Bit Folder
Silicon Frontier

Young Echo: ...Building on the foundations built over years of mutual understanding and musical endeavours as part of the Young Echo team, the London-via-Bristol rapper has been climbing that MC Escher type lyrical ladder for years now, painting pictures with word-sound in the coolest & deadliest ways, and forming his very own style.Somehow he makes it sound easy when these intricate rhymes and words spill across O$VMV$M’s skewed symphonies, dropping slapdash punchlines in the midst of highly real observations about life in the city, lights off, lights on. Manonmars, to us, depicts a lens of someone who isn’t about to conform to any stream, not about to give in to the relentless pace of capitalism, not up for the rat-race, more up for slowing time, and seeing things for what they are, a surrealist take on what could otherwise be a mundane world.I guess it’s fair to say that life can be grey sometimes - so for our own sanity, we need to make sure to add colour. Manonmars does this, with heaps of imagination and witty real-talk, fired off in bullet time, perfectly hitting that fine-line between entertainment, and deadpan seriousness - a balancing act, juggled with verbs & conjunctions, over a backdrop of timeless rhythm & melody.Perhaps a less insular album than the first self-titled record, this LP sees guest appearances from Young Echo’s ‘Guest’ and Bogues (both voices of Jabu) on vocals. Fresh Bristol blood ‘Birthmark’ and ‘Axel Holey’ appear with lyrics too, and there is a special vocal injection from Paulina Korobkiewicz, reciting writings by Polish painter and colour artist Wojciech Fangor, and drawing a connection between the music and the visual aspect of Manonmars’ practice.

Scrnxxxshdw: ...Screen Shadow is an amorphous presence slithering through electronic music’s dark, jagged and dreamy corridors. Emerging this January with a duo of debut EPs, Black (Vegan Tinder Lord) and White (Hexxex) , the shadowy project blends pummelling techno, industrial grit and experimental noise for a mood-spanning sound inspired by everything from Google Street View to visiting the dentist.The Black EP gleans from the heavier end of the club music spectrum, plunging into a hardcore well of nosebleed kicks and synapse-frying synths that bang with raw dancefloor energy. The White EP pauses for reflection, transforming Screen Shadow’s spiky reveries into tightly-woven technicolor dreamscapes.

Lavalava: Four cuts on an upfront slab of wax for turntable enjoyment ahead of a big compilation entitled ‘LV VA’, which is to be released in due time, showcasing music from over 30 artists, from almost as many locations.This sampler 12” sneak-previews four of the more energetic, off-kilter (brain) dance tracks ahead of the full release…For example, the bitcrushed grime of ’Jackpot’, a highly infectious piece of freak music that perfectly defies proper categorisation, produced by the unlikely, but even-better-for-it, pairing of Wilted Woman and Christoph De Babalon, together as SUDS.Then there’s that big bass mutation of ‘Alva’ a high-pressure soundsystem time-bomb that crosses between dancehall, grime and tekno, produced by Zoe McPherson, proving once again that rhythm can be exploratory, full of intrigue, and hard-hitting at the same time.There’s also a big, bashy linkup from UK Funky veteran Roska as Bakongo, alongside one of the ’Hard Drum’ pioneers, and now Bristol-resident NKC who has been pushing that sound to deadly effect. Together, they created ‘Teardown’, a pure, undiluted drum tool, reduced strictly to to the most hard-hitting, and dance-able rhythmic elements.Last, but not least, one of Bristol’s finest crafters of dancefloor sonics, Lurka has delivered a prime example of his highly intricate, low-slung production style with ‘Patterning’ a lean cross of chuggin’, fizzin’ hi-tek dancehall, filled with heaps of funk and a deadly amount of bassweight.