[Horizontal Ground]

Being a record collector, especially a collector of dance records, occasionally drives one to generalize. There are just too many releases floating around, both new and old, to not develop heuristics to guide you through the bins. For me, at least, these seemingly harmless assumptions about who sounds like what and what sounds like whom often cause great music to get lost in the shuffle. Horizontal Ground may be an unfortunately prime example of this tendency, because my longstanding read on these guys increasingly seems wrong or at least incomplete. Between the sonic austerity and pure functionality of tracks by their parent label Frozen Border, that one dude with all the numbers and decimal points for a name, and their famously terse Talking Shopcast, I thought I’d had them pegged as a purest-of-pure techno label. But listening to at least the label’s last three releases — Skirt’s sublimely brittle “In The Meadow Under The Stars,” Szare’s sexy and stepping HG08, and now AnD’s HG09 — leaves me with the impression that the crew is stretching its wings and maybe not looking to fly quite in the direction I’d expected.

It’s not like the label’s ninth release isn’t techno — in fact, it’s possible that it’s the most techno thing they’ve put out in a minute — but AnD, a rather mysterious production unit who as 1.n.4 brought us HG05, doesn’t sit squarely in the genre’s sweet spot for very long. Syrupy yet steadfastly digital, the A-side feels as much like a scary dream as it does a sexy one. Despite its cathedral-like dimensions, its core of loping bass and Sandwell District snares could have driven a more intimate track just as successfully. Things are complicated further on the flip. An extended percussion intro on the B1 seems to be barreling toward a UK-style sub-bass drop, and low and behold, that’s precisely what it does. Where Sigha, a producer who’s spent the last few years distancing himself from his Hotflush roots, reaches techno by digging past dubstep, AnD here seem to have done something like the opposite, suctioning much of the joy but none of the funk out of funky. On the surface, the result sounds more Sub:Stance than straight-up Berghain, but a DJ could easily take this thing in either direction. All kinds of styles deep and demonic are apparently in the process of digestion on the ambient B2, and the track serves as a perfect summation of where Horizontal Ground stands right now: the label could so easily plop down into one category or another, but isn’t it more interesting and challenging to slide into the potentially bottomless chasms in between? Whatever curiosities they bring up from the depths next is anyone’s guess.

[Frozen Border]

The Frozen Border/Horizontal Ground ethos is pretty well established by now: bassy, swung techno cloaked in austere anonymity. Yet Frozen Border’s sixth 12″ presents two relatively straightforward tracks compared to the brokenness of some of the label’s older material. These are, for the most part, tools, devoid of the offbeat catchiness of tracks on the second and fourth editions, but they have their own appeal that’s easier to appreciate with repeated spins.

The first half of the A-side melds a garage shuffle with some abrasive, groaning stabs, lending an industrial vibe that swells as a few other tones are added to the mix. Midway through, stealthy, dubbed-out chords break into the foreground and propel the track until its conclusion. It’s nothing entirely new, but it’s a fine choice to add a bit of darkness to a set. The B side is similarly gloomy, spacing out an industrial groan (similar to the one on the A-side) and bringing it to the forefront, atop a straight 4/4 beat and a thick, driving bass line. A vaguely Eastern string sample weaves in and out of the mix, along with something resembling a reverberating vocal “ooooh,” though it’s difficult to make them out — the track largely sounds smothered and cloudy. It’s these spectral flourishes that really make this a compelling composition. Both sides stand up to anything in the label’s catalog, but they’re definitely growers, a little denser than one might expect from Frozen Border. There are a lot of producers trying to make this kind of menacing techno, but few have the chops to make their menace this trippy.

[Horizontal Ground]

For a minute there, it seemed like the Frozen Border/Horizontal Ground family were taking a turn for the more transparent. The fifth Horizontal Ground release, however, is pretty scant on information, with the artist code looking a whole lot like 1.n.4, but it’s hard to be certain about a black stamp on a black label. So either get cracking on this new bit of code like an NSA agent, try to match timbers between records to find out who made it, or just enjoy the music as it’s presented to us. It’s not hard to surmise that Horizontal Ground would prefer the latter.

The A side’s kicks and claps are all pitch-black techno, but the track really kicks off when deep bass rumbles and Basic Channel-echoing dub sounds come into play. Everything about the first four minutes presages an impending massive breakdown, and when it arrives it provides a pretty stunning 9 AM moment. The B side is a bit more interested in maintaining a groove than prompting a strobe-light induced flashback, and it does so quite well with dense rhythms full of hefty low-end. There’s an bit of a melancholy tone ringing in the background, but the biting synth stabs keep this a strictly dance floor oriented operation. While Frozen Border and Horizontal Ground certainly stay true to the most techno of presentations, it’s reassuring that the music hasn’t once lost sight of what it’s meant to be — purist techno. And damn good techno at that, as I can’t imagine any techno jock in his right mind leaving home without this one in the bag.

Welcome to the latest edition of our series of interviews and mixes affectionately titled Talking Shopcasts. The majority of media and fan attention gets showered on the artists who create the music we love to listen to/DJ with/dance to, and for good reasons. But without the hard work, keen ears and business savvy of label staff we might never hear these tunes at all. For our seventh edition we wanted to get the scoop on the inscrutable labels Frozen Border and Horizontal Ground. Until now we knew more about the labels’ stinging raw techno sound than who made the tracks, and for the most part that was all that mattered. Eschewing personality in favor of strict quality control has helped both Frozen Border and its more varied sibling Horizontal Ground stand out among swarms of white label imprints. Yet we couldn’t help but be curious about the thought put into such exacting operations and decided to reach out via email. The labels’ owner, Jeff, was relatively guarded but his responses shed a bit more light on one of contemporary techno’s darker corners. He was also generous enough to send us a top notch live set by Horizontal Ground artist 19.26.1.18.5 (aka Szare), which speaks just as loudly as Jeff’s carefully chosen words.

What spurred you to launch Frozen Border?

Jeff: I don’t think we launched it, that sounds very “Show Biz.” It just began.

What about Horizontal Ground?

More of the same with a different name.

Had you run any labels before this current group?

In a sense I did run labels before, but nothing on this current level.

Do you make any of the music for FB/HG?

No.

How many artists do you work with for your labels? Is it a close knit group or a
loose collective?

At the moment it’s 6 artists and I have never met one of them in person, so I would say it’s quite a loose collective.

When you pitched your vision for a label shrouded in relative anonymity to your artists, what were their reactions? Or was it the other way around?

No pitch, they are either in or out. All the music came from demos sent. The level of trust between us all is the thing I like the most.

These days many fans want to know more and more about the artists behind their favorite records. With this in mind, why go the other direction?

I think the answer is in the question.

Is anonymity in the music business important to you?

Not at all. I don’t think the dance music scene is even the music business (not in real terms); even at it’s most revealed it’s still really a bit of “micro fluff” on the backside of the music industry. Some DJs/producers might do well to remember that.

FB/HG’s rise coincided with a renewed artistic/public interest in austere white label records. Was this coincidence or perhaps a reaction to what was happening?

Maybe; there is some sort of honesty in it, but even that has become a bit overplayed now.

With how little information is available about your labels, I imagine every decision regarding your labels is made consciously: That in mind, is there was any reasoning behind the filled in/blank letters of the Frozen Border/Horizontal Ground names? Zen Order?

I thought all the references were obvious? Karl Regis (from Downwards) took me out into the woods one day to show me where Nico was buried; it made a deep impact so it’s all in homage to her.

What else it to come from Frozen Border/Horizontal Ground in 2010?

More quality music.

Talking Shopcast 07: Szare (69:33)

Tracklist:

01. Musafir, “Ninderli” [Stoned Asia]
02. Szare, “Kinshasa” [Dub]
03. Szare, “Snake Cave” [Horizontal Ground]
04. Szare, “Break East” [Dub]
05. Szare, “Beatdown” [Dub]
06. Marcel Dettmann, “Kernel” [Marcel Dettmann Records]
07. Szare, “Return to Ronto” [Horizontal Ground]
08. James Ruskin, “Solution” [Blueprint]
09. Jeff Mills, “Mysterious Stars” [Third Ear]
10. Szare, “Kinshasa” (Reprise) [Dub]
11. Levon Vincent, “The Medium is the Message” [Novel Sound]
12. Szare, “Fast Changes” [Dub]
13. Samuli Kemppi, “Joiku” [Prologue]
14. Actress, “Green Gal [Werk Discs]
15. Flying Saucer Attack, “Rainstorm Blues” (Szare Remix) [Dub]
16. Szare, “Mendeleev” [Dub]
17. Szare, “2042″ [Dub]
18. David Bowie, “Moss Garden” [RCA]

It’s heartening to see that over the past couple of years there has been a resurgence of anonymous techno white labels surfacing. The hand stamped imprints recall a time when techno was still mysterious, when you could spend months hounding after a track and feel unabated joy if you got to play it out, only to have hapless trainspotters become derailed when they approached a blank label. These days techno (and for that matter all music) is nowhere near as mysterious or as hard to track down as it used to be, but the steady filter of white labels emerging of late inject some element of surprise and curiosity back into the medium. Horizontal Ground, the companion label to Frozen Border, which itself has been responsible for three quick bursts of fearless techno, is now up to its second release of tracky tool time techno, the latest edition being even more bare and desolate than the first. Its incognito producer will keep the guessing game going and while some may argue that the anonymity of the minimal info tactic is geared toward building hype, the reality is that it manufactures a lot more focus on the music itself.

Side A, for all its gruff, gristly chord stabs and bleaker than Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic road feel, is in fact the more musical of the two cuts. I couldn’t quite manage to say it’s more melodic as that would impart a human quality that feels notably absent on these two gruelling sides, but A is possessed of a more welcoming groove, its corrugate layers peeling back to show fine details buried beneath the coarse textures and earth moving bass. If side A carries about it an air of barren, unforgiving landscapes then Side B is geared for a horror soundtrack. So industrial are the sounds, it becomes hard not to imagine inquisitive teens investigating dank, long forgotten factories, a bloodbath awaiting just around the next corner. The densely packed, Thomas Heckman style kick drums hark back to older techno cuts from the early nineties which were fashioned to fill cavernous warehouses, which this particular track would have no trouble in doing itself. Horizontal Ground continue their excellent no-name assault with these two raw, red, peak time weapons which will appeal to fans of Frozen Border, MDR, Ancient Methods et al. Side A flies the hard, tracky flag while Side B is best left to those with a disposition for punishing, iron wrought techno.