Deep Impressions

It’s probably a sign that Deep Impressions hasn’t fully adapted to the realities of the digital age, but for whatever reason the album format usually dominates this page. However, for this week, the focus shifts to its younger cousin, the EP, with a preview of a quintet of releases from a quartet of artists that are well worth wrapping your ears around when they release EPs in the coming weeks.

Ohio producer John Roberts will release Ausio, his fourth EP for the Berlin-based label Dial Records, next month. Roberts was signed to the Dial imprint on the basis of one single-sided 12-inch a few years back, making him their only American artist. He subsequently featured on Dial’s annual anthology alongside the likes of Efdemin and Lawrence before releasing his 2010 debut LPGlass Eights, a sophisticated ‘grower’ that offered intricate deep house soundscapes. Outside of his time in the studio, Roberts keeps busy working on his magazine The Travel Almanac, a high-end publication that explores“travelling for an increasingly sophisticated and mobilized generation.” Ausio will arrive a year after the release of Roberts’ second album Fences,which was recorded throughout Roberts’ global travels and editing his magazine. The early word is that the three-track EP will have more dancefloor currency than his subtle previous offerings. However, ‘intelligent’ house music fans and Roberts diehards need not despair. There’s certainly no danger of Roberts going all Guetta – or Damian Lazarus, for that matter – on us.

Local duoGardland, made up of Alex Murray and Mark Smith, are gearing up to drop their first release since their debut album Syndrome Syndrome at the end of last year through RVNG Intl. The pair’s first album was influenced by the fact that they had the majority of their synthesizers stolen halfway through the recording process. (To this day, the thief – or thieves – have not been caught, so lock up your synths!) Consequently the lads had to start from scratch, ultimately crafting a series of psychedelic soundscapes laden with murky beats and distorted, lo-fi accents. The forthcoming EP is called Improvisations and comprises “three live performances ripped from local Australian radio in early 2012.” In fact, it was upon hearing these performances that RVNG founder Matt Werth (AKA Teengirl Fantasy) decided to sign Gardland to his label. “We didn’t even think [the radio show] was that good,” Gardland’s Murray admitted last year. “Then Matt sent us an email and we were like, what’s this RVNG label? But when I looked into it I was like, ‘Right, this is solid.’” If the radio appearances were good enough to pique the interest of the RVNG Intl main man, then they must have been pretty decent indeed – or “solid” if you prefer Murray’s lingo. Despite the fact the performances wasn’t originally intended for commercial release, the label decided they were worth putting “out there,” describing Improvisations as a record that “blisters at its hardware-imposed limits with enough energy to fuel freakish frequencies.”

This week French producer The Hacker will release LOVE/KRAFT Part 1, the first of two EPs he will put out over the next few months in what is essentially a split album. The Hacker has released seminal albums with Miss Kittin as well as countless solo EPs on labels like Turbo, Tigersushi, InFinОand Gigolo over the past two decades, refining a sonic palette that melds house, techno, rave, acid and of course electroclash, a movement he was at the forefront of. The Hacker has also built up a substantial remixography that comprises rerubs of Laurent Garnier, Fischerspooner and most recently The Carousel’s ‘Winter Months’, a melancholic pop gem that was one of the surprise reworks of 2013. LOVE/KRAFT Part 1 shifts between dancefloor-focused cuts and more subtle, brooding back room mood pieces.

German producer Peter Kremeier, better known asLosoul, will break a two-year dry spell when he releases not one, but two, EPs next month. The first, Slowly Turning, will be released on Hypercolour, the second New Day through Italian label Amam. Often labelled as a ‘minimal’ producer, Kremeier politely responds in a measured tone, “From the beginning of my production life I was considered to do kind of ‘reduced’ stuff. I didn’t have the idea to call anything I do ‘minimal’ just because I always liked to cut down my productions to some stripped funk feel with some soul flavour. As far as I know, it was merely referring to some ’50s/’60s avant garde music, to some ’90s experimental electronica techno or to just an expression that sells well.”