It was with a heady melange of emotions last night that we bid adieu to our long-term club home-away from home, 23 West. The club was the source of countless parties, shows, and memories for both of us, and spinning our sets and tipping our wrists for the last time last night had us more than a little verklempt. Okay, full disclosure: this is being written several hours -before- the Sunday night blowout party, because after what we imagine is going to be a very, very, very, very late night ain’t neither of us going to be in any state to wake up in time to bash out a remotely competent Tracks post. Speaking of which, enough about the past: let’s get to the future of Our Thing with some new music!

Hiro Kone

Hiro Kone featuring Group A, “Pure Expenditure”
New York electronic experimentalist Hiro Kone (who had a collaborative release with Drew McDowall earlier this year) is joining the gang at Dais for her new LP, Pure Expenditure. The title track (featuring the excellent Group A) points towards an intriguing tension between deep, hypnotic phasing that has an unearthly undertow and absolutely precise and concrete programming.

Mr.Kitty, “Crawling (Linkin Park cover)”
On paper there might not be a lot of similarities between Linking Park and Mr.Kitty on the surface, but going beyond surface elements there’s some definite commonalities. The former band’s calling card was always expressiveness and emotion, and that’s Mr.Kitty’s stock in trade. Consequently this cover of “Crawling” plays incredibly honest and vulnerable, lacking any trace of cross-genre irony. Once again, MK shows that whether remix, cover or original, one of his greatest strengths is his open sincerity.

Axon Tremolo, “Timeline”
No sooner did we discover that the Vampire Rodents catalog had migrated to Bandcamp than the King Rat himself, Daniel Vahnke, dropped a new album. If we’re following, the Axon Tremolo record was put together some years ago but never saw the light of day ’til now. A quick skim suggests some detours from the wholly sample-based methods on which Vahnke build his reputation for the sake of some smoother jams, or, in Vahnke’s own words, “adult-contemporary new-age synth”. Looking forward to digging into this as an amuse-bouche after the murine feast of the Rodents extant work.

Digital Geist, “Confrontational”
The homeboy Alex K (no, not senior editor Alex K) of Digital Geist just dropped a new EP, and much like his previous output it finds a solid grounding in both techno and body music. The complexity of arrangements and sound design is part of Digital Geist’s appeal, listen to how he arranges seemingly simple percussion patterns, layering them with delays to create syncopation with the track’s insistent bassline. Confrontation features 3 originals and a cover of Front 242’s “Lovely Day” with vocals by Neotek, available now on Bandcamp.

Anticipation, “Prescription”
The always reliable DKA label has a split in the works between Voice of Saturn, whose tape of alternately smooth and block synth experimentation we dug last year, and Anticipation, a new project from one of the blokes in Pyramid Club. The first taste of Anticipation’s side of the tape points towards stripped down, loping acid which has our interest piqued.

Trust Obey, “The Soul Is A Temple Of Wire Carcasses”
Heads may recall that waaaay back in the year of our lord 1994 John Bergin’s Trust Obey released a soundtrack to James O’Barr’s The Crow, meant to be read as you were reading the landmark indie comic. To coincide with an upcoming remaster of the Fear and Bullets album, Bergin has been putting unreleased live and demo material from the era up on Bandcamp, with an EP in March and another released just last week. Check out unheard choral infused track “The Soul is a Temple of Wire Carcasses”, and be sure to peep that re-release when it comes out, it’s a gem deserving of some more attention.