Spiritflesh
Menace

boomkat: ...Smiling C have us beaming again with ambient house treasure from a lesser-hailed node of the early ’90s UK house and rave sceneDancing between the lines of jacking Chi-house, psychedelic bleep techno and ambient house, the ‘Mad Vibe’ EP is the sole output by DJ Mad & Dr. Stevie The Ambient Guru, who, if we’re not mistaken, hail from the raving outpost of Middlesbrough on England’s North East coast - a sorely overlooked bastion of the original northern UK rave circuit. This level of detachment from the UK rave scene perhaps explains the offbeat formulation of the ‘Mad Vibe’ EP, which clearly echoes the styles of Yorkshire bleep ’n bass an hour south, but with a rawer, radgy, playful edge.A-side sports ‘Northern Echo’ with its properly charming mix of palm wine or Hawaiian guitar and simmering, latinate machine rhythms in deliciously woozy style, while ‘Communication’ hops around on a sparky jack attack with tumbling toms, nagging bleeps and catty psych guitar licks in the last third. B-side only gets ruder with ’System Shock’ working on the cusp of New Beat and some other strain of quintessentially UK rave nuttiness, and ‘Levitating Pharaohs (Full Frontal Spacehead Ambient Mix)’ wraps up in the barminess in balmy ambient guitar, sweet synth chords and rustling NYC deep house rhythms.

boomkat: ...Fine, vaporous cloud of Bristolian smokers’ lullabies from Amos Childs and Boofy“NoCorner come forward with the fourth release in their 7 series, presenting four short, but oh-so-sweet cuts from VMO$ (aka half of O$VMV$M, half of Jabu, aka Amos Childs) and Boofy, the fellow badbwoy Bristolian, Bandulu-affiliate and Guiness lover.What we have here, are supreme late-night, slo-mo vibrations of the highest order, as you'd come to expect from the man behind much of the Jabu, O$VMV$M and Killing Sound material in combination with Boofy, who seems to add just right amount of extra tinges of dank, skewed RnB & other syruppy goodness, that mix&blend better than your nan's secret Rum Punch. Wicked combination - VMO$ & Boofy killin' them in cool & deadly style.Support from Kahn & Neek (as heard on their FabricLive mix) as well as Mary Anne Hobbs and Batu.”