Heavy Hands by The Analogue Cops

From the depths of the cavernous Restoration Headquarters comes the debut album from the notorious Analogue Cops and marks their return to the infamous Berlin imprint. After a busy 2012 curating the Third Side project together with Steffi, the duo pair up for this filthy, distorted and crackling collection of hardware oddities, body stompers and circuit-bending analogue excursions built for total dance floor annihilation. From the pouncing, distorted kicks and funked-out-as-fuck samples of “Steffi’s Disco Crime” or the the seductively grooving house swirls of “SecondDiscoCrime” featuring Steffi herself, the LP immediately sets the scene for what evolves into a standout work from the Cops. Separated by crafty infusions of machine drones, each side of the two wax plates emanates ferocity, such as on “Blackmails” – a scorching, industrialist viewpoint on techno and even the broken, percolating beats of “Fraudulent Advisors”. UK techno crafter and Parassela co-member, Blawan, injects his inimitable grit into “Light Reduction”, a fearlessly scorching bundle of distorted percussion and improvisational sonics; whilst the uncontainable bursts of drums on “Vopo” are guaranteed to send your jaw into a twist…Last but not least, “Grove Line Forcing” showcases the duo’s undeniably individualistic sampling methods, whilst “Pearls Robbery” (featuring the mysterious Stanley Anscorm) heads down murkier, more convoluted paths, where lo-fi bass lines meet glitched-out percussion breaks for an early morning mutant techno workout. Watch your back – techno restoration is upon us… 

words by Pietro Barbieri-h

Vinyl purists, gear scientists, lo-fi tech-freaks and general purveyors of all forms of hardware, Lucretio and Marieu aka The Analogue Cops are the founders of Restoration Records.