Over the course of the summer Salon Records released a series of 3 limited 7s, all of which deserve a mention. The first came from Bruno Pronsato. His “Is Anybody Straight Up” is house. Angular, jerky, but jacking, and held together by a buzzing bass and the reciting of the title. Percussion is thrown in and out, increasing the funk, while the whole track is soaked in synthetic singing bowl textures. “Shelly Plays The Bells” is slower, stranger, its beats and spoken lyrics fogged by gauzy, grainy vapour. The results like a dub of Fusion’s “Dirty Kay”. 

Next was Matthew Dear’s “New Drug”. A shot of stuttered,  spiky, smart, subversive synth pop, where collaged vocal fragments are hooked up to the kick, percussively, beneath sinister slithering. Dear’s deep baritone delivery recalling David Sylvian’s recent collaboration with Lucrecia Dalt, and fizzing, fuzzed machines swapping in for where a more traditional song might have put riffing guitars. On the filp, the disco looped “Head In The Clouds” hit like a hazy mutation of classic, filtered French Touch. 

Rework were responsible for the third and final instalment. “Boring” is anything but, boasting a banging B-line and old school, gospel influenced house piano. The feel that of Balearic favourites, like L.U.P.O.’s “Keep It Up”, but the production more stripped back. Sascha Hedgehog playing the cheeky party girl, flirting and teasing, taunting you with the title over the bumping bass. “You Give It Up” is a little bit different, a fine funky alternative, that gives away the group’s avant roots. Back when they first started they covered Chris & Cosey. Some might call it “cold wave”, but it’s warmer than that. Its post-punk poetry riding rhythm box ticking, clicking and popping, resembling the electronica of contemporaries such as Lali Puna, or something from Toulouse Low Trax’s cracking “Kiosque Of Arrows“.

Salon Records’ Summer Series can be ordered directly from Salon Records.