Kuri Kondrak considers Edgar Sinio’s When The Voices Come EP as Projekt: PM, which helped put Guidance Recordings on the Chicago house map in 1996.
kuri
KiNK, Rachel EP
April 26, 2010 – 10:01 PM
After listening to the track “Existence” from KiNK’s Rachel EP for Ovum Recordings, I found myself slightly appalled. Essentially it’s a rework of “Changes of Life,” a 1992 cut by Jeff Mills, done as a tech-house wind up. Fitted with a new set of filters, delays, and freshly phased drum rolls, “Existence” dices up that signature piano riff to closely resemble its exemplar but remain just different enough to warrant being called its own.
Jamie Read, Never The Future EP
April 21, 2010 – 10:01 AM
After digging into the origin of the Joe Louis’s Back To The Beginning release for last year’s BBH review, I realized Jaime Read hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth after a few solid releases in the ’90s and a trickle of collaborative material with Felix Dickinson as L.H.A.S. Inc. (short for Larry Heard Appreciation Society). Contrary to my speculations, he hadn’t given up producing after a few frustrating encounters with the shadier side of the music business so much as fallen into the obligations of domesticity and let music take the backseat. So it came as quite an exciting discovery to learn he was working on new material to be released on UK label Elektrosouls Recordings.
BBH: Glenn Underground, Future Shock
April 7, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Within the scope of Chicago’s early/mid ’90s house renaissance Glenn Crocker, aka Glenn Underground, played a strong role in helping to define what was an emerging new sound for city. Along with fellow artists Boo Williams, DJ Sneak, Tim Harper and several others they formed a dichotomous current that for several years was defined by the direction of the Cajual and Relief labels: disco-styled house for the former and banging raw tracks for the latter. European labels quickly picked up on this and plucked nearly all of the aspiring new faces on the scene for at least one 12″ and at most two albums. Crocker was one such artist that technically got his start on Eindhoven-based label, Djax-Up-Beats, with the Future Shock 12″ in 1993.
Kirk Degiorgio, Membrane
March 24, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Back in 1992, Kirk Degiorgio’s first ART EP (originally released by R&S Records) found itself getting licensed to Planet E, albeit in a slightly paired down and remixed form, but nonetheless giving two of productions front and center billing. He returned the favor soon after, providing a home for some of Carl Craig’s finest work under his Psyche and BFC monikers on the ART 3 EP. Fast forward 18 years and Degiorgio has returned to Planet E with his latest 12″, Membrane. With Degiorgio reviving his ART imprint and catching his second wind on the techno front, this would seem a perfect fit if not somewhat of a homecoming.
DJ Bone, Sunday Morning/Sunday Night
March 23, 2010 – 10:01 PM
If you’re an avid LWE reader you may remember DJ Bone’s debut for then unheard of Sect Records that arrived mysteriously in a plain white CD sleeve, which had staff and readers alike speculating over its provenance. Nearly two years on, Sect has introduced the wider world to aspiring techno artists such as Grovskopa, Jolka and even Bone’s own daughter, Aleckxis Jaina — -as well as serving as a reintroduction to the underrated D Knox. Bone, on the other hand, has been keeping steady with his own Subject Detroit label, almost single-handly keeping techno (in a purist’s sense) alive in his hometown.
RezKar, Cosmos
March 10, 2010 – 11:01 PM
Rezenio Kariem may not be a name that rolls of the tongue but the reclusive South African producer is slowly building a name for himself under the RezKar moniker. Until last year his output had mainly arrived by way of little known net labels such as Jon7.net Microlabel and Mixomat Recordings, and he may have languished under the radar if not for a stunning contribution to the Meakusma Rüts 2/3 compilation and a couple releases for Altered Moods Recordings. 2010 will very likely see RezKar’s profile heightened with an upcoming release on Running Back and this Cosmos 12″ (also released as 7-track digital release) already out at of the tail end of last year.
Santiago Salazar, Your Club Went Hollywood
February 18, 2010 – 11:01 PM
If you have a penchant for dance music, are over 21 and living in any moderately sized US city there is almost no avoiding nightclubs. They serve as the most likely environs to experience a DJ but often times they are venues ill suited for the music. Be it shitty sound systems, poor layouts or staff with attitude to spare, a bad club can ruin a great DJ’s performance, but more importantly they counteract the whole reason for going out in the first place. Santiago Salazar’s debut 12″ for Wallshaker Music takes the modern club owner to task for those very sins and more.
Simon Hinter, Klappsn’ Funk EP
January 27, 2010 – 11:01 PM
Generally speaking, I can’t say I’m much a fan of the ProgCity Deep Trax label. The name itself suffers from genre fatigue with a potentially misleading composite of modifiers that typically do not sit well together. How often do you see “prog” and “deep” in the same sentence other than as a nullifying denouncement of one or the other? The music that has typified the label runs a consistent line of tech-house with occasional interjections of clean cut European deep house. And being a sub-label of ProgCity, which championed a gilded house sound through much of the ’90s and early ’00s, doesn’t inspire much confidence in their releases either. Once I put all that aside, though, something caught my ear with Simon Hinter’s Klappsn’ Funk EP.
Lerosa, Dual Nature
January 21, 2010 – 11:01 AM
Releasing a debut album on a TDK cassette only format limited to just 100 copies seems like a peculiar career move for an ascending electronic artist. And for someone like Lerosa, collaborating with Further for the release is even more puzzling. Since 2005, Lerosa aka Leopoldo Rosa has established himself with a string of critical 12″s that could be declared loosely as house, but have incorporated stylistic markers that span from acid and techno to jazz and electro. Stamped with a quirky identity, Rosa’s productions may nominally fit the deep house billing their often filed under but there’s much more hinting at expression. On the other hand, the newly formed Further label has established itself with digital-only releases that are aimed at progressive house and the trance end of techno audiences. In other words, adding Lerosa to the roster stands out like a sore thumb. But according to Rosa, the release and format was a deliberate move by the label owner to allow for more freedom to the artist, less financial risk by label while still producing a tangible object, which Dual Nature accomplishes.
Vince Watson, A Very Different World
December 3, 2009 – 10:01 PM
A couple months ago Vince Watson posed a question to the Facebook massive wondering if he pressed his upcoming album on vinyl how many would actually fork out the cash to purchase direct from him. The hook being that you would not only be buying a copy of it on vinyl but it would be a personalized version made more special and could include yet to be determined “extras.” This seems to be a growing trend with label owners who realize that in the battle against digital you’ve got to deliver a more satisfying experience to set yourself apart.
Luv.Renaissance, Once Chance Luv
November 26, 2009 – 11:01 PM
It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that the majority of LWE’s readers haven’t heard of Altered Moods Recordings. In fact, I only discovered the obscure imprint earlier this year myself. What struck me most was the unassuming and dogged path that label owner, Malcolm Moore, had set off on after starting it in 2004. The focus of Altered Moods has clearly been on developing promising talent and releasing records he truly believes in rather than chasing a quick buck. With 10 releases that reach from deep house to ambient under its belt and no marquee names emblazoned on its record sleeves, you know this is a labor of love.
Tony Lionni, Treat Me Right
November 17, 2009 – 10:01 AM
For Tony Lionni, 2009 seemed like the year he hit on a formula that elevated his stock to new grounds. Which isn’t to say his productions have been formulaic, but what has stuck out in people’s minds has been a pronounced usage of vocal samples that bring a stunning flow to his tracks. The vocal patterns are used in such a way as to bridge the techno/house divide with a remarkable ease. Call it tech-house, house-y techno or what have you, but at the end of the day this is dance floor blue-plate special material that refuses to fit neatly in either camp.
Fabrice Lig & Titonton Duvante, That Connection EP
November 4, 2009 – 10:01 PM
When it comes to artist collaborations, there are some that pique interest and others that positively get mouths watering. For me a Fabrice Lig and Titonton Duvante pairing falls closer to the latter category. Both bring a defined perspective to each project they tackle, usually resulting in something interesting if not down right essential. For Lig, his productions have used Detroit and Chicago as a touchstone for inspiration, focusing on potent melodic themes that guide his techno and house creations into vibrant areas of musicality that can put a collective smile on whole dance floors. His recent Evolutionism album as Soul Designer took that approach in full, yielding salient references to jazz and funk seen through a white European lens. While not as prolific, Duvante’s output has been ripe with genre stretching creativity from day one. His aptly titled “Embryonic” EP melded moody strings with time stretched electro breaks, foreshadowing the broken beat movement by several years. Since then Duvante’s attacked techno from several angles but always with a firm attention to complex rhythm structures and frequently eyebrow-raising explicit song titles.
Hunch, Travel The Earth
October 21, 2009 – 10:01 PM
If you missed out on Hunee’s debut 12″, the “Tour de Force EP,” and judged his output solely on this release you may not fully believe what I am about to tell you: this man is an artist to be reckoned with. Those three tracks of stunning house screamed quality, from the stutter-scat deep house jack of “Rare Silk” to the Jus-Ed-sampling monologue featured on “Cut Down Trees,” they confirmed he had something new to bring to the table. Nothing could be closer to the truth when you look at his recent 12″ under the Hunch moniker for John Daly’s Feel Music imprint. “Travel The Earth” may not be contain the same enviable balance of DJ-ready rhythms and melodic fulfillment, but does reach for a mysterious blend of organic and electronic abstraction.
BBH: Joe Louis, Back To The Beginning
October 14, 2009 – 10:01 AM
When I bought this 12″ back in 1996, I had no reason to believe it was anything other than a release by early Chicago house producer Joe Lewis. He had already released under that surname variation on his own Target label a decade earlier and had accumulated three releases on Relief. What I didn’t know was that Lewis had come into possession of these four tracks by way of a trip to the UK, during which Jaime Read gave him two DATs of music with the understanding they would be handed to Relief on his behalf. The truth of which was never widely recognized, allowing further releases of more of that music on Basement 282 and a retrospective album on Peace Frog years later. I had heard rumors of this fact for several years but never got full confirmation until researching for this review. In addition to a thorough telling of its history on Discogs, Read has made his regrets and frustration known publicly: “I gave Joe Lewis my DATs when I was young and naïve, so there is an expensive lesson learnt. Shame there’s no music journos with any bollocks.” But if you can put this release’s ignominious underbelly aside, there is music contained within that deserves celebrating.
Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash LP
October 8, 2009 – 10:01 AM
It’s widely known that pulling off a dance music full length is a difficult proposition. The cards are inherently stacked against a genre that is dictated by the quick fix that fits neatly in the mix. Juju & Jordash’s music, however, seems to be tailor made for the album format. Their productions are based ostensibly in the house/techno arena but the Amsterdam-based duo’s background playing in jazz bands and predilection for several other genres heavily inform the outcome. Live instrumentation gets mixed with keyboards, laptop and psychotropic effects resulting in unpredictable variations. In other words, what passes for a Juju & Jordash house track nary sounds like what falls under the Beatport house charts. You only have to listen to one of their Off Minor radio shows to get a feel for what goes into their own blender and comes out in a refreshingly new shape.
Mike Dehnert, Umlaut 2
September 17, 2009 – 10:01 AM
When the Clone label announced it was turning the lights out earlier this year it was a sad day for techno/electro obsessives like myself. But as it turns out the label’s death has been greatly exaggerated, or at least has pumped creative spirit into other, more focused areas. The result so far has been a steady stream of releases on what might be called “boutique” sub-labels such as the Club Series, Loft Supreme Series, West Coast Series and the Jack For Daze Series; all fall under the Clone banner while each concentrates on a specific style of electronic music. Confused yet? Well just this past month they unveiled one more imprint called the Clone Basement Series, keying in on hard-boiled dance tracks. Based on that criterion it makes sense to find Tresor resident Mike Dehnert in charge of the first release.
Kirk Degiorgio, Mass
August 26, 2009 – 10:01 AM
With a techno revival in full swing, most of the attention has been lavished on the re-emergence of Luke Slater. However Kirk Degiorgio’s role in the early UK techno scene and beyond shouldn’t go unnoticed. Alongside Black Dog Productions, B12, Steve Pickton and others, he helped to develop a uniquely British take on what Detroit had introduced them to. What set Degiorgio apart from his counterparts was an upbringing and deep found appreciation for black music forms extending beyond the solely electronic dance format and into the jazz and soul landscape. His encyclopedic knowledge and deep love of older jazz, funk and boogie informed much of what came after his initial techno releases and allowed him to explore those influences in more honest ways. Degiorgio’s multiple albums under the As One alias have provided thrilling moments exploring modal jazz arrangements fused with electronic elements (Planetary Folklore, Elegant Systems and The Message In Herbie’s Shirts), while he hasn’t shied away from song based soul excursions either. His recent influx of releases, starting with “Jitter World” on Abstract Forms and now Mass (the first new material on his newly re-launched ART imprint in 15 years), sees Degiorgio returning to his production roots in prime techno terms, plain and simple.
John Tejada, Vertex
August 20, 2009 – 10:01 AM
Since its inception, John Tejada’s Palette label has focused primarily on techno but over recent years has concentrated on the tracky form of the genre. His own work has veered towards that same path at times, with several releases that bore more than a passing resemblance to new school minimal. But 2009 has seen a return to the form of old. This year’s earlier release by Tejada, “Fractals,” affirmed an interest in re-exploring overtly melodic themes with nods to early UK techno and even a jungle reference peaking its head through the techno rhythms. Tejada’s latest, “Vertex,” finds him reaching for a similar trajectory while also keeping the dance floor in his sights.