Recommend me some experimental techno/dub labels

The Lounge General Discussion
#3

Hey! Here for this thread. Also kind of new, haven’t heard of any of those labels, except in passing. Would be good to get some background and some particular recommendations, turn this into more of a conversation! Here’s what I got coming off the top of my head:

L.I.E.S records
E.S.T 2010 but these guys have some real deep pockets. Been doing a lot of digital reissues for bandcamp days and such. There’s some gnarly stuff to be found:

“Teste was still-born by the mid-90’s and with the ensuing PTSD I had become a SHUT IN working on the Amiga Computer for Audio and Video and completely immersed in grisly, depraved art-house cinema. This release pays homage to that time in NYC when I frequented Mondo Kims daily to rent the trashiest films I could find. Things like Richard Kern’s “Fingered”, Nick Zedds’s “They Eat Scum”, Makavejev “Sweet Movie”, Merhige “Begotten” all the classicks! The 42nd Street Mind forever! In retrospect I can’t believe they gave me a membership card! Wish I still had it!”

avon terror corps
South West England artist super-conglomerate ATC, repping connected affiliates including several labels, collectives, and individuals. Some super fresh and weird shit coming out, on the more techno side there’s the recent missterspoon album, on the weirder side there’s this piece of beautiful gutter sonics:

BOKEH versions
Speaking of ATC affiliates, here’s a great one. But don’t call them a dub label. From the bio: “‘Not a dub label’.// ‘Bokeh’ Incorporates the Bokeh Thought Programme, BKV Industrial, BKV Financial and Bokeh Televisual.” These guys run all over the shop, couple years ago they put out this asphyxiatingly hazy EP:

bonus
check out forum member @ARVE’s deep vibes on youtube:

Absolutely killing it. Would love to hear more about some of the releases you’ve been enjoying @LouisLingg

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#4

Ohhhh, this looks great. I’m coming at electronic sounds from noise and more extreme metal stuff, so figured I would communicate that in a way that makes no sense. Thanks for the link! Gonna dig in this evening

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#5

Seeing as you coming from noise I got a couple more intense recommendations for ya!

GNOD - LOOKING SUSPICIOUS DUB

Just found this the other day, h-o-l-y shit. Goes and goes and does not stop. Same can be said for this one, actually, but in a completely different way. The GNOD track is like if the bug lost their dog and got hopelessly sad, Ani Klang is like a sentient kick drum forgot how to stop and eventually convinced a bunch of other drums to come along for the ride:

ANI KLANG - BURN THE EMPIRE

FFFFucking strongggg

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#6

I’ve been loving this label for a while, and really into this release at the moment.

I’ve gotta give a ton of credit to this album also, it was a very good bridge for me. All the Praxis releases are just incredible

I like a lot of the stuff Vatican Shadow has put out as well

#7

A sound I have been trying to make recently, to mixed results, is like if musique concrete and dub had a child that did lots barbiturates

@Merv that Gnod track is wonderful

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#8

This thread exists already and is full of a ton of solid recommendations :slight_smile:

https://www.elektronauts.com/t/dub-techno-recommendations/15684

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#9

Right?! The noise is so fucking nutritious! Like this shit literally gives me energy. I try and find ways of describing how it makes me feel but it always seems to come out a bit inept.

This sounds like an amazing vibeland that I am well up for hunting in. What instantly came to mind for me is Georgia’s stuff (check out track 4 especially):

Haven’t dug in super deep yet, but this one is on YOUTH which is a label worth checking out! They get real freaky.

Another bonus imma call out @fin25 and throw up one of their monstrosities:

@d4ydream experimental dub/techno =/= dub techno :wink:
Dub techno is similar to dubstep imo, as a moniker it used to be this malleable thing with all this room to explore, now it’s become more of a crowded term for doing few very specific things.

#10

I forgot I found a wicked example of this the other day listening to the radio limbo archives:

Sam Binga & Welfare - Conomara Fieldworks

Here's some background on the record

"In early November 2016, we set off through the bleakness of an Irish November into the wilderness that is Conamara, County Galway, Ireland, with about half an idea of what we wanted to do. Our friend Laney had been kind enough to allow us the use of a 300 year old cottage overlooking the sea, itself belonging to her family through generations which she was bit by bit restoring to its former glory. The isolation was perfect - very little in the way of creature comforts, no network coverage, but plenty of turf for the stove and Guinness for the belly.

Our routine for the next few days consisted of trudging the length of the rugged coastline in search of interesting sounds we could potentially process into usable elements for some kind of dub/dub techno-inspired composition…This took us inside tidal caves and abandoned ruins, across sheep fields, up and down mountains and winding country lanes, in and out of the odd pub, under upturned boats and (carefully) across huge washes of seaweed-covered shoreline. Using our handheld recorder (shouts Danny Scrilla for the lend) we assembled a palette of varied noises, constantly battling with the peaking and distortion created by the incessant Atlantic gusts.

Each evening, following some intense huddling around the stove and vital Irish home cuisine and stout, we’d examine and dissect what we had collected that day, sometimes discovering the most interesting material firmly planted in the background of the soundscapes. A certain amount of (but not too much) processing later we had the bones of a few short loops of each sound which made some kind of musical sense when played alongside each other.

Binga suggested staying true to the craft and keeping the rawness to the foreground by attempting to develop the loops into full compositions via live desk mixing, arrangement and effects. We said our goodbyes to Conamara and a month or two later said our hellos to the Dubkasm shedio. Following a crash course from the dynamic duo, we set to work for the day, learning as we went along and enjoying to the full the unpredictability, intuition and sheer vibes a dubbing session can bring, particularly in a studio kitted out with some fine analogue gear which undoubtedly helped us to keep that damp, saturated feeling that Conamara had sown."

Physical release only, the fuckers. I’ll be picking it up on discogs soon for sure

#11

Thank you so much for your support, Merv! It really motivates me to work on my music. I’m totally into the Rytm at the moment.

I am a huge Mick Harris fan and under the moniker FRET he released some records on L.I.E.S too. It’s dark electronic music that sounds like it was recorded in an abandoned factory.

Under the name SCORN he produces some of the heaviest music I have ever heard.

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#12

ODrex Musik

https://odrexmusic.bandcamp.com

#13

You carry on bigging me up like this mate and you might find a nice box of Ferrero Rocher on your doorstep.

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#14

Techno / noise / ambient, I like most of what they put out. No dub to speak of, but IMO hits pretty close in style and ambience.

#15

Mick Harris was of course drummer with Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, among others, so the connection between a noise / grindcore is reasonably direct one. The two Macro Dub Infection compilations compiled by Kevin Martin before he became The Bug proper were pivotal in cataloguing a lot of the early crossover between experimental electronica and dub, and featured Scorn and many others.

Martin and Justin Broadrick from Godflesh (also fond of in dub albums…) produced some heavy techno / dub albums as Techno animal and later Zonal:

Third Eye Foundation were a link between the guitar noise scree of Flying Saucer Attack and drum and bass and other dub-adjacent areas - Semtex is a great place to start:

While Wake The Dead from a couple of years ago continues in ultra-dark form:

Digi-Dub (the label and overall identity for a myriad of artists, often the same people) put out some classics around the turn of the millennium, not least of which is the industrial klang of Scrap Bodies “composed entirely of sounds collected at the Skrotcentralen scrap yard, Uppsala, Sweden”:

Also of interest is the 16 Millionths Of An Inch album:

Unfortunately none of the Digi-Dub seems to be on Bandcamp or similar that I’ve been able to find, though some has been uploaded to YouTube.

And to give your speakers a good rinsing under bass pressure, try the Answers Come In Dreams DVD and CD by Meat Beat Manifesto:

And the album In Dub, again available in a fantastic 5.1 surround mix on DVD:

And not forgetting the ever-weird slection on Jahtari, whose owner Disrupt tends towards chiptune Nintendo dub with some monster bass sounds, eg:

Everything on Jahtari is worth checking out, really, especially the spoken dub poetry LPs with Roger Robinson (of the very heavy King Midas Sound with one K Martin…) and his space station ambient releases:

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#16

Cool thread.
Some on the more dubstep/techno vein…
Deep Medi
Deep Dark Dangerous

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#17

Im so grateful for all the incredible recommendations here, and I’m working digging through them all. The stuff on L.I.E.S is especially good, and I’m gonna really enjoy going further into their catalog.

Post Isolations has put out some stuff I’m not super keen on, but this release specifically is really great. There’s a collab with Puce Mary on here that I really like

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#18

this year I’ve listened to a lot of The Fear Ratio … great production on their tracks.

Modeselektor do lots of varied stuff ( possibly not experimental enough for this thread ).

Sam binga has some nice tracks, I need to dig further into his catalogue.

#19

IMO Posh Isolation kind of lost their edge. I love the old noise tapes, not so much the current oddball club music.

#20

Some Emptyset albums are actually recorded in abandoned factories and other buildings:

Also on Raster-Noton label:

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#21

Yeah, they absolutely have. I occasionally still check in on their new releases, but its often a let down. I got a soft stuff for a lot of the old stuff though

#22

Maybe not as heavy hitting as the OP’s taste, but I stumbled across low orbit satellite at one point, Russian tech, a nice mix and long catalogue of enjoyable cheap ep’s and full length. Cross quite a few genres actually but you can find the suffocating stuff if u dig :slight_smile: I bought them all lol