Playground magazine

September is usually fetish month for dance music lovers. After the August draught, the bins in the record stores fill up with new fixes for the vinyl junkies. However, choosing becomes more painful a process, what with all the abundance of releases, so being able to separate the great from the essential is more important than ever. In comes this column, which we'll finish by the end of the month, with a second part about the crop of the coming two weeks, or simply the titles we couldn't fit into this chapter (told you September is a month of abundance in record releases). So let's start our quest with two slabs of wax that will most likely be on the highest spot of the upcoming end of year lists, and we'll finish with a much-needed reissue. In between is a highly varied selection that takes us from the rawness of Delroy Edwards to the exuberance of North Lake, from new values like Inkswel to household names like Theo Parrish, and from the rediscovery of doomed geniuses like The Trash Company to a new encounter with a Mathew Jonson on top form.

In its first year, Hinge Finger have now released two of the most anticipated records of this year. After Joy Orbison's much-awaited “Ellipsis”, the platform directed by Will Bankhead and Joy O himself is now releasing Blawan's “His He She & She”, an EP that has had people drooling ever since the Briton played two of its tracks at the Boiler Room. The songs in question are “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage” and “His Money”, two monsters on which he takes his oppressive and mechanical vision on techno to the next level. In both cases, the key is in the manipulation of vocal samples taken from Fugees' “How Many Mics”, which add a disturbing, dehumanised component to the sinister constructions of relentless rhythms and asphyxiating bass lines. “And Both His Sons” follows he same line, but this time it connects the dots between the spirit of jacking and Berghain at peak time. And just when you think things couldn't get more twisted, in comes “His Daughters”, a deconstruction of all of the above, on which Blawan takes away the beat, but doubles up on the drama. As a whole, this EP is like taking a stroll through the mind of a blood-thirsty madman; you know you'll probably find some unpleasantness on your way, but you can't help but sniff out all of its dark corners. One of the EPs of the year, that much is clear.

2012 is a big year for Bicep. The final confirmation, however, comes with this “Visions Of Love”. With this title, they're premiering their own label, Feel My Bicep (named after their highly recommendable blog, by the way), stressing what they already pointed out with their release “$tripper”: if anyone convincingly represents the Jersey house revival, it's them. Though the formula is well-known, the Belfast duo's secret is in the balance between the evocation of the classic spirit on the emotional side, and a production that is sharp enough not to sound simply retro. The title track is the paradigm of this idea; garage-like rhythms, Korg M1 pianos, and perfectly assembled vocal samples; simple and devastating, as the best house has always been. On the flip, two cuts on which Jersey house is even more accentuated, with “Keep Keep” following the wake of aforementioned “$tripper”, and “Getcha Boi” featuring some quite brilliant trumpets. They're not doing anything new, but they do it so fantastically well that you simply must leave your money in the store and your soles on the dance floor.

If there's anything that characterises the music released by the increasingly prolific L.I.E.S. Label, it's, apart from an analogue sound, raw energy. First-timer Derloy Edwards feels right at home in this environment. His Soundcloud page is full of productions that simply ooze ghetto rawness, whether their juke or house, but with the particularity of being slightly emo (Frank Ocean edits, song titles like “Heart And Soul” and “Loves Goes On and On”). This juxtaposition of sensibilities is what we hear on his first EP, “4 Club Use Only”. Distorted 909 beats and super sharp hi-hats live together as one with deep pads and tinkling melodies, resulting in a brand of deep-ghetto that aims to destroy the dance floor and be deeply evocative at the same time. Delroy, we want more.

With the excellent “Déviation EP”, Steven Warwick, alias Heatsick, a veteran on the underground noise scene, took a turn towards a colourful and blurry kind of deep-house. Now, with “Convergence”, on Rush Hour, he's confirming his wish to make dance music. In order to do so, he's using drum machines for the first time (i.e. apart from those incorporated in the synthesisers) and feeds his tracks with a more raw energy, yet still maintaining the naive-exotic melodies. It makes songs like the title track and “The Juggler” sound like Legowelt situating one of his conceptual projects in a theme park. “Benelux”, on the other hand, is the most convincing and DJ-friendly cut here, especially halfway through, when the vigorous bass and crazy pianos take control.

The story of Max Monroe, the brains behind The Trash Company, is one of those between myth and misfortune that underground music knows quite a few of. Born on a highway between Baltimore and Richmond, suffering from synaesthesia (having a fellow patient in Aphex Twin), he recorded one single at the end of the 70s. Since then, however, he's kept on recording music, and recently, PPU (who else?) brought him back into the limelight with the release of the 7” “Pluto”, his first release in 30 years. Now, the Washington, DC label is presenting “Having Fun”, a 12” featuring the two tracks from that single, and three new Monroe productions. His music sounds alien and lo-fi, sometimes cosmic (“Pluto”), sometimes tremendously shy and pitch-black (“For The Hook”, “Bigga Man”). Others are expansive and radiant (“Having Fun”), and, in cases like “I Don't Mind”, strangely catchy. Top class psychedelic funk all around.