Mickey Pearce is back in business with 'One Hundred Smiles', a new album of swaggering UK club music experimentations, and a new label Box Of Toys. His first album, 'Michael' (2016), saw him exploring new territory; crafting a strange and melancholic landscape of beatless textures and leftfield house and techno. Approached with a fresh perspective, 'One Hundred Smiles' slows the tempo and ups the collaboration. "The last record was a reflection of my situation around that time. This one is like stepping out from under a cloud. It's about the joy of collaboration; meeting and working with new people. It's also about the ambiguity of smiles, and the complicated relationships we form." The album features appearances from rising UK talent Poté, Taiwanese vocalist Meuko Meuko and Greek electronic pioneer Lena Platonos. "Poté is a crazy talent. We've done a bunch of sessions and made a load of tracks, two of which ended up here and one of which is going on his next record. Meuko Meuko is an artist from Taiwan. We communicate entirely via Instagram. She'd send me translations of the lyrics in Instagram messages, but I'm still not sure if I've chopped them into any sort of sense. The instrumental was called 'Slime', and she misread that intentionally or unintentionally to mean "smile" and sent me all these crazy lines about "your lovely smile" and it was just perfect. I love her. Lena Platonos is a legend, and someone I was honoured to work with. The day she told me she had been playing and enjoying the record around her friends was a good day." 'One Hundred Smiles' is the first release on his own label Box Of Toys. The label is named the same as his 2017-2018 radio show series, which featured the album's guests as well as Randomer, Machine Woman, Airhead, The Maghreban and Object Blue. 'One Hundred Smiles' is released on LP and digital via Box Of Toys on 2nd November 2018. More

The boy, Mickey Pearce, back on Yen after dropping a beauty of an album on Swamp 81 this year. Banging, rapscallion beats.
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Last summer, four years after Loefah first floated the idea of a Mickey Pearce album, Mickey sat down to write a mixtape of loops - a sequel to 2014's 'Up West' - but found himself in new, melancholic territory. Less than three months later 'Michael' was written. Ahead of the radio premiere of 'August', Mickey told Mary Anne Hobbs
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New 4 Track 12" release from Mickey Pearce for Swamp 81 sublabel, 81 More

One of Matthew Herbert's more demented, concrète-technoid aliases, Wishmountain gives up its first album in a decade - think Pierre Bastien meets Thomas Brinkmann at a DIY store. Back in the late '90s Wishmountain 'fessed to the tuffer side of Herbert's concrète house principles and was a key part of the movement toward minimal techno that endured for many years after. 'Stonework: 1000 metres down' pits Herbert back in the minimal techno mines to hammer out 10 hypnotic, jiggly rhythmelodic workouts full of barebones but colourful percussion and mechanically recalled electronics that patently manifest Herbert's innovative ear for intriguing sounds and knack for drivingly playful, club-ready arrangements. Made for close listening as well as harder working DJs who like to get busy with long blends and the EQ's, a familiar palette of foley-like tones subtly shift permutations of tempo and pattern in the album's cyclical carousel. The panel-beating canter of 'Tap' and clipped tattoo of 'Tool' hail why Wishmountain's work has long been name-checked by everyone form Ancient Methods to Pangaea, while the offbeat swang and grind of 'Headrush' and experimental trample of 'Dig' or the lo-slung swang of 'Deep' join dots between Brinkmann and likes of Kirk Barkey's Bambooman. The best, however, is saved for last with the nine minute 'Walk' evoking analogs to Muslimgauze's more locked-in, tripped-out, unyielding loop-based tekkerz in its Arabic-toned drums and atmospheric workshop noise. More

Following his debut on the label with last year’s ‘The Pob Routine’, Jerome Hill returns to AccidentalJnr with another absolute stonker of a release which we’ll let him describe in his own words...

“After my last EP for Jnr I spoke with label boss Matthew Herbert and he challenged me to write a track for the next EP, containing only sounds I'd recorded 'in the wild'. I was about to spend a little time on an organic Vegetable farming co-op just outside Munich, 'Kartoffel Kombinat' which I'd previously nicknamed Potato Land, so I brought my recorder and during my stay made lots of recordings, carrots being bitten and snapped, various gardening tools clattering around, voices and even the big tombola-like machine that cleans the freshly picked vegetables. The resulting track was Potatoland and the only non-organic noise in it is the kick. Various 'Potatoland’ elements also make guest appearances in the other tracks, although they are less easy to spot.

'Quibble’, was also written specifically for the label and was influenced by Herbert who I've been a huge fan of for decades... I wanted to make something suitably wobbly and humorous that shuffles along but then really slams when the kick comes in. Add in the Dance Mania influenced ‘Chicken’ and the final track ‘Bleeper’ and that's the EP... Very happy to be back!!” More

The Accidental label pushes on in it’s 21st anniversary year with ‘Thanet House EP’, a no nonsense, no pretention house 12” from renowned sound artist and designer Yuri Suzuki. Born in Tokyo in 1980, Suzuki studied in Tokyo and London, exploring the relationship between music and technology. His design and sound work is widely lauded, with examples of his practice being found in, among others, Tate Britain, MoMA and Mudan. In 2016 he was recognized by Design Miami, receiving their Designer of the Future award and in 2018 became a partner at the world’s largest independently owned design studio, Pentagram. More

Stalwart German producer Jackmate signs to Herbert’s Accidental Jnr for his new EP 'Werk' out on July 3. More

Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Jnr imprint are back with their second release of the year, this time inviting rising London based star Third Son into the fold. The Polymath label boss has been causing quite a stir in the house music scene with releases for 17 Steps, Skint and Sincopat as well as clocking up remix credits for among others Marc Romboy and Maya Jane Coles (under her Nocturnal Sunshine alias).

‘Bag O’ Bones’ opens up proceedings with its clattering toybox percussion, throbbing kick drums and dissonant lead stabs. The track has a brittle, dry quality to it, but Third Son’s ear for the dance floor is clear as the arrangement smoothly rolls along at firm a pace. More of the same is served up in ‘Chime Salad’, with layers upon layers of wonky, shifting percussion, building up into a tower of sound that feels as though it should come crumbling down, but somehow always stands firm.

The B1 ‘Phase Of Going Through Life’ brings the energy back down to earth with its slightly sparser arrangement and clips of bird songs, while still maintaining the off kilter pace of the previous pieces. The record then closes with the feel-good club work out, ‘The Brain Named Itself’, where we find Third Son administering a last-minute, sharp injection of groove. The dissonant synths that opened the record are replaced by brilliant, euphoric chord sweeps and pounding drums that are sure to move any dancefloor. More

The Accidental Jnr label has just passed it’s second birthday mark… so at 2 years and 15 releases in it only seems appropriate for the next 12” release to come from the artist that kicked the label off and has made it his home for the past 2 years… Bambooman, with a remix from label boss Matthew Herbert himself on the b-side. The track can really speak for itself as this one is something special for the dancefloor, the only difficulty is choosing which version to play... More

Gerry Read launches his new campaign to look at Preventing Violence Against Ears in all of its forms. In partnership with the Accidental Jnr corporation, Gerry hopes that this campaign will not just raise awareness but will actively work to prevent these alarming new practices. We urge you to take notice and to assist us by making sure that your peers, foes and family alike listen closely to this important movement. Relevant recordings have been produced and are available now via both 12” vinyl and digital mediums. More