Tracklist 12":

A1) Slide It In
A2) Space Skat N Dat
B1) New Life Livin
B2) Rough Sands
B3) Strollin Thru Barcelona

Release Info:
Toy Tonics welcome one of the US’ absolute legends in the game on their roster - Kai Alcé! One of the original masters of jazzy house, Kai is a prime example, someone who witnessed the genesis of Detroit’s electronic musical landscape and strives to keep that spirit alive. Being of Haitian descent laid the foundation for his musical ear starting with his childhood in Queens, New York. Some of his earliest musical influences included his mother’s penchant for soca music and the distinct Caribbean rhythms of his culture. An appreciation of Jazz would be further guided by his father’s expanding audiophile home system. During the 1970s the kindling of Hip Hop and the heyday of Disco perked the ear of a young Kai while they were living in NYC. The Big Apple would remain a constant throughout his musical journey as the years went on, but it was the move to Michigan that ultimately shaped his artistic vision.

On this 5 track EP Kai once again makes it all feel so easy! Deeply musical, yet also instantly effective on the dance floor, tracks like ‘New Life Livin’ and ‘Slide It In’ come with an ease that shows why he’s shaped the game for decades.




















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2024 repress

Tracklist:
A Monlink - Return to Oz - Artbat Remix – 8:00
B1 Monolink - Father Ocean - Ben Böhmer Remix – 7:56
B2 Monolink - Sirens - Patrice Bäumel Remix – 7:25

Short Info:
Berlin’s own Steffen Linck, a multi-instrumentalist known as Monolink, announces the 12” remixes release, due June 7th via Embassy One. ARTBAT + BEN BÖHMER + PATRICE BÄUMEL + MONOLINK – no more words needed.


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2LP

Tracklist
1. Bo Harwood & John Cassavetes - No One Around To Hear It
2. Chen Ming Chang - Rainwater
3. Bhairavi Raman & Nanthesh Sivarajah - Bittersweet Reflections
4. The King Of Luxembourg - Poptones
5. Slapp Happy - Is It You
6. O.G. Jigg - Jesus Is My Jam
7. Klang - As It Is
8. Scala - Fuser
9. Soft Location - Let The Moon Get Into It
10. Gyeongsu - YZOBEL (feat. CROCHE)
11. Omertà - Moments In Love
12. Kasumi Trio - Cabbage Butterfly
13. Un - Fast Money Blues
14. Delphine Dora - V
15. Harry Plunket-Greene - The Hurdy-Gurdy Man

Short info:

Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo’s Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022.


Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge – between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose ‘Rainwater’ (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora.


Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes’ ‘No One Around to Hear It’ (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà ; the beautiful, plaintively dubby ‘Is It You?’ by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL’s ‘Poptones’ by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats.


Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons.

2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Time Is Away’s first broadcast. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney’s still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du crépuscule, ensorcelled storytelling.





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RELEASE FORMATS: [ 2x12” LP] incl. 12 Tracks for download

GENRE/S: House / Techno

TRACKLISTS:

Vinyl:
A1 No Return (Intro)
A2 The Fine Line in Between
A3 A Subtle Change
B1 Move Your Hips
B2 Get By
B3 Talk to Me
C1 Back Up
C2 Cycler
C3 Funktown
D1 Unconditional
D2 I Will
D3 The Chamber (Outro)

Download:
1. No Return (Intro)
2. The Fine Line in Between
3. A Subtle Change
4. Move Your Hips
5. Get By
6. Talk to Me
7. Back Up
8. Cycler
9. Funktown
10. Unconditional
11. I Will
12. The Chamber (Outro)

SHORT INFO:

Fresh off a few top-of-the-range hors d'oeuvres to whet our appetite, Tal Fussman resurfaces on his dedicated imprint Survival Tactics with his longed-for debut album, 'The Fine Line In Between'. Right on the brink of even bigger things, as attested by the inclusion of his track 'It Was Misunderstood' on Dixon's seminal Innervisions mixing series, 'Secret Weapons 14', a contribution to the label's compilation 'Secret Weapons Part 15' a few months ago, and making it into Frankey & Sandrino's BBC 1 Essential Mix back in 2022, it's safe to say the Tel-Aviv-born, Berlin-based producer has been on a roll as of late, and 'The Fine Line In Between' is the fruit of all these years spent honing his skills and vision through some of the finest labels and stages out there. Kit up for a fascinating ride across Fussman's hypnotic headspace, the ideal liaison between hi-NRG floor potential and proper funky mischief.
Collated from beats recorded about a year ago, the idea for 'The Fine Line In Between' was, in Fussman's own words, to unfold as a "rollercoaster of emotions, happy, sad, angry, hopeful". Soaked in the Prophet 6's extra-terrestrial envelopes, the opening track 'No Return' is a highly cinematic escape from our earthly here and now, and a most meditation-compatible asset at that. Injecting some breaksy rhythm into its mechanisms, the title-track serves up a masterly built and deployed piece of floor-ready abstraction, suited for either after-daydreaming in the backroom or soundtracking your next sunset whirl on the autobahn. Back to a more hip-swaying, Latin-infused techno vibe, 'A Subtle Change' blends in the suave funk of dubbed-out Chicagoan classics with that of a samba-like chugging tempo, easing us into its warm and sensuous world in the most languid fashion. Making dazzling use of the Moog Sub Phatty's analogue grit and all-around incisiveness, 'Move Your Hips' draws a flock of oh-so-buoyant Rhodes stabs and has them flinging in all directions as a hi-intensity jack ensures maximal traction from the dancers. Hard-boiled boogie, set to no-surrender mode.
Lacking no oomph nor swing, 'Get By' goes from deep the dub techno spectrum's lower end, up sample-heavy disco house's most exhilarating heights, perfect for when the DJ needs that energetic offload but also requires some fiery syncopations to ignite the dance floor. More in the Moroder-esque vein of EBM you'd see being played over images of Ryan Gosling going pedal to the metal in Drive, 'Talk To Me' fires off an avalanche of sizzling arpeggios and menacing vocals, cooking the crowd up until a midway drop that shall obliterate any remnants of inhibition amongst the ravers. Birdsongs and tribal drums are on the menu of 'Back Up', a proper smashing bit of Afro-funk assault, flush with the blazing conga lines, chopped-up vox and that unrelenting bassy earworm going wild. A cannibal rite turned electrokinetic Rave-God worshipping. Thunderous and built for big-room get down, 'Cycler' finds Fussman at his most corrosive and combative, whereas 'Funktown' explores the more squelchy, unabashedly acid-friendly facet of the Israeli producer's all-embracing approach. Note, that second half of the track is bespoke gym workout material. Stretch your body and feel the gain.
A compelling mix of faux-organic lushness and surgical whoosh-step, 'Unconditional' melds high-voltage UK bass and garage alongside near-abstract electronica escapology, beautifully mingling the potent nature of intricate drum programming and ethereal flights of its endless textured pads. Pure peak-time business, 'I Will' is atomic energy stacked in a marble-sized core, highly volatile and bound to devastate any outdoor rave or club basement it may come into contact with. 'The Chamber (Outro)' rounds off the journey as it started, moving upstream onto the path of serenity, like the calm after and before the storm. Glimmering harps and warped chords entangle in a moving symphony of sorts, melancholic yet evocative of a spaciousness and freedom Fussman holds onto as its magnetic North.





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Format : Vinyl 12” (180 gr., Limited Full Cover)

Track list:
A1 Love Can Make It Happen
A2 Going Back to It
B1 Full Cycle
B2 Pockets

Release Info:

House music legend DJ Sneak shows us why he’s a master of the groove on his ‘Back to love’ EP for Heist Recordings.

There’s only a handful of people that can really say they’ve seen House music since its earliest days. Puerto Rica-born, Chicago-bred, and LA-based artist DJ Sneak is definitely one of them. He has been the king of the groove ever since his big break back in ’94 through Cajmere’s label Cajual and was key in the development of that mid-nineties house sound with appearances on labels such as Strictly Rhythm, Henry St Music and 83 West. Sneak has worked with some of the biggest artists in the game including Daft Punk, (delivering lyrics for their track ‘Digital Love’), Armand Van Helden and many more.

After a break in the past few years where Sneak re-evaluated his relationship with the scene and his music, he’s now back doing the thing he loves most: Making killer tracks and slamming it on a record. We’ve always considered each other friends and Sneak has been a true supporter of our music and the label since day 1, so it’s humbling to realize that we’re now in a place where we can let his music shine on Heist. With that, we’re proud to present this future classic from the master himself.

The aptly titled “Back to love” EP starts off with one of Sneak’s most intimate productions to date: “Love can make it happen”. Built around an ever-evolving vocal loop, and dreamy strings this track is deeper than deep with the percussion matching that meditative energy, with the grunt only Sneak can bring.

“Going back to it” is Chicago house music in its core. Moody chords, some vocal chops, a badass bass line, and solid percussion is all you need. With ‘Full Cycle’ on the flip, we see Sneak take back his rightful place as the king of the groove. It’s a track that has us reminiscing the days of ‘Paperclip People’ where the bluntness of a live recorded ‘on/off’ arrangement really adds something special to a track.

The EP ends with “Pockets”, a house jam with classic 90s vocals and energetic snare drums to add that classic New York touch to this already amazing record and shows us that DJ Sneak has a great feel for bringing modern day house music with a vintage feel.

As always, enjoy the music and play it loud!

Maarten & Lars
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