Musique Non Stop | eMusic Electronica

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Heatsick, Re-Engineering Posted: 04 Dec 2013 02:19 PM PST Turning to Eurodisco, acid house and samba If New York and Berlin-based label PAN, home to the likes of Lee Gamble and SND, is a hub for musical cross-pollination, then Steven Warwick, the mind behind Heatsick, is its resident Puck — an indefinable smart-aleck with an aim to gently provoke. A Casio wiz with a wide-ranging skill for emulation, Warwick mixes composed figures with improvisation in his live sets, a technique he used to blissful effect on 2012′s Déviation EP. On Re-Engineering, his latest, most compact effort, he tunes his ear to Eurodisco, acid house and samba to explore the concept of DJ tools for club play. Warwick’s creations are most appetizing when served with a dash of self-awareness (the industry-spoofing “Watermark”), a strength that helps him wink suggestively at institutions like British radio and the aging dance-club culture that informs his music. “Speculative” squirms under smokey lounge ornamentation, while “Mimosa” has a kitschy Afro-Cuban topcoat, and the lightly funky title track paraphrases William Carlos Williams in a deadpan spoken-word piece (“a poem is a machine made out of words”). That piece is later reprised on “Accelerationista” amid chittering birdsong, and alongside the hypnotic “Dial Again,” it sounds like an invitation either to call back, or disconnect entirely.

Laurel Halo, Chance of Rain Posted: 04 Dec 2013 08:16 AM PST Insatiable, iridescent headphones music Ina Cube, the New York-based electro-auteur and producer who records as Laurel Halo, walks a fine line between the cerebral and the visceral. The first quality has always come naturally to her. As befits a classically trained disciple of Steve Reich’s systems music, her ambient debut album, Quarantine, was a twitchy, beats-free anxiety attack of a record that was named album of 2012 by esoteric UK music mag The Wire. For this follow-up, Cube eschews the meticulous micro-editing and obsessive tweaking behind Quarantine in favor of sweat and spontaneity. The majority of the tracks on Chance of Rain take their cue from her live show, where Cube has always been far more improvisational, and it shows: the title track revisits old-school Detroit techno, “Thrax” is an joyous wallowing in juicy bass wobbles, and the halting sprung-rhythms of “Serendip” will appeal to unreconstructed drum ‘n’ bass heads everywhere. Cube’s conversion to the dance floor is not absolute, however: The poignant, abstract “-Out” is a piano-led meditation, pregnant with yearning and need. It’s a pity she has retired her Nico-like, vulnerable vocal that was such an engaging element of Quarantine, but no matter: Here is insatiable, iridescent headphones music to dance to.