You might be family with margot, the duo of Giaga Robot and Pepe behind Hell Yeah’s new EP: their single ‘Liuff Settanta’ became something of an underground quirky hit, getting picked up by Sven Vath for his Sound of the 13th Season compilation, whilst james holden is a keen fan, not only playing much of margot's music, but so too are they a key part of the Border Community family.

The pair are live specialists too, and have played all over Europe recently as well as turning in a brace of remixes for Daniel Snaith’s might Daphni moniker. True to form, they continue to confound expectation on this latest 12”, serving up three epically rich tracks that combine analogue workouts with dub techno rhythms and coming backed with a Prins Thomas remix.

First track Fank1 bubbles and boils on a huge, almost edgeless kick drum as a grubby guitar riff curls its way through the middle of the track. From there an eco system of fried synths decorate the backdrop as the soft, pillow-y bed of dub continues to ebb and flow below.

Alt is hooked around an uneasy pattern of chords. It’s backed by tasteful, sporadic African chants and drums so lively they could only have been played live. It’s a slow burner, but eventually consumes your being in a way that anyone from Âme to Ricardo Villalobos might champion.

The remix comes from Norwegian disco heavyweight Prins Thomas. At ten minutes long it’s the very definition of an epic journey. Jangling synth lines dance around the loose drums, distant swirls of cosmic air add a huge sense of scale and all the while you’re just left listening in wonderment to the unfolding tale around you.

There are so many layers to margot's music, yet it never sounds cluttered or over complicated, it simply soothes and amazes in equal measure. On this evidence, margot are heading on to big things in the not too distant future.

This year's Border Community encampment at Amsterdam's annual 5 Days Off extravaganza draws together the disparate threads of the UK's burgeoning electronic underground, as Border Community goes head-to-head with Mr Gold Panda's fledgling Notown imprint on Saturday 9th March, with a not inconsiderable contribution from Werk Discs' junior contingent.

Recent rearranger of Nathan Fake's Paean Lone is our special guest in the Border Community-slanted The Max, where he adds his live stylings to the Border Community hardcore of the afore-mentioned venerable Nathan Fake, right honourable disc jockey wesley matsell, and of course mobile trance inducer james holden.

Meanwhile, over in the Oude Zaal, fellow Fake-fondler Lukid lends his amiable DJ support to label hosts Notown, bolstering an in house cast that includes luke abbott (on special loan from Border Community), the sprightly Dam Mantle and brand new signing Hannes Rasmus, as well as solid home support from Amsterdam local boy Jorn Liefdeshuis.

Tickets are on sale now from Ticketmaster priced at 19 Euros: don't delay!

Sneaky budget price early bird tickets have been doing the rounds on the web for a few weeks with the mysterious promise of a Border Community themed New Years Eve extravaganza at a yet to be disclosed London venue, but thankfully the time has finally come to lift the veil on the full line-up of hot-to-trot DJ and live act talent tasked with taking you safely through into 2013. Respect is due to the tireless efforts of the Broken and Uneven crew for managing to pin down so many lovelies in one place on such a prestigious night of the year!

Your hand-picked Border Community hosts for the evening certainly won't disappoint, comprising the British-based dream team of our high priest of hedonism DJ james holden, the respective live stylings of Norfolk smasher Nathan Fake and Norfolk basher luke abbott, and wizardly Welsh hard-disk jockey wesley matsell giving an airing to some of their latest greatest hits from the recent past and foreseeable future for the delectation of the assembled throng. Not to mention very special guest and top draw selector Ivan Smagghe who generously lends his peculiar blend of re-edit-heavy dark chunky no-wave funk to the cause of partying like it is 2013.

Room Two meanwhile expands outwards to reveal a pair of recent Holden-approved dancefloor exponents: the well-judged techno and deft melodic touch of Redshape, and the enveloping warmth of the raw analogue melancholics of Midlander Mark E, plus Fort Romeau and the Warm DJs crew. And journeying on into a third dimension the combined forces of south-of-the-river party people South and Pictures Music provide yet another dancefloor outlet, roping in the services of Koreless, Dauwd and Bobby Champs for the occasion. Phew.

Tickets are currently available for an extremely reasonable £15 from Resident Advisor for immediate consumption, with full venue details to be revealed nearer to the time: don't hide away!

Eponymous lead-off track available to hear over at lukeabbottmusic.com now

“Modern Driveway then, sees luke abbott join an elite club of producers who are equally as rewarding in quiet bedroom contemplation as they are on a starry-eyed night out” The NME

“electronic music that is at turns subtle and soothing, intense and challenging. You can trace its lineage back through Boards Of Canada to Aphex Twin and beyond to Eno. A richly rewarding experience” Mojo, Electronica Album of the Month

Following on from the incredibly well received EP Modern Driveway released through NOTOWN this May, luke abbott is to release a new EP this December. The ‘Object Is A Navigator’ EP continues where Modern Driveway left off, with the mesmerizing combination of warm, analogue sounds and a beating heart of twisted melody.

‘Object is a Navigator’ EP is released on 12” vinyl and digitally on 10th December, and is the second EP of music released by abbott since the slow burning success of his 2010 LP Holkham Drones.

Receiving praise across the spectrum from the likes of Mojo (One of their Electronica Albums of 2010), The Guardian, NME, the dance press, The Wire, Resident Advisor and Drowned In Sound – abbott has resisted the urge to cash in on his rise in popularity. It’s something he certainly could do given that, as he admits, “making music has become a part of my day-to-day life, like eating or sleeping, I write an awful lot at home;” instead, though, the he deals in complete wholes, juxtaposing a sense of aural freedom atop considered thought processes.

An intimate communal atmosphere has always surrounded abbott's work, and he remains rooted in his native Norwich, largely, he states, because of the healthy scene growing in his home town now. It’s that warmth that perhaps imbues on Object Is A Navigator, aided further by electronics both digital and analogue, some of which the producer designs and makes himself as part of a home studio that resembles the cluttered and manically accumulated hubs of some of the 1970s great sonic thinkers. Yet luke abbott'smusic itself doesn’t feel retro in any way itself; rather Object Is A Navigator contains songs both for the here and now, and sounds that look set to continue to sculpt his future.

With petar dundov, you always know what you're going to get: Hypnotic sequences, soaring leads and an appreciation for trance in its most classic sense, inherited from '90s Frankfurt and Klaus Schulze. Stripped of the '80s overtones of songs like "Stairway" and "Tenth Plateau," "Lily Wasp" sounds as pure and as essentially techno as anything dundov has done, with a corkscrewing focus akin to "Silent Visitor." Over nine minutes, the track wends its way through dramatic string crescendos and more contemplative acid passages, but it's underpinned throughout by a single pedal tone. The single-mindedness of that descending, minor-key arpeggio keeps the track feeling exceptionally grounded, while its faint shuffle and bubbling pulse encourage you to dig your heels in even deeper.

Funk has never been high on dundov's list of priorities, but there's an additional dose of swing on "Triton." (Perhaps he picked it up working with Gregor Tresher on "Solstice," the grooviest thing that dundov's ever put his name to.) Like the A-side, it's a long, meditative journey with a touch of Detroit night driving to it, illuminated by faint bursts of acid and synths with a coppery gleam.

Following last year's success of the first Nachtdigital record ("Nachti Zehn Zoll"), we celebrate the 15th edition of our festival with another special vinyl release: Nachti Zwölf Zoll.

Paris is next in line for the Border Community treatment on June 28th, when the lovely people from Mercredi Production's ME.006 Rendez-Vous city festival have invited us to host a Thursday evening in the Cabaret Sauvage former circus space in the city's Parc de la Villette.

It all kicks off promptly at 8pm with a special guest live show from one of our favourite Parisians, the cuddly, cute and completely cosmic synth-and-sax maestro Etienne Jaumet on loan from local label Versatile for the evening to lend his esteemed support to the Border Community cause. An early doors stage slot is also the optimum way to experience the particle collision of the kate wax live show, coupling her bewitching voodoo vocal incantations with a stylish set of interactive algorithmic light projections onto the human canvas that is kate wax. It then falls to Welsh mystic wesley matsell to pick up the pace with a DJ set of transcendent proportions (as witnessed on this recent mini-mix for Swedish playmates Studio Barnhus), building up to the big guns of fuzzy analogician Fairmont's tasty boundary blurring indie-electronic synth-and-vocal stew. Finally the baton is passed to Norfolk smasher Nathan Fake to give his latest greatest laptop goodies a thoroughly noisy public rinsing, before boss-of-us-all james holden wheels out the finest in music-for-dancing-to to hold the dancefloor masses enraptured right through until the break of dawn.

Individual tickets for the Border Community contribution to the ME.006 programme are on sale now priced at 24 Euros, but be sure to check the Digitick site for the full list of festival pass options, as well as consulting the ME.006 Rendez-Vous website for the full lowdown on the festival's five days of musical pampering that also features the likes of Laurent Garnier, Francois K, Modeselektor, Magda, Soul Clap, John Talabot, Nina Kraviz, Damian Lazarus, Rone, Lazer Sword, Marc Houle, Troy Pierce, Chloe, Superpitcher, Clement Meyer, Mlle Caro and Addison Groove.

It’s with great honour that In Paradisum welcome sometime Border Community and Traum Schallplatten artist ricardo tobar into the label for the fourth chapter in their fledgling story. The Esoteric / Carnaval EP reveals four tracks that further showcase the Chilean producer’s unerring grasp for electronic music that combines moments of introspection with the unshakeable urge to lose yourself in the moment.

Those of you that shared Surgeon’s love for the monumental pressure of our second release, Mondkopf’s Ease Your Pain will no doubt be satisfied that tobar is extending this plunge towards all new uncompromising techno territory from various, equally engrossing angles. Pitch the rough hewn mutant beat dance of 'Esoteric' next to the fizzing, acid tainted textures of 'Recuerdos' or the grinding journey through Dante’s Inferno that is 'Carnaval' and it’s easy to see why tobar has been accommodated into the In Paradisum fold.

In Paradisum is a label venture between Fool House and Mondkopf and a party residency in Paris held in venues like Rex Club and La Gaité Lyrique, where they have welcomed artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never, Sandwell District, Perc, Demdike Stare and more.

After several releases on Border Community and Traum Schallplatten, Chile's ricardo tobar returns for the first instalment from Knopje Musik, and proud they are as he has given them three of his neat next generation songs for us to dance to. Having taken a short break from releasing in order to tour and compose, ricardo has saved some of his work for Knopje, and in return they are giving birth to his new Betweener EP.

First song 'Betweener' takes us back to classic tobar work. Big chords with a hypnotic melody that, after a break, puts us on an arpeggio escalade with a mantric vocal loop, bringing our sensations to the high spheres of party madness.

'Anne' is a distorted synth affair, with a dream-pop-shoegaze style all fitting together thanks to a 4/4 beat and sidechain compression. Hypnotic and surprising at the same time, the song certainly reassures us about ricardo’s hardworking search for noise.

Last one 'Pequeñita' closes the deal here: an ambient pop song with the word “fragile” all over the place. This proves to us that ricardo’s delicate way of making tunes is the perfect example of music that can either bang dancefloors or make your thoughts fly away at home.

“It’s pretty sweet for me to be able to steal an artist off Border Community for a while, and luke’s amazing; Holkham Drones is what I would have loved to have made.” - Gold Panda

Modern Driveway is abbott’s first work since 'Holkham Drones' and, whereas for others an EP might simply be a sandbox of sorts, for him it stands alone as uniquely as any of his other releases. Another shift forward for the bedroom artist, tracks like ‘Modern Driveway’ and ‘Carriage’ in particular still possess the dream-like nature that encompasses his sound, but attach themselves slightly more to gridlines, defined edges between textures, and beats.

In the past abbott has traditionally been part of james holden’s Border Community, and the influence of time on the road playing Border-specific showcases with the likes of kate wax, Nathan Fake and holden himself has undoubtedly worn off. However this EP comes out on Notown, a label set up by Gold Panda at the beginning of his career. Derwin explains, “When I started Gold Panda I couldn’t find a decent UK record deal, and I wasn’t too confident in shopping around and in the current musical climate thought ‘let’s go DIY’". Derwin ended up releasing his breakthrough debut album 'Lucky Shiner' on the imprint as well.

luke explains that the pair came together after moving in the same circles, resulting first in Gold Panda remixing his track Brazil for him, “Then I just mentioned that I was thinking about releasing an EP and he offered to release it, which I wasn't expecting! He genuinely cares about the record that we're making.”

An intimate communal atmosphere has always surrounded abbott’s work, and he remains rooted in his native Norwich rather than jumping on the train down to London, largely, he states, because of the healthy scene growing in his home town now. It’s that warmth that perhaps imbues on 'Modern Driveway', aided further by electronics both digital and analogue, some of which the producer designs and makes himself as part of a home studio that resembles the cluttered and manically accumulated hubs of some of the 1970s great sonic thinkers. Yet luke abbott’s music itself doesn’t feel retro in any way itself; rather 'Modern Driveway' contains songs both for the here and now, and sounds that look set to continue to sculpt his future.

"The title track from the Norfolk producer's latest EP is stunning: resonant melodies and a hypnotic groove create a sensation of satisfying melancholy." - The Times

Reviewed by: Soundwall.it