VARIOUS ARTISTS

Correspondant’s sophomore compilation features new and unreleased tracks from the label’s artist coterie, plus some new recruits. Compilation 02 develops its own unique breed of retro-futurism, offering idiosyncratic, dancefloor-driven sound inspired by nu and cosmic disco, 80s wave, Roland-303 acid, and dark atmospherics. The release follows last year’s inaugural compilation, notably successful within DJ circles, and is due out 24 March 2014. Sexy Lazer is Copenhagen-based DJ and producer Jón Atli Helgason, who partners with Iceland’s Oculus (Fridfinnur Sigurdsson) in “Dogs of BKK” to filter hazy tropicalia through retro modular synths. Notoriously elusive DJ and producer Man Power submits “Hula”, a characteristically off-kilter slow builder with corrosive electric guitar chords, while “Synced Below” channels Italian-born Berlin transplant Massimiliano Pagliara’s obsession with analogue synths and techno futurism. The languorous vocal sample intoning le passé, le présent, le futur (the past, the present, the future) in “One Night at Nuba” may well be a personal declaration of style and legacy for Danish producer Kasper Bjørke, whose Bullschnitzel EP, produced together with Sexy Lazer as The Mansisters, marked Correspondant’s first release of 2014. Kompakt veteran Geoffroy Mugwump & Brussels’ DC Salas deliver hard-hitting, EBM/industrial funk and modern disco in “Caltrops”, and Hardway Bros Sean Johnston explores a galactic vernacular of beeping machines in “14.06.13”. Following a remix on Correspondant for Pulp Disco & The Outcasts, French Producer Antoine Harispuru aka Golden Bug counters with his own “Fax, Flipper and Cigarettes” (feat. Lady Maru), loaded with acid and Italo-influenced bassline funk, and Israeli duo Red Axes deploy the saturnine electric guitar riffs of their 2013 EP for the label Caminho De Dreyfus in “This is x” (feat. Jen). The Asphodells is a dub- and disco-based collaboration between Timothy J. Fairplay and Andrew Weatherall. Following last year’s critically applauded LP, Ruled by Passion, Destroyed by Lust (Rotters Golf Club), “Prejoy (Barbaric SplendourVersion)” is a scheming assassin. Madrid-based Javi Redondo steps up to both diffuse and build new tension with “Insight”, a track adaptable to placement anywhere in a set with its low-slung opening groove cut with cosmic synths; his debut EP Automotion was released via Correspondant in 2013. Oslo producer Andre Bratten updates the idiosyncratic sounds of 80s synth-pop pioneers into contemporary dayglo analogue dance music with “Trommer og Bass”, and Stockholm newcomer Paresse makes a predatory first appearance with “Hunters in the Snow”.