2021 *REPRESS*

Compiled by Hunee, 'Sounds from the Far East' features highly sought after material by legendary Japanese house producer Soichi Terada and fellow producers Shinichiro Yokota, Manabu Nagayama!

Soichi Terada is an adventurous multitalent and over all a good sport. He was born in the sixties, and as a child he loved to play on his fathers' electric organ. Terada majored in Computer Science and Electric Organ and after he graduated, he founded his Far East Recording in 1989, because he couldn't find a label for his compositions at that time.

The sound of Far East Recording is very much inspired by early nineties US deep house. Soichi Terada went out to parties in the late eighties, were he was equally influenced by house and hip-hop. A few years later, Terada took on producing music by using digital sampling. In the early nineties he occasionally DJ-ed with a DAT player and some reel tapes, instead of using records and turntables.

"Sounds From The Far East" shines new light on Soichi Terada's label and consists of material that was originally released in the early nineties. Next to Terada's music, Hunee also selected a few tracks by fellow artist Shinichiro Yokota for this compilation, as well as 'Sun Showered', a track based on the incredible Paradise Garage gem called 'Sunshower', by Terada and Nami Shimada. More

6-track EP compilation with Terada's work for the Ape Escape games, tip!

Outside of the international house underground, where his early ‘90s works for the Far East Recording label he co-founded with Shinichiro Yokota are rightly celebrated as bona-fide classics, Soichi Terada is best-known for his work composing music for video games. Yet until now, few of his productions for video games have been released outside of Japan, especially on vinyl.

Apes In The Net, a six-track EP featuring music composed for the popular PlayStation 1 series Ape Escape, sets the record straight. It not only showcases Terada’s quality as a composer and producer, but also his versatility. Like much of Terada’s work on the Ape Escape series, the tracks featured don’t explore deep, New York and New Jersey influenced house sounds, but rather his lesser-celebrated love of jungle and drum & bass – a sound he fully explored on 1996 album Sumo Jungle.

“The producer of the Ape Escape games heard that and got in touch,” Soichi remembers. “They asked me to make the soundtrack, and then work on the music for the sequels after that. I used to love making music with AKAI hardware samplers, synthesisers, and computers, so I played and recorded the tracks using almost the same methods as I did when I made house music. Using breakbeats and audio samples with a sampler was the most useful way to make the soundtracks.”

The six tracks on show, which were originally recorded in the ‘90s but reconstructed and remastered for Japan-only CD and digital releases over a decade ago, mix elements of Terada’s familiar deep house style – think warming chords and pads, memorable melodies, and emotive musical motifs – with blistering D&B breakbeats, 16-bit synth sounds, electronic bleeps and undeniably weighty basslines. They’ve stood the test of time and arguably sound just as fresh now as they did at the turn of the millennium.

For proof, check the soaring, spellbinding ‘Spectors Castle’, where uplifting lead lines and sumptuous chords dance atop punchy beats and growling bass, the jazzy and saucer-eyed rush of ‘Mount Amazing’ (all twinkling piano motifs, alien synth sounds, squelchy bass and skittish drums) and the intergalactic, liquid D&B excellence of ‘Time Station’, whose whistling melodies and stargazing chords are undeniably alluring.

There are plenty of other delights to be found across the EP, too, from the bustling, race-to-the-finish breathlessness of D&B/bleep techno fusion workout ‘Spectors Factory In’, and the rumbling sub-bass, creepy pads and suspenseful melodies of ‘Haunted House’, to the bombastic, all-out-assault on the senses that is ‘Coaster’, the set’s most “purist” jungle workout – albeit one that also doffs a cap to the pulsating world of big room techno.

Apes In The Net, then, celebrates Soichi Terada’s mastery as a video games composer and early Japanese junglist. Props are well and truly overdue. More

Repress!
We welcome Ed Longo and his studio project The Applied Arts Ensemble debut on Early Sounds with “The Other Fantasy”, the result of many recording sessions that took place in different places around Europe. Conceived with a strong jazz-funk, fusion and boogie sound it has been conceptualized around the idea that the schizophrenia of the internet-age, the visions of Otherness (the undiscovered lands, the primitive happiness, the impossible love) permeate the collective consciousness and the idealized "Other" loses any correspondence with the physical world. More

A soundtrack for the contemporary "Vinti" (defeated) with its dark and at the same time sparkling flavor of the '80s sounds between cold wave, synth pop and imaginary electronic atmospheres. This record with its horror-framed and distopic scenario ("Slot Machine") reveals a content of social criticism healed through the warm and evocative indulgence of "Che Male C’e”. More

A1 Beard In Dust - At the Dawn
Is a tribal monster of a dance floor jammer. I have not heard a single second of a bad beat from the dude, and super psyched to have it channeled tru the hamam dancefloor.
A2 Hidden Track
Psssst
B1 Tales of Voodoo - Sharky
Nu crew with the heart, art and the beats at the right place delivers an epic middle eastern disco jammer to take u on a journey tru time and space.
B2 Esen Gunduz - Deve Gucu
Mysterious nu cat comes with a paychedelic dancefloor disco workout . Am still chasing the tail that who might this be but for sure blew my mind with the craft on this piece.
More

Tracklisting:
A1 VILLA - Silhouetten der Nacht
A2 Chontane - Ceoid
A3 Levzon - Planga
B1 BENKHLIFA - Basikstruktur
B2 Umwelt - Echoes of The Storm
B3 Kashpitzky - Timeline Off
C1 Dax J - Passing Clouds
C2 LPV - Arrival
C3 Hadone - Euphoria
D1 Stef Mendesidis - Magma
D2 Chlär - Raw Audio Models
D3 Nnamael - One Step Closer to the Truth
E1 BENKHLIFA - Predator in the Zoo
E2 Selective Response - Mars
E3 Jehra - Take It Or Leave It
F1 Mattia Trani - Dreampunk
F2 VIL & CRAVO - Plane to Lisboa
F3 jadzia - Surface
F4 Pablo Bozzi - To the Edge

Sales Note
The World of Monnom Black makes it triumphant return, unveiling the highly anticipated third iteration of its iconic release and ushering in a wealth of new artistic voices into its ever-expanding universe. Celebrated for curating the finest handpicked music, the series remains a beacon for championing the true essence of techno. Presented on triple vinyl and graced by 19 esteemed artists, marking this as the label's most innovative and important release to date. Welcome to The World Of Monnom Black 3! More

Repress!

MONDO GROOVE is releasing a real treat in a limited edition! The Dance Hits of Moana Pozzi, the legendary Italian porn star who was also very active as a singer on the music that JayHorus created especially for her. A 12" 45rpm with tracks produced at the turn of the 80s and 90s transferred from the original master tapes; it includes the 3 sought-after strong late Italo-Disco tracks Supermacho (Extended), Impulses of Sex and Let’s Dance, with the addition of Bonita, an unreleased track from the era used during her spicy live shows. More

Milan, Italy, 1983. In the midst of the 80s economic boom, which gave an injection of optimism after the heavily political 70s, a group of young local musicians meet every night in a basement to rehearse and record a peculiar breed of Italian disco music. Originated from the ashes of various other projects, and rooted in the broader jazz-funk tradition, the group creates music which is equally inspired by contemporary fusion as well as by the first wave of the italo-disco sound. Over approximately 3 years the band has recorded and played live, until the dismantling of the project towards the mid 80's.
Fast forward 35 years and the genuinely mediterranean flavor of Qvark's demo recordings are still enjoyable, both for the actual resurgence of the Italian disco tradition and for the groovy quirkiness of a project which has been too long forgotten. After an intense work of audio restoration of such tapes, heavily affected by time, Early Sounds is pleased to present a compila More