Competition: Win two tickets to Bristol's Arc festival

Bristol has long been a hotspot for alternative and electronic music so it's somewhat appropriate that it has been chosen as the location for new electronic music and digital art festival, Arc. As a collaboration between the RFID production team, digital experience agency Luma and the Hypercolour and Applepips label the one-day outdoor festival will take place over two blackout marquees and three geodesic domes in Bristol's Eastville park.

The festival makes use of digital art and projection mapping from Atoms For Peace collaborator Tarrik Barri. The festival is aiming to integrate audio and visual performance and all of the headliners will have bespoke shows. The line-up itself is focused on experimental electronic artists with headliners including James Holden, Martyn, Clark, Skudge, Roman Flugel, The Black Dog, Livity Sound, Pinch and Will Saul.

The festival takes place next Saturday and readers of the blog have a chance to win a pair of tickets - simply email [competition closed] with the subject line "Arc Competition and be sure to include your full name, email address and postal address. The winner will be selected at random by the end of Tuesday 23 April.

Single Review: Regrets We Have No Use For - Maxxi Soundsystem feat. Name One

​Maxxi Soundsystem seems intent on getting a little better with each release - several releases in the past year or so have been good, but this one for Hypercolour is a belter.

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Regrets We Have No Use For - Maxxi Soundsystem feat. Name One​

'Regrets We Have No Use For' opens with a series of male falsetto notes, metallic bass lines and high-pitch melodies - all of which gives way in anticipation of Name One's vocal. That change is sign-posted by the deep, hollow-sounding bass that forms the bedrock of much of this track together with a clatter of drums.

Name One's vocal, concerned with the helplessness of regret, is ultimately functional rather than game-changing, although perfectly suited to the emotional sunset vibe of the track. Maxxi Soundsystem tweaks it into a percussive bridge with great effect. It's a track that succeeds in the details - bass lines that fade in and out, delicate vocal refrains, anguished synths.

Matthew Herbert's remix is actually less eccentric than expected. It removes the sharp lines and blunt corners of the original but the feeling of a depressive house record remains. The bass is softer, the vocal submerging itself and swimming around in it. Undeniably a quality remix, but the original is a great starting point.

Regrets We Have No Use For is released through Hypercolour next Monday on 12" and MP3.​ UPDATE: The release date for this is now confirmed as 22 October.

EP Review: (Who Knows) Where Love Goes - Last Magpie

(Who Knows) Where Love Goes - Last Magpie​

A lose and open-air funk number that rises its head here on Magpie's '(Who Knows) Where Love Goes'.

Heavy sun beats down on the title track's ambient house but it's the warm garage rhythms that capture the soul and ensure this track lodges itself in your brain. The lofty title track has just enough time to soak in, a tight bassline tapping out the all important melodies and a blissfully intimate bass. Things quickly accelerate following this gentle start however...

'Pilau Rice' quickly slips past, tightly grab the listener and pulling them forward into a sweaty, intimate play on words. As innocent as the lead in may have been this is no time for mere pleasantries, a bumping bass creating a crescendo bodies will struggle to ignore.

For every intense up-beat 'Pilau Rice' hits following track, 'Don't Know Why', embraces a corresponding drop. The pacing may be a little disconcerting when consumed in one sitting but it is difficult not to feel and subsequently embrace the amorous hot embrace played out on the closing two tracks of this release.

'Don't Know Why' is drenched is sweaty reverb and old school house atmosphere - particularly evident on the closing refrain. 'Club Whore' on the other hand is slower to build but bass the close and heavy bass is uncompromising in its approach.

If you have a feel for deep, heavy takes on soulful house and dubstep it is hard to resist this forthcoming release from Last Magpie - it's warm, familiar and sexy.  It is released through Hypercolour on 20 August, check it out on Soundcloud below: