The Dust Collision of Swiss voodoo priestess Kate Wax’s recently unveiled album takes its titular inspiration from Switzerland’s world-leading Large Hadron Collider, where sub-atomic particles are accelerated into one another, and the subsequent fallout observed for our universal scientific advancement. The first single to be lifted from said album – title track Dust Collision – is a cornerstone of self-producing autocrat Kate Wax’s personal album philosophy, where humans find new lovers through passing encounters in the night, like particles colliding in the LHC – momentary, exhilarating, predatory, intimate and ecstatic.

And it is of course entirely fitting that this shiver-inducing anthem to the nightlife experience – a heady concoction of soaring vocals, driving bassline and epic strings – should be subjected to the club-friendly remix treatment upon its single release: Ghostly International’s vintage synthesizer guru Solvent turns in an acidic slice of electro-pop that is just sweet enough to expose a tantalising glimmer of Kate Wax’s latent pop potential, but at the same time just sharp enough to spark the obligatory heads-down acid freakout on the dancefloor, whilst Border Community’s recent Italian recruits Margot take things in an altogether groovier direction with their decidedly on-message take on modern house music, building from a functional blend of rotund bassline, twisted vocals and fidgety blips to quite the melancholy emotional peak. The final slot on the vinyl B-side is reserved for an acapella vocal bounce for the creative DJ’s turntablist pleasure, running us through the full gamut of Kate Wax’s playful vocal dexterity to take in looping spoken word performance art, cold wave robotic vocal synthesis, ecstatic other-worldly soaring disco diva, staccato panting and dead-eyed drone-mantra.

The vinyl and digital formats (MP3, FLAC and WAV) will be available from 5th March in all of your favourite stores, from Boomkat, Juno, Rough Trade, Bleep, Zero Inch and Amazon to our own snuggly in-house mp3 boutique. But before all of that, head on over to Vimeo or Youtube right away for another glimpse into Kate Wax’s dusty musical universe, her face emerging out of the cosmic soup of the hand-made music video that accompanies her ‘Dust Collision’ original to languidly intone: “We are dust, we are lovers, the night loves, heroes like us…”.

Video by Aisha Devi-Enz. Dust script by Niels Wehrspann.

The Dust Collision single (including remixes from Solvent and Margot) will be released on 05/03/12 on 12″ vinyl and digital.

The musically and mathematically inclined trio of our own sometime Oxford-educated James Holden, reformed Manc-mathematician Kieran Hebden (otherwise numerically known as Four Tet) and ongoing PhD producer Dan Snaith (driving force of the Caribou machine) do rather relish any opportunity to play in one other’s presence. The challenge of course is trying to pin the three of them down in one place on the same date, such is the jetset nature of their respective touring schedules…

Kieran Hebden managed to make three legendary days of it back in November 2010 when he rolled his personally-curated bus tour out around the UK, stuffing our own James Holden and Nathan Fake onto a bill (and a tour bus) that also included the vital and visceral Rocketnumbernine synth-and-drums experience alongside the full Caribou band in all of its adorable glory and his own Four Tet live incarnation:

Dan Snaith repeated the feat last December when the trio were reconvened during the rehearsals for the Caribou Vibration Ensemble musical love-in which topped off the band’s Sunday curation of ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas, drafting in Kieran’s sampler support and James’ modular synth meltdown as well as additional drums from Ahmed Yeasayer (lately professionally known as Sinkane) and a full Canadian horn section to beef up their usual four piece to truly psychedelic proportions:

Your average humble promoter meanwhile usually has to settle for just two out of three – which in itself is no mean feat, and a task best left to the truly tenacious. London party planners Warm certainly fall into this category, having finally managed to lock down the full all-night-long DJ services of both James Holden and Dan ‘Caribou’ Snaith for this Saturday 18th February at the Bussey Warehouse in London’s Peckham. Tickets predictably flew out in a flash so this is already technically sold out, with just 100 extra bonus tickets which the Facebook event page assures us will be available on the door for early arrivals from 10pm.

(Flyer by the visually succinct Jack Featherstone, whose favoured colour palette has also recently graced the Another Land series of impeccable Border Community EPs from Avus, Margot and most recently Fairmont…)

The patience of Leeds’ Wax:On is also to be rewarded on 3rd March, when James Holden and Four Tet have committed to be DJ battle buddies for an evening at the city’s Mint Warehouse. Leeds is long overdue a Holden-fix, so any Yorkshire-based fans of music-for-dancing-to had better secure their £10 early bird tickets from Ticketarena pretty quickly to make sure that they don’t end up on the sharp end of another sell out:

NOTE FROM JAMES: James was totally blown away by the musicianship of every single one of his new-found Caribou Vibration Ensemble bandmates during their intensive week of rehearsals-leading-on-to-the-live-shows, and as soon as he got home he made sure to track down the respective solo and side projects of Sinkane, Kyle Brenders and Enon. He strongly advises that you do the same.

Stream Margot’s guest mix + interview with Russia’s Free-Ends Radio (via Mixcloud): GO>>

Paris is the latest destination for one of our famed Border Community showcases come 18th November, this time taking place at the aptly named Showcase club.

Nothing less than our latest greatest will do for such an occasion, which is why our resident vocal heroine Kate Wax and her live gang of bassist and visualist will be in town to put on one of her amazing displays of echoes and light in support of her imminent Dust Collision album. Currently on unstoppable live form our big-hearted Canadian friend Fairmont knows how to push all of the right buttons, and will be on hand and giving his all to his own one-man-band vocal-synth performance. Italy’s cutest couple Margot are also making the trip for one of their unique live-show-and-DJ-set fusions, distilling the intensity of both mediums into their own super-optimised dancefloor cocktail.

Finally, no Border Community meet-up would be complete without the grand master at the helm, so with custom DJ controller in hand hyperactive hamster James Holden promises to wheel out a selection of his best DJ tricks and kicks in typically unstoppable fashion. All that for just a €15 ticket, available from Digitick today. On y va!

Kick off this dark November week with a podcast goodie from lovely French audio-visual site The Drone, who dispatched one of their representatives to record the arpeggiated wonder of italo-techno cuties Margot’s live+DJ hybrid set at our Amsterdam Dance Event Melkweg showcase a few weeks back, complete with live vocal demi-operatics from the big man Giaga Robot. A full blown English conversation may still be a bit of a stretch for the quiet giant Giaga, but strangely he doesn’t seem to have a problem with singing in English!

Over in their Italian outpost of Riccione, Margot have currently got it all going on: their remix of Caribou main-man Dan Snaith’s new Daphni alter-ego has recently been released into the wild on limited edition YELLOW vinyl by the amazing Amazing Sounds, and for their next trick they have just finished a rework of the next single from our resident one-woman Dust Collision Kate Wax. Daphni’s ‘Ahora’ 12″ predictably seems to be flying out of the shops, but at the time of writing there were still a few copies available from the likes of Amazon and Kompakt, or head directly to faithful friends Boomkat for your instant hit of mp3s.

Daphni “Ahora” Margot Remix (cut) by margot

Meanwhile, a selection of Margot originals have been singled out for imminent release on reformed Lazy Fat Person Ripperton’s own Perspectiv Records and homegrown Italian label stable Hell Yeah Recordings, whilst their own eponymous Margot Records imprint is currently building up to unleash offerings from fellow Italian new waver Vaghe Stelle (with Young British Electronica’s Lukid drafted in on remix duties) and Giaga Robot’s solo project. Phew.

Margot’s next live+DJ outing happens in a couple of weeks time for another Border Community get-together, this time in Paris on 18th November at the Showcase venue, featuring a sterling selection of our nearest and dearest: dramatic button-pusher James Holden, one-man-indie-electronic-band Fairmont, bewitching boxroom-production heroine Kate Wax and of course those intrepid Italian arpeggiators Margot to further blur the boundaries between live show and DJ set as evidenced in the afore-mentioned dronecast. Grab your advance tickets now from Digitick for a night of the finest in music-for-dancing-to.

- Stream & download Margot’s Dronecast for The Drone: GO>>

The annual Amsterdam Dance Event convention just wouldn’t be complete without one of our legendary Border Community Melkweg blowouts: Saturday 22nd October is the all-important date for your diary. Any excuse to gather our nearest and dearest together in one place for the evening is most welcome, and to join our high priest and DJ James Holden this year we have assembled an illustrious array of purveyors of dance music of the live (and next level) variety.

Riding the wave of his Velora EP, Canada’s Fairmont will be in town and taking full advantage of the Melkweg stage to exorcise his wistful vocal demons with an all-analogue live electronica show complete with a substantial song component. Bolshy beatmeister Luke Abbott also has plenty to offer in the way of synth hardware, stomping out his Holkham Drones standards in a bass heavy fashion that proves he has truly arrived. The Kate Wax show meanwhile adds a custom light-and-visuals layer to the live mix, underpinning her heroic vocal performance with a glorious minimal synth production aesthetic. And last but not least come Margot, the latest passengers to climb aboard the Border Community train, blurring the boundaries with their DJ+live fusion set, all topped off with a delicious sprinkling of Giaga’s incongruously high-pitched melodramatic Mediterranean operatics.

Tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster priced at 18 Euros, or alternatively, 65 Euros will grant access to the whole of the Melkweg’s ADE programming with the purchase of their Passe-Partout (check the Melkweg website for full programme details).

As our Amsterdam Dance Event Border Community showcase at the Melkweg this Saturday (18th October) edges ever closer, a few set times would I am sure be appreciated. Alstublieft:

21:30 James Holden
22:30 Kate Wax (Live)
23:30 Margot (Live+DJ)
01:00 Fairmont (Live)
02:00 Luke Abbott (Live)
03:00 James Holden
05:00 curfew

You would clearly do well to get there early doors and strap in for the whole ride, because our dancefloor alchemist James Holden has signed up for one of his beloved weird and wonderful bonus warm-up journeys in advance of his 3am main event. Currently building up to the big bang of her ‘Dust Collision’ album release, high priestess Kate Wax then takes over and ushers us into the magical, mystical universe of light and shadow that is her entrancing live set and complementary otherworldly projections, as witnessed in this brand new trailer:

Our Italian stallions Margot will also be revealing their own peculiar take on the live performance brief, fusing the ten year DJ pedigree of Pepe with Giaga’s live electronics and incongrously high-pitched vocals, before giving way to another fix of electronic pop from our resident old romantic Fairmont’s full stage show. Putting the feelings and emotions back to one side for a moment, the Norfolk buffalo Luke Abbott then drives us in an altogether bolshier direction with his rough and tough new all-hardware live set up, before the very capable hands of Mr Holden steer us through to the 5am curfew in a flurry of arpeggios and pagan drumming.

Just one catch: our ADE showcase sold out over a month ago! But if you didn’t manage to get a ticket, I am not just telling you all of this to rub it in about what you’re missing: for if you head over to our Facebook and Twitter profiles right away, there you will discover your last-minute chance to win a pair of guestlist places in return for a simple painless click on the ‘like’ or ‘retweet’ button. GO!

By now you hopefully already have in your hands your shiny vinyl copy of Fairmont’s Velora EP, which emerged from the cocoon early yesterday. And when placed alongside your trusty copies of Avus‘ Poppy EP and Margot’s France 2 EP, it should look something like this:

For the moment however the picture and artist that will fill the final slot must remain a mystery to you lesser mortals; nor can I reveal at this stage what cosmic chain of events will be set in motion when all four pieces of the puzzle are finally placed in alignment by all 500 of the ‘Another Land’ vinyl collectors. Watch this space is all I can say…

But if for some strange reason you are still wavering over your purchase, we have unceremoniously shoved another full track from the EP up on our barren Soundcloud profile for your previewing purposes; click through here, where the soaring Vanguard awaits your two word review treatment:

fairmont – vanguard (32bc / velora ep) by Border Community

And you know I would just hate for any of our cuddly commies to accidentally fall into the grubby hands of those filthy filesharers, so some direction on the path to listening legitimacy would seem to be in order: if you simply must try the whole release before you buy, then Spotify and the lesser spotted We7 have got that covered. And for a true sense of ownership, Amazon of course now sell everything under the sun, or on a more personal note try one of James‘ own favourite online indie stores, the trusty triumvirate of Bleep, Boomkat and Norman Records.

The man behind the music meanwhile now finds himself back home in Toronto, having recently given the Velora EP’s four tracks of lusciousness a thorough airing on his recent Euro club tour. But fear not, for Fairmont is set to return to this side of Atlantic in a couple of months for a handful of select boutique festival appearances (check his Myspace for more dates as they are announced):

15th July: Hartera Festival, Rijeka, Croatia (with James Holden)
30th July: Rockit Open Air Festival, Utrecht, Netherlands
6th August: Nachtdigital Festival, Olganitz, Germany