Ifang – ‘Delusion’
“The Delusion EP is the debut of Ifang, a 17 year old producer from Nijmegen. This actually started out as a school project, but soon grew out to be so much more than that, making it a vessel for the discovery of his own talent and passion for music production. He is now determined to pursue a career in music, which is probably a wise decision, because this is a high quality, well produced debut. The three tracks feature warm and crispy electronics, guitar, processed field recordings and (movie) samples. Delusion is a diamond in the rough, triggering Esc.rec. to support Ifang on his journey to higher grounds. Eyes peeled for more Ifang in the future. Delusion is available as a pay-what-you-want download, but also in a very limited CD-r edition. The CD-r release comes in a digipak with hand-painted artwork (Indian ink) by Ifang’s father, Peter Bremer. Only 50 of these were made and they are all different, so be quick to order if you want one!”
Plastic Surgery Icon – ‘Roughly Human’
“Roughly Human is the title of the debut album by Plastic Surgery Icon, for which he spent the last three months of 2012 recording non-stop. The idea was initially to record some basic acoustic guitar songs that he had lying around for years, maybe for the release of a short EP, but additional new songs appeared quickly. To three of the four old songs, vocals were added, along with other instruments. Three of the new songs were more math rock oriented. In the end there was an album’s worth of material that turned out mostly acoustic, but stylistically varying between folky singer/songwriter pieces, some catchy pop tunes and gradually escalating mathy madness. Influences include Sun Kil Moon, Deerhoof, Super Adventure Club, Animal Collective, Spoelstra, Lisa, Amy en Shelley, hipster haircuts, cats and internet messageboard spambots. Since the iconic ambassador of plastic surgery only had knowledge of a computer programme that hadn’t been updated since 2002 he decided to use that. After recording, he got in contact with Greg Saunier ofDeerhoof fame, who was friendly enough to master it and make it sound vivid and punchy. Plastic Surgery Icon used to play in Dutch noise rock band Boutros Bubba and still plays in Amsterdam based garage band Apneu.”
NEW 8.0
“N.E.W. (Nieuwe Electronische Waar) is a platform and network for producers in Gelderland and Overijssel. Every year N.E.W. releases a new album with twelve tracks from producers they will feature prominently for the coming year. Generation NEW 8.0 consists of Alias Lou, Julien Mier, GameFace, Kalima, Knarsetand, Knotted Sheets, MSNTHRPX, Near Earth Object, Raymon Brugman, Sinewave77, Sam A La Bamalot + Asterisms, and Yoeri. In their music you can hear the influence of everything that is happening in electronic music at the moment. The dominance of the four to the floor time is long past, and influences are drawn from ambient, acid, dubstep, future garage, glitch, juke, and trap. Sam a la Bamalot and Kalima (formerly known as Radion) are represented with a track for the third consecutive year. Knarsetand, Near Earth Object, and Yoeri made their debut last year, and made strong follow ups. With eight new names a lot of new talent from across the eastern Netherlands is discovered. A professional jury made a choice from over a hundred entries to come to this selection of twelve tracks. The jury included amongst others other Erik Delobel, programmer of Hedon in Zwolle, and Harco Rutgers, owner of the record label Esc.rec.”