[Cocoon]
When Cassy Britton released the inaugural Panorama Bar mix back in 2006, her selection preempted attempts to blur the boundaries between deep house and minimalism. However, as her sets so fluently attest, the devil really is in the detail. The prevailing flavour on Panorama Bar 01, after all, was a tendency to fuse timeless reduced techno — Ø, DBX, Baby Ford — with the warm tones of Rick Wade, D5 and Redshape, not a convoluted combination of one-dimensional tinny mnml and coldly rigid interpretations of deep house.
Given her previous form, it’s no surprise that she employs a judiciously sharp approach to track selection for Simply Devotion, her mix CD for Cocoon Recordings. This time however, it seems Cassy has been caught in the house headwinds. Soulful house music has a greater showing than tracks like the complex yet timeless soulful “Make Your Own Sunshine” by Baby Ford — available here in its remixed format, which Ford did with the recently deceased Ian Loveday as Minimal Man. Following one of Cassy’s vocal a cappellas, the Ford-Loveday opens the mix. However, the Panorama Bar resident quickly changes tact with Trus’me’s disco-y house “Good God,” the bassy groove of Anton Zap’s “Spain” and DJ Qu’s take on Jitterbug’s “No Pressure,” a warm track with the first freaky vocals of the mix.
Just as the listener starts to feel comfortable with what seems like an emerging narrative, Britton surprises with the unmistakable jazzy hooks of STL’s “Silent State,” his biggest moment to date — if big is really a word that can be applied to Stephan Laubner’s music — and the epic chords and strings of Future Beat Alliance and Quince’s versions of Danny Howells and Taho, respectively. From this point onwards, Cassy reverts to deep house, but again, the selection is loose enough to render this term redundant. From the swinging rhythm of her own “Magnificent Cat Won’t Do” to the gloriously melodic A1 cut from Kassem Mosse’s “Workshop 8” into the sexy, sassy disco of Linkwood’s “RIP” and the ecstatic old school piano keys of Pierre LX’s “Gabita,” she ends the mix with the hilarious “Whateva” by Ralph Falcon, which features an elastic bass underpinning a cheeky south London inhabitant intoning the track title ad infinitum. It may be short on stripped back techno, but the closing section is a sublime affirmation of everything that is right about house music in 2009. For this reason alone, Simply Devotion deserves our attention.
I’m really torn about this mix. I mean, the mixing is spot on, and there’s some mighty fine deep house and techno on here. I just feel that some tracks do not mix well harmonically and melodically; it’s a bit of a turn-off. I think that if the order of the tracks was a bit more structured genre-wise/harmonically, it would be a more pleasurable listening experience.
Not to say that you’re wrong, but I think in the age of Ableton mixing and really homogeneous track selections this sounds a lot more harsh than it would’ve less than 10 years ago.
I like this mix a lot more than Tama Sumo’s, which I felt like had a lot harder time combining disparate sounds than Cassy’s. It was almost as if the mix was more about the wealth of tracks included rather than the overall scope of the mix. That’s what I think Cassy does really well here.
What transitions are you thinking of, harpo? I never really heard any jarring combinations myself…
I dunno, harpo, when the first chords from Kassem Mosse’s track appear during Cassy’s own track, I get shivers.
The beginning of the mix stands out like a sore thumb, as though she hasn’t found her groove yet. It starts to improve around the mid section, and the last part of the mix is astounding. There’s nothing wrong with the tracks themselves, and the actually beat-mixing is absolutely flawless; I just think the tracks could have been more neatly organized.
I agree with Harpo. A bunch of songs everyone already knows, thrown together pretty sloppily. And I couldn’t disagree with Anton More– Tama Sumo’s mix is slick and professional sounding, and comprises many of house music’s most relevant and cutting edge artists, whereas Cassy’s is less refined than most podcasts are these days. Overall the mix sounds exactly how the cover looks: confusingly half-assed.
“A bunch of songs everyone already knows, thrown together pretty sloppily.”
That’s a stretch at best and distortion at worst. It might not be as smooth as Panorama Bar 01 (the sound is not as minimal, either) but it’s hardly sloppy. There are a handful of times on Tama’s mix where the transitions sound rather forced where I feel there are a lot more natural blends on Cassy’s mix.
I think Steve is right, people have grown so used to seamless mixes c/o technology that a mix executed without it sounds flawed.
hey harpo, go organize your mp3 collection if you want things neat and simple
Well, I guess it’s just a matter of opinion, but I completely agree with Harpo– the beginning of this mix is just confusingly bad. Cassy can obviously do so much better, its as if this mix was somehow not a priority for her. I’m honestly surprised anyone is even sticking up for this– after I first heard it last month I assumed it was either going to be generally panned or just go unnoticed.
And please, this notion that we’re scrutinizing the transitions too much because we’re used to mp3 mixes is just ridiculous. The beatmatching isn’t even the problem– the first two songs of this mix simply do not work together. The problem is track order and how/when she makes the transition– something that would be exactly the same on mp3.
Don’t get me wrong, I have maximum respect for Cassy, but she completely shat the bed on this one.
And really, are you people SEEING that cover art???? the whole product is so obviously half-assed…
Holding the cover art in my hands, I rather like it. It’s as slick as the mix is, I’ll give you that.
Yeah, I guess there is some nice uniformity among the mix, its cover and its (grammatically incorrect) title… they all have that charming rough-around-the-edges feel of something spontaneous, done in one take, while shitfaced on klonopin. I’ll concede that.
I think what I like about this mix is that Cassy covers a range of sounds, feelings, textures etc It’s the way I like djs to play, veering through styles. If anything, it’s the format, a 70 minute odd timeframe that would lead to any incohesiveness. It means she has to get a number of styles and directions down on one disc, but she manages to do so reather excellently. I also like the old school house title:)
I don’t see what’s grammatically incorrect about the title. I mean, it’s a two-word phrase, not a sentence, so without any context I don’t think you can really claim there’s an error.
Also – have you noticed that Newworldaquarium HAS NO SPACES???? BAN THIS FILTH.
I was sort of joking with that comment, but my understanding is that adverbs should be followed by verbs, not nouns.
and you’re right about newworldaquarium, i’ve been saying the same thing for years. the lack of spaces is fucking bullshit and i don’t know why anyone puts up with it. this isn’t punk or hip hop, after all. IMHO techno should follow Watergate’s supposed dress code: “casual but educated.”
mix cd review critiqued at the grammatical level: superb!
@kuri: for the record I think the review is great, even if it reflects a view very different from my own. perfect grammar and everything 😉
Guys stop comparing the ladies and enjoy them solely for what they are , this is not a marathon nor a miss universe contest …
is seems like when it comes to female artists you always have to make a shallow comparisions instead of concentrating in the one artist you are reviewing
take your hands of your pants and stop thinking on whos got the bigger boobs guys , this is not porn
Martina, I think you’re reading sexism where it doesn’t exist. Both Tama Sumo and Cassy put out big house mixes this year. It is fair to compare those two mix CDs, especially in a year without too many high profile mixes that stood out.
We’re comparing Cassy and Tama Sumo, Martina, not as “girl DJs,” but as two of european house musics finest working DJs, and as the only two artists to have helmed CDs in the ultra-high-profile Panorama Bar series. Both ‘Simply Devotion’ and Sumo’s mix are burdened with unavoidable comparisons to Cassy’s ‘Panorama Bar 01,’ as both are ‘follow-ups,’ in different ways.
If you wanna brand me as sexist, I’d hope you’d have more damning evidence than my mention of these two formidable DJs in the same sentence. There are enough genuine gender biases in electronic music that targeting this dilutes the discourse.
lol @ martina’s post
how you can miss the point in such audacious fashion is beyond me
hmmm I should probably not comment as have not received this on my order as yet – but mixes in general wise, LWE is correct in that with Ableton et al, people are getting used to smooth smooth smooth. Okay homogenised. I for one welcome a little less smooth …. humanising. I kneel at the alter of Cio D’or, in such esteem I hold her, and one thing I love about some of her mixes (at times), are the less than smooth track transitions. Though genre wise and harmonics, she’s on the money.
Now hang on, let me check …. nope, no sexism here. Phew !
I went to our local record shop yesterday and the only CD that stands out in terms of artwork is Simply Devotion. Caught my attention, purchased and loving it.
cf the comments about Ableton mixes here, I’m pretty sure this is mixed digitally (as she discussed in her interview with Faith). far more smoothly mixed than usual Cassy and far longer transitions — check the blend of STL into Danny Howells, for example. (Of course the point about Ableton making people used to/expect smoother mixes is still perfectly valid)
That’s very interesting, Andrew; I doubt many can even imagine Cassy doing a digital mix but I suppose it makes sense given the blends you mentioned. Would you please link us to the interview if it’s online? Not having an easy time tracking it down.
faith is a london based fanzine who pretty much refuse to pdf their publication… i can corroborate andrew’s story… you might also remember them from the “house, house and more fucking house” t-shirts they did in collaboration with innervisions
I would be very surprised if this was an Ableton mix. I know (and you know) that Cassy is a vinyl purist. To directly quote her from her LWE interview:
“[Vinyl] does matter to me because it changes the sound of the music, and even if people say it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s different quality, it’s a different form of feeling. When I have this vinyl feeling… This is how it started and I think there’s a purpose behind it.”
Even though the beatmatching and the EQing is very smooth, I still wouldn’t be surprised if this was a vinyl mix. She is a very technically skilled mixer, and I can see her pulling this off.