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12"
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BPC 265EP
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Remixes by Jesse Perez, Snuff Crew and Redshape, plus an extended version of "The Kiss." Jesse Perez's releases on labels such as Stereo Productions have regularly landed in the upper echelons of the house charts. The Germany-based Snuff Crew's trademark crunchy, old-school acid sound leaves a clear impression on their version of "The Kiss" and creates an intense, atmospheric after-party hit. Redshape sets the playful "Need" original on its way very gradually and carefully before bringing frenzied tribal drums into play and transforming the track into a kind of "evil twin" of the original.
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CD
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BPC 263CD
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In the early '90s, the world began taking a shine to a quite curious phenomenon which was still regarded in many places as part of the even more curious genre label IDM. Its protagonists such as Richard James and Autechre created grandiose and bewildering cosmoses of sound whose exponential complexity could only be escaped by departing in the opposite direction -- minimal techno as an escape route to the future. BPitch Control meets this current transition with an ambitious compilation album bearing the fitting title Where the Wind Blows. The name requires little interpretation: seventeen striking and all previously-unreleased tracks from as many artists reveal where the wind could be blowing at BPitch in the future. On board, alongside numerous label veterans such as Kiki, Thomas Muller, Jahcoozi, and label boss Ellen Allien herself, are renowned remixers from the BPitch network, including the Polish DJ duo Viadrina and the Irish-Canadian Amirali. Of course, a fresh wind means completely new input as well. So it comes as no surprise that the BPitch circle has been expanded to include a few more illustrious names such as Tomas Barfod, Douglas Greed and Mooryc, as well as Joy Wellboy who adorns the album with a cool, soulful-electronic, down-tempo gem. The transition from highly structured minimalism to atmospheric, song-oriented alternative electronica is a strong thread running through the entire album. It offers Telefon Tel Aviv's dramatic soundscapes just as much room as Dillon's distinctive, almost painfully intense singer-songwriter sketches. The label boss delivers very uncharacteristic cerebral cinema soundtrack, almost rocky in its driving rhythm; Chaim combines house and space-disco elements; mechanical sound specialist Thomas Muller serves up a piece that could almost be interpreted as tech-house parody; and Hercules And Love Affair singer Aérea Negrot takes us by surprise by revealing a naive-poppy side that no one would have previously suspected. The high proportion of vocal tracks on Where the Wind Blows underlines the commitment to color and the shift towards a new emotionality. Other artists include Mr. Statik (feat. Beatrice Ballabile), Camea, David K, and Apparat.
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12"
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BPC 261EP
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BPitch tech-house all-stars deliver new edits of their favorite tracks from their most recent digital singles: Chaim adds an extra layer of spookiness to his tech-house bomb "Ur Around Me." Skinnerbox's "God Is Fading" sounds energy-laden and tricky, and We Love's elegiac tech-house pearl "End of the Night" drives ahead with even greater urgency. The first few beats of "When Lou Met Vernon," from Kiki, leave no doubt as to his all-time favorite track.
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CD
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BPC 264CD
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Ellen Allien's new work LISm is already being referred to as a milestone in the label's history: rarely has an LP from the circle of BPC artists deviated so far from the club context as this one. The label boss has radically disposed of all established musical templates and created space for 45 minutes of sonic experiments that lie well beyond any functional paradigm -- a highly emotional soundtrack for one's "inner cinema," but also a creative process with a considerable fun factor. The starting point for LISm came in 2010. Ellen was approached by two choreographers and dancers to compose music for their dance performance "Drama per Musica." Under the direction of Alexandre Roccoli and Sevérine Rième, the performance took place on March 7th, 2011 as part of the Spectacles Vivants Festival at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Drawing from the genre-spanning structure of her DJ sets, Ellen invites the listener to experience the piece as a musical journey with constantly-shifting scenes and impressions. After the successful performance, Ellen initially leaves the music resting on her hard drive before deciding, in early 2012, to revive and rework the stage music for her next album. With this in mind, she invited her label-mate of many years, Thomas Muller, and the Berlin-based DJ and producer Bruno Pronsato aka Steven Ford, to her studio in Berlin. As could be expected from this constellation, LISm offers up a considerable breadth and openness of style: rhythmic slivers and fragments are arranged like pieces of a jigsaw until they eventually form a recognizable whole and take shape in the mind of the listener. Instead of focusing on beats and melodies, Ellen works over song phrases with parameters such as volume and tonal density. Swing loops, piano motifs and vocal fragments recited like mantras are just a few of the associative elements that pass before the inner eye, until they too are finally merged into the rhythmic flow of a timelessly-serene, perfectly danceable down-tempo electronica track. At this point the musical elements, connected by an overarching melody, paint a coherent and memorable picture -- a very spiritual picture, as Ellen stresses, which in turn offers a profound insight into one's own emotional world. LISm, originally created in the context of the performing arts, thus generates its own images and associations with their own content in its second phase of conception. The extremely unique and challenging nature of this work also opens the door to intriguing conjecture about BPC's stylistic orientation as the label moves into the future.
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12"
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BPC 260EP
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On Spending Time Together, BPitch veteran Kiki has put the microphone into the hands of none less than Hercules & Love Affair singer Shaun J. Wright. The two of them seem made for each other -- Shaun's soulful, laid-back vocals drape across Kiki's powerfully-produced beats like a dark silk cloth. The title-track is classic house perfection: dark, sexy and cool. "Bright Dub" is illuminated by thick chords and soulful vocals, while on "Dark Dub," the music is swallowed up in the gloom of night.
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12"
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BPC 259EP
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The remixes showcased on Dillon's Your Flesh Against Mine EP once again achieve what appears to be the virtually impossible: six different producers including Denniz Kurtel, Lee Foss & MK, Creep and Life & Death combine Dillon's singer-songwriter compositions, all trembling with internal tension, and turn them into a whole that is as multi-faceted as it is homogenous, and which has some truly danceable tracks for both on and off the dancefloor.
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CD
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BPC 255CD
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BPitch Control welcomes the long-overdue and keenly-awaited debut album from the Italian DJ, remixer and producer duo System Of Survival. The 12 tracks on Needle and Thread combine to form an imaginary journey through the musical world of the protagonists. Their output is rich and varied, for it is based on almost 20 years of highly successful musical collaboration: Pietro "Bingo" De Lisi's soul and funk background, Alex Carpetieri's roots in Detroit and Chicago techno, their first joint success in the clubs of their home city of Salerno and finally, their big break in their current center of operations -- as residents of the legendary Circo Loco/DC10 in Ibiza. Needle and Thread tells of never-ending Balearic party madness; it reflects the intimate, creative atmosphere of the DC10 crew and presents house as a globally celebrated and universally understood formula. Bingo and Alex are masters of this formula in all its varieties: each of the 12 tracks contain pieces of the complex musical patchwork that defines the pair's artistic background -- but not in the sense of a retrospective or obvious citations. Rather, as playfully thrown together fragments, removed from their context and plucked out of time, thus able to shift and transform, but nevertheless universally recognizable. System Of Survival take these building blocks and construct their very own house universe, preserving it throughout the entire album -- beats at a restrained tempo create a calm, powerful pulse; classic sounds and melodic figures of hazy beauty that repeatedly drift by like mist, lending each and every track that unique balance of dancefloor energy and intense cerebral cinema. The mixture reaches maximum intensity in the delightfully weightless synth-pop track "W Pitch Down," the track "X-Pert" that fans will know from System's EP Rough Everytime, and the bass-line bomb, "Attitude." This is where Bingo's penchant for '80s techno classics and blaxploitation films makes itself heard -- although once more without resorting to simple citations. The most unusual track is surely "Crash What" -- a cool, downtempo number that starts off with quirkily tweaked Joey Beltram sound snippets, then suddenly transforms into a captivating pop track with crooner vocal samples. Features inspired performances from selected guest vocalists such as Surfbit, Anna Gi and Pietro Caprioglio aka Autre and Hercules And Love Affair singer, Shaun J. Wright.
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12"
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BPC 251EP
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The Italian DJ, remixer and producer duo Pietro "Bingo" De Lisi and Alex Carpentieri are among the elementary figures of the Ibiza party scene and the hard core of the Circo Loco/DC10 crew. Thanks to their unerring demands on musical quality, S.O.S. continues to cement their status as rock-solid stylistic bastions after more than a decade at the center of the Balearic party madness. Bingo and Alex aka System Of Survival celebrate their BPC debut on this 12" with vocalist Anna Gi.
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12"
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BPC 252EP
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"Macuto" features musical support from Aérea Negrot's live percussionist Miguel Toro. Wareika pair the track's spooky vocals with a sturdy electro beat, creating a potential after-party classic. There's also a remix from Italian DJ and producer duo System Of Survival. The EP's outstanding production comes courtesy of Mark Pistel, whose credits include illustrious names such as Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto, Hector Zazou and Grace Jones.
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12"
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BPC 249EP
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In keeping with the theory that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, the two BPC veterans Kiki & Chaim produce their 12" Love Kills! as a combined effort. The pair are hardly strangers to one another: their mutual remixes, Kiki's excellent version of Chaim's album title-track "Alive" in 2011 and Chaim's 2009 smash with Kiki's "Good Voodoo" set the bar high and whet the appetite for more.
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