London producer Kel McKeown celebrates the release of his tenth album as Kelpe, with a vinyl edition of uncategorisable dance music on Kit Records.

Kelpe's work combines live drumming with synthesis and guitars. Like the nine records that came before it, LP10 treads the line between gauzy melancholia and bustling, dancefloor-ready energy.

Listening to Kelpe's music can feel like fluttering through a photo album at speed. Familiar faces and locations are revealed, nostalgic scenes assembled then scattered by unruly rhythms and samples.

Analogue percussion takes centre stage on LP10. This restless drumming - gear-shifting from hip-hop through to jungle - showcases McKeown's chops as an instrumentalist, while harking back to the scrambled beats that were a hallmark of his early releases.

Kelpe has worked closely with the visual artist Nikita Iziev on this record. Inspired by pioneering film director John Schlesinger, the serendipitous geometry of new wave cinema is mapped out in fractured moments across the music and artwork.

While the track 'Schlesinger' echoes the bouncing unpredictability of the sleeve, 'The Palace Guard Loop' pours neon fertiliser over fender rhodes jazz keys. Adrenalin reaches a zenith on 'Events Proved Me Wrong', as Kelpe hits his stride for a homespun drum and bass workout.

LP10 will be the final full length Kelpe album. More

London based electronic marvel Kel McKeown - aka Kelpe - celebrates ten years of sonic boundary pushing with new maxi single, DRUT001/ 'Answered' - out April 15th - and new LP DRUT002/ 'Fourth: The Golden Eagle' - out June 3rd - both on his brand new label DRUT.
Setting to work with a selection of analogue synths - Moog, Korg Polysix, Korg MS10 and Doepfer Dark Energy - the Ableton aficionado and purveyor of warped, cut 'n' spliced cliq-hop beats has delivered a handcrafted, 10-track masterpiece of an album which draws upon the strengths of his previous three. It's softer, warmer and more graceful than 2009's 'Cambio Wechsel', with a strong melodic element, and one which will secure his place in the canon of post-IDM greats.
Kelpe says of the LP: "On the whole, I was trying to make the warmest and most analogue sounding thing I've done, and I think it came out best on 'Answered'. The rest of the LP, in a way, is an extended build up to that favourite track on the record, which in itself was an opportunity to take leave of everything preceding it and go off on an epic trip."
Rollicking opener and curveball 'Astrolomy' brings to mind the mesmeric Anatolian guitar of 'After Gold' - a standout track on 'Cambio Wechsel' - swishing its tail to syncopated drum rolls as it dodges electro bolts-out-of-the-blue. It's followed by the lush, soulful, heavenly Baths-esque future pop of 'Beaks of Eagles' - with gloopy synths, hollowed beats and obfuscated crowd chatter - the kind of song that chillwave probably wanted to be, but never quite was.
The shoegaze-ready 'Nice Eyes In My Size', with twinkles of xylophone and twisted, subtractive synths aping the guitar's wah-ing licks, is pursued and offset by the squelchy industrial clamour of ensuing track 'Single Stripe', which metamorphoses from techno to dream-pop in one fell swoop, glossed over with fade-out vocals and a denouement of synthetic steel drums.
Other LP highlights include 'Glinterlude' - a heavily textured, urgent, percussive-led, 8-bit behemoth of a track - the sweet 'n' sour pop hook of 'Superzero Theme' and the minimal, glitchy cut 'Outwhere'.
CD/LP TRACKLISTING:
1. Astrolomy
2. Beaks of Eagles
3. Superzero Theme
4. Go Visible
5. Nice Eyes in My Size
6. Single Stripe
7. Glinterlude
8. Puds
9. Outwhere
10. Answered
More

London based electronic stalwart Kel McKeown – aka Kelpe – celebrates ten years of sonic boundary pushing with new maxi single, DRUT001/ 'Answered' - out April 15th preceding new LP 'Fourth: The Golden Eagle'. The 7-minute white noise drenched 'Answered' is the epic final track of the LP and is being released as a 3 track “maxi single” here with two like-minded B-sides.Opening the flipside of the maxi single is 'Haunt' - which Kelpe credits with a similar mood to the 'Answered' but describes it as more pastoral, uptempo and heavier, with a slightly distorted 4 / 4 kick drum and sharp sawtooth bass. Serving as a mellow finale to the record is Barney's Dream. This is the most recent production on the record and is “sort of an ode to a lovely looking old ginger dog called Barney that my Grandparents had many years ago, although I only remember him from photos. It's a mellow track with a sad / happy feel that builds slowly with one element at a time adding one by one over a repetitive piano line.”

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Chesslo Junior comes to Kelpe's Drut Recordings for his first ever vinyl release – a 6 track EP of house tempo jams and avant garde beat sculptures: “Long Hum”. With previous releases on Wotnot as well as numerous self released hip hop bootlegs, Chesslo becomes the first artist other than Kelpe to release on his fledgeling label. Moving beyond the 808 swagger of his earlier material, these cuts are spacious experiments that absorb everything from the darker reaches of the house spectrum to wayward beat-music. As it's name suggests this is a thoughtful record, more mature than previous outings, and finding flow like an album but condensed into a neat six track package of varying styles and tempos. During the six month period of its production Chesslo worked in a music library by day, locating mood-appropriate songs for commercials. Hours sifting through vacant scores of ad music stirred in him a taste for the opposite. Distorted sounds and saturated textures stood as creative antidotes to the hollow ephemera of commercial muzak. Launched with fresh inspiration, the record was an experimental journey into new methods of expression. The ghostly harmonised vocals on Get A Grip are Junior’s first attempt to experiment with his own voice. He also invested in new tools: the EP's organic quality owes a lot to found sounds captured with newly acquired field-recording devices and the help of an old Hammond unearthed in Muswell Hill. Full to the nines with a whole range of careful sound design, the record reveals more about itself with every listen. This is an EP that beckons you to tread further into the mind of this promising young producer. Up until now, Chesslo has been recognized as a producer defined by a playful roster of beat-jams and floor-friendly bangers, but Long Hum really throws back the curtain on the scale of Chesslo’s talent and ambition.
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London based electronic marvel Kel McKeown - aka Kelpe - celebrates ten years of sonic boundary pushing with new maxi single, DRUT001/ 'Answered' - out April 15th - and new LP DRUT002/ 'Fourth: The Golden Eagle' - out June 3rd - both on his brand new label DRUT.
Setting to work with a selection of analogue synths - Moog, Korg Polysix, Korg MS10 and Doepfer Dark Energy - the Ableton aficionado and purveyor of warped, cut 'n' spliced cliq-hop beats has delivered a handcrafted, 10-track masterpiece of an album which draws upon the strengths of his previous three. It's softer, warmer and more graceful than 2009's 'Cambio Wechsel', with a strong melodic element, and one which will secure his place in the canon of post-IDM greats.
Kelpe says of the LP: "On the whole, I was trying to make the warmest and most analogue sounding thing I've done, and I think it came out best on 'Answered'. The rest of the LP, in a way, is an extended build up to that favourite track on the record, which in itself was an opportunity to take leave of everything preceding it and go off on an epic trip."
Rollicking opener and curveball 'Astrolomy' brings to mind the mesmeric Anatolian guitar of 'After Gold' - a standout track on 'Cambio Wechsel' - swishing its tail to syncopated drum rolls as it dodges electro bolts-out-of-the-blue. It's followed by the lush, soulful, heavenly Baths-esque future pop of 'Beaks of Eagles' - with gloopy synths, hollowed beats and obfuscated crowd chatter - the kind of song that chillwave probably wanted to be, but never quite was.
The shoegaze-ready 'Nice Eyes In My Size', with twinkles of xylophone and twisted, subtractive synths aping the guitar's wah-ing licks, is pursued and offset by the squelchy industrial clamour of ensuing track 'Single Stripe', which metamorphoses from techno to dream-pop in one fell swoop, glossed over with fade-out vocals and a denouement of synthetic steel drums.
Other LP highlights include 'Glinterlude' - a heavily textured, urgent, percussive-led, 8-bit behemoth of a track - the sweet 'n' sour pop hook of 'Superzero Theme' and the minimal, glitchy cut 'Outwhere'.
CD/LP TRACKLISTING:
1. Astrolomy
2. Beaks of Eagles
3. Superzero Theme
4. Go Visible
5. Nice Eyes in My Size
6. Single Stripe
7. Glinterlude
8. Puds
9. Outwhere
10. Answered
More

London based electronic stalwart Kel McKeown – aka Kelpe – celebrates ten years of sonic boundary pushing with new maxi single, DRUT001/ 'Answered' - out April 15th preceding new LP 'Fourth: The Golden Eagle'. The 7-minute white noise drenched 'Answered' is the epic final track of the LP and is being released as a 3 track “maxi single” here with two like-minded B-sides.Opening the flipside of the maxi single is 'Haunt' - which Kelpe credits with a similar mood to the 'Answered' but describes it as more pastoral, uptempo and heavier, with a slightly distorted 4 / 4 kick drum and sharp sawtooth bass. Serving as a mellow finale to the record is Barney's Dream. This is the most recent production on the record and is “sort of an ode to a lovely looking old ginger dog called Barney that my Grandparents had many years ago, although I only remember him from photos. It's a mellow track with a sad / happy feel that builds slowly with one element at a time adding one by one over a repetitive piano line.”

More