Few people are onto great records as quickly as a great record store.
After years spent discovering gems in Phonica’s end of year lists, it made sense to give them a regular space on FACT. Every Saturday, staff from the Soho institution pick out the five vinyl records you should grab this week.
ANTHONY NAPLES
Body Pill LP
(Text Records)
This one is a no-brainer: the eagerly-anticipated debut long-player from New York house prodigy Anthony Naples, on Four Tet’s Text imprint. A tour de force built with washes of ambient noise, synth grooves, gorgeous melodies and de-constructed/re-constructed house beats, Body Pill was worth the wait.
DELROY EDWARDS
Kicking Butts!! EP
(L.A. Club Resource)
The prolific L.A. techno fiend returns to his own L.A. Club Resource imprint for his latest collection of roughneck techno, tape-damaged hip-hop beats and Scarface samples, delivering on the promise of over-the-top track titles like ‘Die Motherfucker’ and ‘Str8 Fuckd’.
DJ SPRINKLES & MARK FELL
Fresh Insights 2 EP
(Comatonse Recordings)
DJ Sprinkles and Mark Fell re-unite for the spiritual successor to 2012’s Complete Spiral. Like that release (which sampled union leader Arthur Scargill over a deep house groove), this one finds communion between politics (via a sample of late British politician Tony Benn) and the dance floor. Would you expect anything else from Terre Thaemlitz?
RICARDO DONOSO
Deterrence LP
(Denovali)
Ricardo Donoso’s 2010 debut Deterrence was a dark ambient masterpiece and drew comparisons to works by Lustmord, Biosphere and Deathprod. However, it was only available as an 80-copy cassette release. Denovali rights that wrong with this vinyl reissue (as well as the release of his new album Saravu Exu).
S. MOREIRA & XINNER
Through The Rings Of Saturn EP
(Phonica Records)
Phonica’s first release of 2015 is an interesting one: percussionist Sergio Moreira of Berlin’s Slow Life collective teams with Xinner for four tracks of hypnotic techno as the pair travel Through The Rings Of Saturn. Imagine if Hans Zimmer had scored Interstellar with this.
MANABU NAGAYAMA & SOICHI TERADA
‘Low Tension’ 12″
(Utopia Records)
More from the Phonica crew: Utopia Records is a new imprint by Alexander Bradley with plans for official re-releases of obscure gems alongside leading-edge club and headphone music, regardless of genre. The label’s first release is one of the former: an ambient house track (in three flavors) by Japanese legends Manabu Nagayama and Soichi Terada that was first released in 1991 and is seeing life as a single for the first time.
