URB Magazine: NYC’s Best Studio Engineers
URB Magazine interviewed Phil Moffa as one of NYC’s top six engineers. Read the full article here.
RA Review – Don’t Come Back Alive EP
Read the entire RA review HERE
The title track sets the tone, an austere hardware workout whose scything hi-hats and mucky clap and tom work aren’t exactly friendly on the ears. Rather than opting for the slow-burning dynamics often associated with warehouse techno, it’s surprisingly punchy and concise, packed with detail and thriving on quick textural changes that climb to fever pitch in the closing minute. The dub version, revelling in delay trails and gaseous soundscaping, is more satisfying still. Remixing the track under his Huren alias, Dave Foster (from the veteran techno trio Teste) takes things the other way: drier, loopier and a mite more obnoxious. The real highlight here is “Next Phase,” a slower, chunkier number, whose bright but tentative chords come as welcome relief, like feeble shafts of light piercing the darkness.
XLR8R Review – Next Phase
See the review and download the track from XLR8R HERE
Pulled from his recently released collaborative EP with fellow American producer/DJ Paul Raffaele, Phil Moffa has offered up “Next Phase,” his only solo contribution to the record. The tune is a stripped-back house cut in which booming kicks and playful claps serve as the anchor for Moffa’s dense, chorded synth work. “Next Phase” appears on the Don’t Come Back Alive EP (artwork above), along with a title track featuring Moffa and Raffaele working together and a remix from Canadian producer Huren.
Don’t Come Back Alive EP – Release Date: 4-13-13
Phil Moffa & Paul Raffaele – Don’t Come Back Alive EP
(IDOL HANSE 006)
Available now on Beatport and iTunes.
Back from where? From SX? From the techno lifestyle choice? From life itself? Certainly no way back from life itself or a one way ticket to no one knows where!
And that’s the beauty of it, faith, hope and despair or complete disinterest, no one really knows the answer to that most primal of questions: who is Idol Hanse and why are they so weird?
Some, most?, are content Abletoning their way through life, trying to get a hit or two in here and there, flavor of the month, the plascticky typical laptop fodder – does it conjure a state of transcendental enlightenment / really urge your body to move in new and interesting ways? Maybe so…
Maybe this won’t at all! But actually lately it has been, and the deeply routed Neo Yorkian warehouse grooves contained here are straight from the heart and solely for the art, so take it as you will. Analog all the way (ok but digital from the 70s/80s doesn’t count!). 303s are like Les Pauls – they never go out of style, let’s visit a more open and honest time with our future goggles on.
To further taunt and titillate the attention span, we have a cassette tape edit from the man behind Teste (anyone remember The Wipe?). Huren, aka Dave Foster, reminisces in his Port Hope cave while chunkily and viciously damaging the original content in some very anti-social but somehow funky ways. The end result is a piece of lost headspace perfect for the disenchanted youth of tomorrow.
Track 1. & 2. Written and produced by Phil Moffa & Paul Raffaele at Butcha Sound Studios, NYC.
Track 3. Written and produced by Phil Moffa at Butcha Sound Studios, NYC.
Mixed by Phil Moffa @ Butcha Sound Studios, NYC
4. Remixed my Mathilde Mallen aka Electric Mistress At Maison Du Mallen, Paris
Mastered by Milan @ Lacquer Channel, Toronto
Artwork by Uncle Matty, 1188 Studios, Toronto
International PR/press: lukas@fling.fm
copyright & publishing Idol Hanse 2013
www.idolhanse.com
Live on BoilerRoom.tv 5-16-13
DECONSTRUCT/THE CORNER take over the Boiler Room for a night of deep house and techno straight out of the NY underground.
Anthony Parasole
DJ Qu
Joey Anderson
Shawn O’ Sullivan (Live)
Phil Moffa (Live)
May 16, 2013
Brooklyn, NY
Location TBA
RA Reviews DJ Spider & Phil Moffa Collaboration
DJ Spider & Phil Moffa – Night Gallery (Review)
DJ Spider and his Plan B imprint represent the rougher edge of East Coast techno and house, and his subsidiary label, Sublevel Sounds, isn’t any different. Here, he teams up with Phil Moffa for an EP of typically vicious club music.
Spider’s work often sounds like chewed-up house, but his solo turn, “Frequency Pollution,” has more of an antiseptic sheen. That polish is about the only friendly thing about it—the song sounds like SND played on sticks instead of chiselled waveforms. Melody is only implied in the faded framework of the track’s scraping chords. The first collaboration with Moffa, “Oracle Octaves,” takes those same sounds and liberally applies delay effects for added flavour. When a hi-hat locks the victorious-sounding chord progression in place, it begins to feel like a completely different EP, strutting its wares with pride.
Moffa gets his own solo spotlight: “Midnight Never Ends” is another delay-heavy boomer, one that treads between dub techno and deep house in the same way as Levon Vincent. Unlike him, there’s no subtlety here—the bombardment of harshly-panned snares is like a cluster bomb. The duo ends the EP with a respite, at least in this context. Comforting reverb and gentle percussion define “Golden Dawn,” until it turns into a Steve Reich nightmare, with 100 organs all playing discordantly at once. It’s a jarring end to an EP whose hostile production choices are more masochistically satisfying than they are alienating.
Words /
Andrew RycePublished /
Thu, 14 February 2013
Tracklist: DJ Spider & Phil Moffa – Night Gallery
A1 DJ Spider – Frequency Pollution
A2 DJ Spider & Phil Moffa – Oracle Octaves
B1 Phil Moffa – Midnight Never Ends
B2 DJ Spider & Phil Moffa – Golden Dawn
3/16/13 – SXSW Hybridity / Idol Hanse Showcase at Silhouette Club
Really psyched for this event! Gonna do an all hardware live set.
SXSW Official Event – Hybridity / Idol Hanse Showcase at Silhouette Club
Saturday March 16
Myself and Paul Raffaele performing with Alixander III and Gingy of Idol Hanse record label. Our new release Korgy out on Idol in a few weeks. Clips coming soon.
Night Gallery EP
Psyched for this split EP with DJ Spider on his Sublevel Sounds imprint. Features a solo track from each of us and two collabs.
From the label description:
Label boss, DJ Spider links up with analog guru, Phil Moffa! These two analog junkies have put together a crushing 4 track split effort. The first 3 tracks are strictly for the dance floor and the last one is a deep, mental piece! They each delivered one track each and two tracks were done together. Warm analog drums with pure synth soundscapes are on display here from beginning to end. A must have for all true, underground soldiers who support New York Techno!
Butcha Sound Studios New Location
After 2.5 years in my first home, I moved the studio just down the hall to a beautiful new space, if fact the original control room of Daily Planet Studios. In this room, recordings like Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You” were made. This new space really is the perfect size for all the analog toys in the collection, the vinyl and all my collaborators. Special thanks to those who helped paint the walls, carry the gear and help me wire it up. I get by with a lot of help from my friends.