Bodywork | Various Artists : Flexes 001 | bodyworkdisco.bandcamp.com
After 8 years and 90-odd parties toning and honing Bodywork, we present our first super special six-pack of tracks.

It’s always been a dream of ours to make something permanent for Bodywork that lets us connect to music lovers farther and wider than ever before.

In compiling Flexes 001 we shine a light on a crop of great up and coming producers - and are so so happy with this collection of their creations.

We hope you enjoy playing them at your dance parties, clubnights, bedrooms, bar mitzvahs and workout sessions.

Love and Flexes

The Bodywork Crew

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We asked our mate and esteemed music historian, Matt Anniss, to write some words about our inaugural release:

"The label’s debut outing is an assured, action-packed, multi-artist extravaganza whose six tracks display the breadth, depth and variety of the Bodywork Records sound. Heavily electronic and often impressively mind-altering in tone, the assembled music varies from slo-mo chuggers, and mid-tempo treats, to intergalactic club cuts and peak-time workouts in waiting.

First to flex his muscles is Studio 89 resident David J Bull, who channels the spirit of Belgian new beat and black-clad 1980s EBM stalwarts Nitzer Ebb on the breathlessly psychedelic and atmospheric ‘Datura’ – all Fairlight style synth stabs, squelchy bass, echoing drum machine hits and hazy aural textures. Rising star Chez De Milo, a protégé of the late, great Andrew Weatherall, then chimes in with ‘Clairvoyant’, a trippy and thrillingly alien-sounding affair in his trademark chugging, slow-motion style.

London-based synth-lover and sometime Natural Frequency Records contributor Void Complet pushes up the tempo while retaining the mind-altering hedonism that marks out the developing Bodywork Records sound. His contribution, ‘Dont Wanna’, sits somewhere between dubbed-out, breakbeat-driven retro-futurism and jazzy, electric piano-fired deep house.

If you’re after something bolder and bouncier, Sigma Delta has got you covered. The Wales-based DJ/producer is a fan of analogue and modular synthesis, and this comes to the fore on ‘Small Cell Philosophy’, a remarkably spacey but punchy peak-time excursion that layers shimmering pads, stretched-out chords and melancholic melodies atop tough beats and a seriously addictive acid bassline.

To round things off, Bodywork has chosen two tracks from relative newcomers – producers who honed their skills during the pandemic and have bags of potential. Sensus delivers the scene-stealing ‘More Toppings’, a wonderfully swinging, loose-limbed house jam rich in rubbery synth-bass, echoing drum fills, sparkling acid-style electronic motifs and glassy-eyed piano stabs.

Last to step up to the bicep curl machine is Emmet Read. He impresses with ‘Dancefloor Connection’, a driving chunk of muscular, sweat-soaked workout disco that pairs heavy, cowbell-driven drums and sleazy, Moroder-influenced bass with warming chords and alien electronics. It provides a genuinely joyous, life-affirming conclusion to Bodywork Records’ must-check debut release."

Bodywork
Discotheque : Label : Gym
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