‘It’s pretty implausible to not go loco for mesmeric Mediterraneana on a day like today, and that’s precisely what we’ve before our baying ears and prying eyes this morning as Chilean maverick Matias Aguayo returns with El Sucu Tucu – a manic ode to a chinchilla-type critter, or so an albeit inaccurate trawl of Google Images may well lead you to believe. Once renowned for his idiosyncratic brand of minimal techno commotion although perhaps most vividly remembered for his featuring as a key ingredient of Battles’ Ice Cream belter from a couple years back, Aguayo here calls upon the synthetic exotic humidities of Bonde do Rolê’s With Lasers and puts his tongue in the proverbial line of fire as it emits a series of esoteric trills, shrieks, and avifaunal chirps. Arriba, etc.’



El Sucu Tucu is taken from Aguayo’s forthcoming The Visitor full-length, which is expected June 24th on Cómeme.

‘Following on from Redg Weeks’ superlative Run To Your Mama redux of a couple weeks back, the In to Weeks’ Vada – Geoff Barrow – here clambers up the reverb tower to rework a previously unreleased Anika track entitled Bloodhound. Typically claustrophobic though at that same time a little more loose in contrast with the usual brood, the adopted Berlinerin returns with quintessentially inauspicious lyrics of “They’re coming to get you/ They won’t stop ‘til you’re found” which ooze forth from gloopy gusts of echo and fade. Similarly rhythmically, there’s an alert tightness intrinsic to the skittering cymbals and yet these are omnipresently underpinned by profoundly reverberant snares, toms and so on – this perfectly disconcerting mélange thus a bricolage of the expansive and the restrictive; the extrovert and the esoteric. And it’s one that’s well worth sinking your teeth deep into.’



An eponymous EP is anticipated of Anika springtime, while she joins the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on their day of next month’s I’ll Be Your Mirror.

‘Keep hearing Kraftwerk this week even when I’m not plugged into Die Mensch-Maschine, or conducting Radio Aktivität. And there are intimations of that same wry, distinctly Germanic synergy between man woman and machine at play within this, the prelude to the eagerly awaited début full-length from racy electronica pairing kool thing. The influence is of little wonder as far as the duo’s output may be concerned, given that Julie Chance and Jon Dark relocated to Berlin fulltime a little while back, and this particular song itself – a stalking number inspired by turbulent Stelldichein (think that’s the correct translation of rendezvous, there) arranged around the city’s TV Tower – shimmers with the stainless, steely gleam of mainland European new wave. It makes for an intelligent combination of organic and electronic, too: irrespective of the restive arpeggios at its core, regimented stabs of guitar keep the recording in severe check as kool thing sing of that boundless optimism intrinsic to any newfangled romance. “You used to tell me we could catch the stars as they fell  from the sky, burning up the cars” they serenely coo amidst a strangely involving storyline – the like of which we’ve incidentally become accustomed to glaring into through TV screens and as with Ralf Hütter before them, they seem only too aware of the ominous hues and human futility the future is sure to bring. Compute.’



The eponymous début is anticipated March 4th via Mad Dog & Love.

‘The début record from perfectionist Cologne pairing Coma has been a long while coming. However, following on from a barrage of sought after though mostly sold out 12”s, Marius Bubat and Georg Conrad’s In Technicolor is finally expected next April via Rhine-Ruhr imprint Kompakt and is to feature the buoyant little belter to be found, and indeed downloaded, below. Hoooooray (that’s five o’s sandwiched in there) features the respective talents of compatriot ADA, and hometown homeboy Roosevelt who combine with the duo to produce perhaps one of Germany’s most memorable Euro stomps since Kernkraft 400: equal parts decomposed horror show house and Italo-disco destroyer, Hoooooray recalls a zombified Black Devil Disco Club in full pelt – one perpetuated only by uppers. The sort to maybe; probably itself induce comas, as long as this one’s ringing away in your cranium you’ll be alright through to April at the latest.’