exoskele­ton” to the ele­gant “Frozen Sur­face.” One can imag­ine a space explo­ration land­ing on a planet to uncover it’s secrets and find­ing some­thing ter­ri­fy­ing and mirac­u­lous below the sur­face. One of the strongest tracks, “Frozen Sur­face,” starts out with chim­ing notes and devel­ops a wind­ing stair­case of ambi­ent sound, grounded by the stut­ter­ing drum pro­gram­ming beneath. The purely ambi­ent tone poem of “After­life Empire” (as well as closer “Three Thou­sand Years of Sleep”) could eas­ily be the actual moment of con­tact with a dor­mant species that once had a majes­tic life. Over the course of an EP, Aupheus shows that he can craft a nar­ra­tive through music. It’s a great story to hear.

Approach­ing the Con­tact, Love, Want, Have game cab­i­net, I’m ner­vous. Stark black-and-white graph­ics omi­nously fore­tell the chal­lenge ahead. A sin­gle word is embla­zoned across the front: Ikonika. Who is this mys­te­ri­ous Ikonika? As the paren­the­sis of intro track, “Ikonok­last (Insert Coin),” orders me to, I insert my change (or $15) and press play for the short instruc­tional level. I sure hope the name of the next level isn’t what I’ll turn out to be, because as “Idiot” begins, my thumbs furi­ously tap­ping out beats, laser melodies bom­bard me and I have trou­ble keep­ing up. The mil­i­tary beat helps me keep my head, though, I pre­vail! Com­ing out the other side of this tough early level, I feel embold­ened but SHIIIIIIIII–! Here comes “Yoshim­itsu,” the silent space ninja attack­ing me on all sides, mov­ing through time, slow­ing it down. I expe­ri­ence the attacks as gen­tle waves of synths.… but when he stops, my expe­ri­ence as a war­rior is hum­bled. He allows me to pro­ceed through to the under­wa­ter level of “Fish” though, where I bat­tle exotic amphib­ians with the help of a soundblaster-equipped sub­mersible. Float­ing amidst the clack­ing sea-life and bright lights of bio­lu­mi­nes­cent allies, I suc­ceed in reach­ing my goal: “R.E.S.O.L.,” the base-club where I will receive new train­ing by com­man­der Ikonika. (more…)

Ever wanted to hear what the dance club on Space Sta­tion V plays? Jneiro Jarel has got the answer right here. Released on his own Label Who record label, Android Space May­hem is a psy­che­delic explo­ration of beat struc­tures and sam­ple gym­nas­tics. After the short wob­bling rhythm of “Black Hole” intro­duces the EP, we are pre­sented with a ride along the sur­face of some dis­tant planet on “Swift Hov­er­crafts” in pur­suit of androids and low end. The track con­tains a dark bass line pro­pelling the shuf­fling per­cus­sion and SF nar­ra­tive voiceover. “Android Romance 1 & 2″ is the music androids put on instead of Barry White, a slinky slow burn of melo­di­ous vocals, crack­ing snares and buzzing synths. And “Going Home” fea­tur­ing Micha Guagh is the sound­track to your ride home through the dark­ness, min­gling sad­ness at leav­ing with hope of return­ing through it’s gen­tle use of march­ing per­cus­sion and beau­ti­ful elec­tron­ics. The pound­ing rhythm shake­down of “Black Blocks (Elec­troSon­icFreeR­o­bot­icS)” soon leads into the epic closer “Shadoze,” my per­sonal favorite of the EP. A dark con­coc­tion of omi­nous bass and synths, the drums hit slow and hard, the atmos­phere coat­ing the track in barely con­tained por­tents. It’s an extremely cin­e­matic way to end the visu­ally rich music Jarel has com­posed. The Android Space May­hem EP is released on April 13th by Label Who with dis­tri­b­u­tion by Alpha Pup Records.