One Eye Witness turns its gaze to South America with WITNESS06. The Amsterdam imprint continues its growing number of VA EPs with 4 brooding creations from Uruguayan artists Molen & Nahuel, Michelle, Z@p & Latress. While punchy and hard-hitting, each track carries a subtly menacing energy, prodding darker corners of the dancefloor with undeniably satisfying echoes of 80s EBM. Molen & Nahuel’s enticing bassline and brassy synths lead the charge on opener “Modus Operandi”. Rising talent Michelle then pushes at a sense of paranoia with “Last Cello”, its elastic bassline providing the footing for clever percussive trickery. Things take a heady turn on “Ignorance” as Z@p weaves a po-faced speech into psychedelic synth work. Latress opts for a more introspective take on final cut “Perseverance” — pensive harmonies and glassy tones round out this collection of seductive, hypnotic tracks. Ready for Industriehallen worldwide!

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It’s a big family affair as four OEW favourites gather on the latest record. Full squad manoeuvres as the quartet of Priori, Eversines, O'FortyFour and Reflex Blue assemble to do some serious damage.

The four-pronged outing kicks off on a proper heads-down tip. Coming thru with thebliss-out, widescreen pads and locked-in groove, NAFF founder Francis Latreille, AKA Priori, sets pace with the sort of track you can imagine inducing trance states at 4 AM. Eversines, on the other hand, opts for a more buoyant kind of flex. Heralding the golden era of early ‘90s acid house, ’Vigilance' retains the hypnotic qualities of its predecessor. Radiant gear.

Serving big electro accelerators, the next two represent something of a departure. But where O’FortyFour’s rude, elasticated contribution comes replete with insectoid detail, Reflex Blue recalls the finest Motor City hydraulics with a slice of Drexciyan-indebted machine funk.

Artwork by Susan Janssen
Words by Matt Blair

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More VA action as the series continues with another instalment. As is tradition at OEW, four heavy hitters grace the newest plate. Enlisting rising talents and familiar faces alike, the Witness surveys all, cherry-picking another clutch of intrepid dancefloor navigators for the label.

Asphalt DJ tees off with a shadowy, driving tripper. Flush with insistent throb and a spectrum of proggy flourishes, it’s properly hypnotic fare. De Lichting member RDS, on the other hand, opts in favour of deep space projection. ‘TH Only’ is a pristine transmission; deep groove and widescreen scope primed to soundtrack imagined interplanetary expeditions.

Making nocturnal manoeuvres with a touch of grit, Hypercolour and Glass Table co- founder Ste Roberts goes off on another tangent entirely. ‘Tune Pitch Decay’ is as dusky as it is propulsive; tough and cavernous for the duration. Made of uneasy soundscapes and half-time, rolling drums, Amsterdam local Tammo Hesselink finally rounds things off on an abstract, downtempo tip.

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Repress!
Casting its net far and wide, from Australia to Finland, via the UK and Tunisia, One Eye Witness’ maiden VA drop gathers a quartet of the international producers who’ve come to pique our interest in recent months.

Starting with Tunis-based up-and-comer HearThug, who steps up with “Alien All Too Alien” - a steadily pulsatory, 303-marinated dasher interlarded with flocks of pugnacious talk box stabs and rattling drums, making it a proper DJ-friendly weapon for any hour of the day. Helsinki’s Jeku follows up with the tribal acid churner ‘Aftermath’, laying down a sleek, sub-heavy earworm prepped on submerging systems from under the deepest layers of the spectrum with its fluttering melody, sturdy basswork and FX-laden synthesis.

Flip the coin over and here goes London-based groove manipulator Sohrab, entering the melee with ‘Ataraxia’ - a hypnotic slice of stealth mode, Gaussian-blurred dub techno that does exactly what’s written on the tin. The final number ’Surrender’ comes courtesy of rising Sydney-based producer Cousin, who treats us to a tripped-out ethereal riddim making the rounds betwixt the vaporous serenity of ambient and deep dub vibrations. The endearing final brushstroke to OEW’s first Zeitgeistian snapshot.

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Resurfacing with their anticipated second iteration in a few months time, newly-launched Amsterdam platform One Eye Witness turns in a versatile second VA featuring the many flavoured likes of Robert Dietz, Z@p, Kasper Marott and New Members. Showcasing the label’s tireless search for new horizons and intrinsic lack of musical ideology, this new EP highlights talents whose shared ambition is to write the future of club music.

Berlin’s Robert Dietz serves up the first salvo, “EMQU EMJAY”, a lush and bouncy electro jam doing the splits between UK step, seaswept house and post-Rephlexian, Eastern-infused electronica. Reaching for much darker places, Z@p’s “YFM” pulls out an enslaving Knight Rider kind of nocturnal vibe, full with a powerhouse bass and mesmeric swing to keep dancers on their toes from start to finish. Gutsy, psy-op-ready material for when the lights shut off for good and club pressure raises up to suffocating levels.

Danish producer Kasper Marott is next with the swirling “Bleep”, cutting a path of doped-up, funky exhilaration across the dance floor. Drawing in a raging pool of acid and 8-bit tropes, Marott boasts unmatched skills when it comes to harnessing hella hectic solar-powered grooves. Pear affiliate New Members punches in last with “The Dink” - a hybrid dub slab joining the dots betwixt liquid jungle, fun-loving house and more out-there acid, reminiscent of Wink’s most hair-raising momentums but with a further breaks-luvin’ twist to it.

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