Some labels have embraced past, present and are looking to the future. Imprints like Analogical Force and De:Tuned thoroughly respect the product of two decades past whilst giving contemporary musicians a platform for their own output. Another label has just thrown its hat into the ring, reviving lost music from pioneers and releasing quality from modern machine musicians: Furhur Electronix. I caught up with founder and boss Anil Lal to find out what makes the new outing tick.
Electronic music can sometimes be like a partner who can’t get over a past love, that lost love in question being the 1990s. The two worked so perfectly together, the 90s was such a fertile ground with seminal labels like Rephlex, Skam and Warp delivering definitive releases. Nevertheless, such stickling nostalgia can have negative consequences. People moonily long for those halcyon days and idealize what has gone before. Some labels have embraced past, present and are looking to the future. Imprints like Analogical Force and De:Tuned thoroughly respect the product of two decades past whilst giving contemporary musicians a platform for their own output. Another label has just thrown its hat into the ring, reviving lost music from pioneers and releasing quality from modern machine musicians: Furhur Electronix. I caught up with founder and boss Anil Lal to find out what makes the new outing tick.
The Brighton boss has been “collector for many years,” finding himself hooked after “hearing radio shows on kiss fm from Colin Dale and Colin Faver, and the Future Sound of London transmissions.” This love of the classics is plain to hear the Furthur Electronix output, DMX Krew being their most recent and J.S. Zeiter aka Analog~1 inaugurating the catalogue.
Elements showcases another side of Zeiter’s understated and often underestimated style, with this 12” being the first Analog~1 release in four years. Known more as a dub-techno musician, this lesser known moniker explores a more cerebral sound. “Drift,” recorded in 2014, is reminiscent of B12. Astral chords are supported by whispered percussion in a piece of subtle elegance and grand expanses. “Arpeggiator (Reduced)” goes back some eight years. Made in 2006, Zeiter sculpts a beatless work of fragile crystalline chords. Notes cascade, trickling over one another for an excursion into otherworldly realms. The flip hosts the oldest track of the 12”. “Echoic,” produced in 2000, allows aspects of Zeiter’s signature dub tones to enter. Set to a morphing acid line the track bulges and contracts with spartan snares keeping time. Despite being made some eleven years later, “Mute” contains similar strands to “Echoic.” As ever, sounds are discreet and deep. A metronomic beat keeps time while keys bellow through a mist of static for an enveloping end.
Lal was no stranger to the record business. “I always wanted to start a label up, and myself and Ben Leigh started Revoke, and then I decided on a slightly different direction.” The white label look of Revoke would be replaced with “art” that’s “as good as the music” with Majkel of Stockholm being drafted in for the cover work. One element that didn’t change, and perhaps the most controversial is the limited number of pressings, 100-200 being the standard. This low number has led to some controversy. Releases, such as Junq’s excellent Lila Dreams, sold out almost immediately with clamors for represses coming far and forum wide. “Yeah a lot of people ask me that.. it’s not that I’m being elitist. It’s just that I have to adhere to what the artists wants at times. Also, cost and finances come into it. And sometimes it’s nice to test a release with 100-200.” And there’s good news for any out there heaving a heavy sigh at how quick 12”s have sold out, hinting that “somethings might see a repress.”
Although Revoke and Furthur Electronix are not directly related, the two imprints share many similarities. Influences and inspirations bisect the two, with FE’s fourth 12” having first been set for release on Revoke. DMX Krew is a pivotal figure in the world of electronic music, creating and recreating a host of genres in his unique way. Synthe Sounds is focussed on Ed Upton’s productions between 1993 and 1994, a golden age of electro, techno and of his alma mater Rephlex Records. The five tracks offer a different style to what Upton was releasing at that time. The xylophonic “Belgium” opens the 12”. Cold electro leanings are warmed through by rich bass as an effortless balance between disparate tones is found. “Orbit City” is beeps into the stratosphere, echoes resonating against gentle brushes of hi-hat. “Synthe Sound 1” and “Synth Sound 2” are warm thought provoking works. Cascading chords and subtle shifts are set to steady beat structures for a pair emblematic of the age. “93 Tape Trax” is a different animal altogether. Gothic keys are shrouded in distortion while strings float above punchy drums.
New talent is sourced alongside headline names. Dublin’s Cignol arrives with six tracks steeped in the traditions of braindance, “Aquastates” flows on lines of liquid acid, stark notes and stern snares slicing through burbling bass and bending bars. The molten squelch of the TB303 is a favorite of Cignol, the Irishman demonstrating the silver box’s adaptability in the deep and dreamy “Pelvic Floor 24” before the wonder of the title piece. Cignol is part of a new generation of musicians taking up the mantle of British electronica and techno and making it their own. “I’m Outside” displays a more aggressive side, beats bite and a threat looms in this blacklight, backroom brawler. “Ion” is pure innocence in comparison, its bright notes, playful plinks and boyish chords frolic and romp in the track’s joyous sound. “Twenty 917” comes from a similarly happy place as lush lines radiate amidst the squirm and squeal of a certain Roland machine.
If the above hasn’t already got you salivating there’s more on the horizon. “A lot of good music is planned for next year. Brainwaltzera 12” with lock grooves one side, a Kosmik Kommando EP of killer acid tracks, and one from Mu-Ziq under Tusken Raiders, tracks from 1995.” And this isn’t all it seems, “I do plan to release ambient records as well, with a possible release from Scanner, and Solar Quest.”Anil says picking out artists isn’t a problem. “I pick what I want to hear and what I like, artists that I respect over the years… the thinking behind my label is to release quality music I want to hear, in the hope others will want to hear it too.” A simple philosophy, but if this blend of heart-warming nostalgia and new era excellent is the output, I’m all for it.
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