Don Herbert
Ekow

Mind Dance return with the second volume in their ‘Mystic Minds’ VA series. Launched last year as a way to continue the strong collaborative nature of the electronic music underground, each installment will shine a light on local Australian talent and their cross-continental contemporaries.Continuing this mission with a new batch of friends, family and former label mates in tow, round two rallies six artists from home soil and overseas for another deep excursion into the vast expanses of dance music.From across the pond we have Dutch producer and Music From Memory regular Dazion who kicks off the VA with a wonky slice of rhythmic downtempo, and Phran, a Barcelona-based artist and member of IVAN - a duo alongside Ivy Barkakati - who puts his foot on the gas with a stomping techno cut.Closer to home we have Aussie dance veteran and the man behind Mind Dance’s last release, Andy Rantzen, deliver a tight bleep-soaked acid jam, followed by Leo James and Mousse flying the flag for Melbourne with twinkling IDM and laid-back vocal house, respectively. Finally label boss Furious Frank closes out proceedings with a downbeat percussive house number to usher in summer, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere that is...

Lost icebergs off the arctic, hollowed out memory, an acerbic embrace.Third Space presents his first long-player via .jpeg artefacts. Venturing from previous, punchier, swinging percussion found on previous releases, the LP delivers careful introspection, experimentation, and rich conceptual development.The beatless iterations and encompassing walls of sound that stuck their heads out on earlier EPs are embraced in full here; it’s claustrophobic but space is found in the right areas. Tension and release to the nth degree, but without becoming a trope. Percussion remains, but slowed to a crawl.The release calls on memories of Ambarchi’s Oystered (as well as, notably, Grapes from the Estate) and the clicks and hums of Pan Sonic, but it’s the development past this that allows Scissor Kick to shine. The areas where intimacy is pushed through field recordings, live scattered percussion (from R.Rebeiro, as well as TS), and those subtle reminders that Third Space still has an iron-firm grasp on percussive rhythm, is where this record stands on its own solid ground. What was foggy red-roomed speaker stacks has given way to arctic tundra, vast expanse, acid rain.Layer up.~~