Across 10 sprawling sides of vinyl, Ricardo Villalobos leaves several years of missed opportunities in the rearview and reaffirms his role as one of dance music’s most peculiar and vital voices.
perlon
Portable, Into Infinity
With Into Infinity, Alan Abrahams hasn’t changed his sound as much as polished it, arriving at his most mature, consuming work to date.
Margaret Dygas, Margaret Dygas
Margaret Dygas builds on the success of her previous Perlon release and last year’s How Do You Do? album for her newest Perlon outing, a self-titled doublepack.
Various Artists, Superlongevityfive
While at first blush Superlongevityfive seems to maintain Perlon’s status quo, further inspection reveals there are almost as many sides to the compilation as there are tracks.
Portable, This Life of Illusion
On the Perlon-released This Life of Illusion, Alan Abrahams is the most successful when tapping into his emotions and his own unique baritone.
BBH: Pile, Perlipop
Perlon’s founders Markus Nikolai and Thomas Franzmann made only one 12″ together as Pile, Perlipop, which was quite indicative of the time and the ethos of the label.
Maayan Nidam, Don’t Know Why/Feels Like
When I first sampled the little sips of this 12-inch on the Hardwax website a couple months ago, I immediately felt that tingly warmth in my chest that seems to indicate something worth investigating. After the release of her debut album Night Long last year, Maayan Nidam left me wondering: what next? She seemed to have shed the Miss Fitz moniker for all but remixes, and in stepping into her own name she had moved, too, into a new era of emotional, mature, and even contemplative dance music. While her productions past were always composed with taste and precision, the artful formulation of the full-length upgraded her brand of dry-but-funky minimalism to an intoxicated, swaying jazzy wonderland.
Shackleton, Three EPs
Despite his dubstep pedigree, Sam Shackleton’s association with Perlon really hasn’t raised many eyebrows. “Blood On My Hands,” his seminal 9/11 anti-anthem caned by Cassy and eventually remixed to mindblowing effect by Ricardo Villalobos, introduced the minimal scarf-wearing set to the British producer’s tribal, ethereal take on bass music. By the time Shackleton returned Villalobos’s favor with his labyrinthine, original-besting take on “Minimoonstar” for Perlon in 2008, the technoid wing of dubstep — thanks in no small part to the Shack’s beefed-up Muslimgauze breaks — had already burrowed itself so deeply into techno that Shackleton actually felt like a logical and hardly controversial addition to Zip’s and Markus Nikolai’s fabled roster.
San Proper, Keep It Raw
San Proper is the latest in a long, long line of dance producers to come from Holland. While his hometown of Amsterdam is often seen as a techno hub thanks to the work of first-wavers like Steve Rachmad and Orlando Voorn, as well as newer talents like Shinedoe, it also has a rich house heritage that stretches back to the early 90’s days of Outland Records. It’s this period that Proper looks to for inspiration on his debut on Zip’s Perlon.
Margaret Dygas, Invisible Circles
Her first two releases showcased a producer with a penchant for oblique, compelling electronic arrangements. The third finds Margaret Dygas hitching up her dance floor britches while keeping the thrilling patchwork of ideas inherent from her beginnings. Now residing in Berlin, Dygas has perhaps drawn on inspiration garnered from playing in the clubs there for this late night minimal two tracker.
Baby Ford, Gravy Train
Baby Ford once said, “Voices on tracks have always been part of the sound, but that’s all it is, part of a whole sound.” “Gravy Train” and Soul Capsule’s “Waiting 4 A Way,” a track Baby Ford co-produced with Thomas Melchior in 2007, help us to understand this relationship of parts to wholes when it comes to vocals and instrumentation. There are similarities between the voices on “Gravy Train” and “Waiting 4 A Way,” both in execution and concept. Linguistically, they share a sexual “come on” croon, they’re worked with effects in equal measure, and both have been released as a cappellas. This last commonality suggests a logic where the voices are no longer just parts of a whole sound, but have become a whole sound in and of themselves.
Kontext, Convex Curved Mirror/Hometown Swamp
Kontext is fast emerging as one of those artists who, like Pangaea, have very few titles to their name, but the astonishing quality of the few jewels they’ve dropped place them in a slightly different echelon to the majority. Also akin to Pangaea, Martyn, 2562 and Ramadanman, Kontext takes a wholly un-blinkered view of the music he produces. While journalists and bloggers scramble for suitable pigeon holes the producers set about crafting further genre-defying treats.
Matt John, Radio Self
It’s been a quiet beginning to 2009 for the esteemed Perlon label. In fact, they haven’t been heard from since the October 2008 release of the CD version of Ricardo Villalobos’ Vasco project, itself made up mainly of material previously released on vinyl. Blame it on the economy if you must, but there’s no questioning the musical landscape has shifted during Perlon’s silence as the dance universe moves further and further away from minimal tech-house of the last few years in favor of other sounds: dubstep, deep house, and others. While the label’s (and Matt John’s) first release of 2009 certainly won’t bring about any sort of widespread revival, it slips on like a comfortable old shoe or worn-in sweatshirt and reminds us what a reliable and quality label Perlon is.
A Guy Called Gerald, In Ya Head
[Perlon] Gerald Simpson has a rightful place at the head of the electronic music table, a pioneer of acid house, techno, drum and bass, and many spots in-between (including a stint in 808 State). Now making the move to Perlon has apparently inspired our man Gerald to unleash his best single in years. With a […]
Ricardo Villalobos, Vasco EP Part 1
[Perlon] Far be it from me to challenge the stated aspirations of Ricardo Villalobos, but I find myself increasingly skeptical of his search “for the perfect club track” with each of his new releases. Which isn’t to say his tracks don’t stir dancers to hollering peaks; one needs only to witness the sweaty carnage his […]
Sammy Dee, Purplehummer
[Perlon] “Purplehummer” (or “Purplehummerultrastretch” for the superlonfragilistic) might be Sammy Dee’s solo debut for Perlon, but that factoid is a bit of a misnomer. Sammy Dee has released a decent chunk of vinyl on Perlon, as one half of Pantytec and more recently as Half Hawaii with ex-pat Bruno Pronsato. “Purplehummer” comes as no big […]
Melchior Productions, No Disco Future
[Perlon] In his work as Melchior Productions and various Aspect Music projects with Baby Ford and Tim Hutton, Thomas Melchior has consistently evoked a great deal of motion, thought, and feeling with relatively little grist. He helped define the micro-house era with his 2004 album, The Meaning on Playhouse by snatching sensual vocal slivers for […]