[Perlon]

Whether recording as Portable or Bodycode, there’s no denying that Alan Abrahams is an album producer. He’s reliably released an LP every two years since 2002′s Futuristic Experiments #005, accompanied by a stream of singles with an uncommon sense of vision. Abrahams’ tracks often feel like hermetic worlds teeming with activity, a tendency that could make an entire album an exhaustive experience. If this has been an occasional pitfall in the past, it’s completely absent on Into Infinity, his first full-length for Perlon.

If anything, the LP is actually gracefully paced, as Abrahams juxtaposes its most banging, clattering moments with restrained balladry. His baritone vocals are at the forefront more than ever before, and his signature frenetic house is mixed with a dramatic synth-pop influence that echoes groups like Depeche Mode and Japan. There are a few guests, and thankfully none of their contributions feel incongruous with the album’s sound. Efdemin composes “One Way,” which builds on 4/4 kicks and a more linear structure than most of Portable’s material, but its consistent sound palette and Abrahams’ vocals keep it firmly in line. And Abrahams’ longtime friend Lakuti provides vocals for the stepping “A Deeper Love” — a sure highlight, as her house-diva approach provides a refreshing contrast to his pervasive stoic crooning.

Into Infinity is ostensibly Abrahams’ “love” album, inspired by a healthy relationship, and it shows, both in the bright production sheen and the lyrics. For example, the rising, hopeful opener “Making Holes” repeats the line “you’re making holes/in my darkness.” Nevertheless, the LP seems equally concerned with that “darkness.” Last year’s solemn, pleading “Find Me” is a centerpiece, and the slow, tropical syncopations of “Island Of Thought” find him picturing “you with someone else/someone other than me” atop a lush and plaintive synthetic backdrop. The LP is all the richer for this contrast, detailing the fear and solitude surrounding even the most ideal love. Abrahams hasn’t changed his sound as much as polished it, and the 10 tracks here are among his most mature, consuming works to date.

[Perlon]

Whoa, when did Perlon hit catalog number 86? I’m not sure which is harder to wrap your head around: that one of the defining labels of the past decade, which first helped define microhouse and the new wave of minimal, is as old as it is, or that a label with its pedigree is still around and kicking. Most really great labels can weather one or two shifts in the public’s taste, but often end up closing their doors soon afterwards. Others can have a great run for a couple of years before sacrificing their integrity to turn out schlock every few weeks. Perlon has succumbed to neither of those scenarios, and fourteen years after their founding their releases are still as highly anticipated as they always have been. This is due in large part to their ability to adapt with the times, while still keeping that Perlon sound record buyers love so much. Another large part of their continued success is their unparalleled A&R, recently drafting in Shackleton and, most crucially, Margaret Dygas. Dygas had only issued two releases before her breakout 12″ Invisible Circles, one of 2009′s finest slices of abstract techno, and she followed that up with her debut album How Do You Do? last year. Now she’s back on Perlon for a self-titled doublepack of extended, tripping house cuts.

The tracks here are the logical extension of those two releases, with the warped dance floor sensibilities of her last Perlon release mingling with some of the most abstract moments found on her debut album. “Missing You Less” is a warped examination of the reduced, percussive arrangements Dygas is known for. It’s one of the best cuts here, mainly for its upwards building arrangement and subtle textures, but also for its dance floor potential in the right hands. “Soon” is almost deep house, albeit imagined through Dygas’ peculiar lens, while “Pressed For Time” plays with acoustic percussion and circling melodies. The second slab of wax opens with the hypnotic and driving “Country Way Of Life,” which uses slowly evolving melodies and vocal snippets to lock the listener in an early morning daze. “41″ sounds almost like a peak-time techno banger given its surroundings, yet it’s an extremely reduced and spacious track; in fact, it’s that very spaciousness that Dygas imbues in all her tracks that make them so unique and engaging. “Ocbinh’s Groove” closes out the package with more delayed voices and undulating patterns which maintain the heady and slightly unsettling vibes. It can be hard for new artists to develop their own unique voice, but that’s a task Margaret Dygas has already accomplished on her first couple of releases. Margaret Dygas shows that her take on techno still has many sides left to explore — a captivating document of where her sound is right now and where it might be heading.

[Perlon]

It’s testament to the strength of the music coming out of the Perlon camp that the label who ushered in the wave of micro-house and minimal that washed over the entire electronic scene is still going strong, long after the heyday of those genres. But then, even the Perlon records that epitomized minimal still somehow managed to stand apart from that very category. Eleven years on from the first Superlongevity compilation, which featured just eight tracks over two pieces of vinyl, the fifth chapter in the series boasts no fewer than 28 exclusive tracks and a box to house the seven pieces of vinyl it’s spread across. The compilation is also available on CD, though as it is only available mixed, the true rewards for this weighty box-set lie in the quality rich analogue format, something the Frankfurt born label have always been adamant about preserving.

With such an overwhelming amount of music to digest (like Ostgut Ton’s Fünf release) it would be easy to do the comp a disservice by not allowing the tracks penetrate past the surface of the mind. At first contact there is the immediate, characteristic Perlon sound at the fore; intricate and percussive-led tracks that radiate with the brittle crackle of a fire reduced to embers. But further inspection reveals there are almost as many sides to the compilation as there are tracks and there are pockets of deeper feeling inherent in these productions, a real warmth that sinks in past the initial contact. The all star line up of contributors that stretches back to the earliest days of Perlon — from label owner Markus Nikolai to Dimbiman, Pantytec, Narcotic Syntax and Ricardo Villalobos through to newer signings Cassy, Shackleton, San Proper and Portable, represent both the history and the future of the label.

One of the striking things about this behemoth package is just how cohesive the whole thing is. Save for a couple of exceptions — notably Shackleton’s typically on-point, esoterically free-flowing “Paper Throne” and the rambling, heedless mathematical glitch of Villalobos’ “Guaguay” — the tracks pass easily and logically from one to the next. The quality of the tracks is also exceptionally high, with only the aforementioned “Guaguay” and Fumiya Tanaka’s “Sorry Cucumber” really feeling like they failed to hit the mark, both suffering paradoxically from an indulgent sense of minimal verbosity. Elsewhere though, STL’s “Lost Somewhere” sounds like a zero-gravity exploration to the outer reaches, needing only a small handful of sounds to create an ethereal, haunted atmosphere with all of the grain, texture and depth that is endemic of his productions. The static heavy “She” by Tobias is also one of the many highlights, sketching out spacey, echoing keys over a distorted, broken beat and a plummeting bass line.

Soulphiction provides ample amounts of kinetic groove with his jazz infused “Circulate,” while Half Hawaii (Bruno Pronsato and Sammy Dee) serve up one of the sweetest, skewed house vocals in recent times with the infectious “Bring Back the Love,” sending Caro’s honey-rich vocals breezing over a warm, mechanical house groove. It’s not the only vocal moment to grace the comp either; “Magnificent Cat Won’t Do” finds Cassy in a late night, laid back mode, fleshing out her vocals more than she has done on her more recent records, and Portable strikes a rich vein of 80′s inspired, melancholic synth-pop with the closing track “Keep On.” Sammy Dee and Pantytec hit the mark with their respective efforts, both producers pushing deep with excursions into the cerebral, minimal techno that has always exemplified the label’s sound. In saying that, there has always been a certain playfulness to some of Perlon’s artists that also shines through on their Superlongevity series. Whether it’s the cheesy, film score funk embodied in San Proper’s “Lady Cop,” Kalabrese & The Rumpelorchestra’s mojito sipping, island-life lounge of “The 2010 Kitchen Session,” or the ethnic, plucked string finesse of Morane’s “Kalumpung A Kalimku,” it’s clear Perlon aren’t ready to take themselves too seriously just yet. Where other labels have foundered and become irrelevant well before they’ve clocked up as many years as Perlon, it’s refreshing to see Superlongevityfive shows that not only is the German imprint a long way from their use-by date, but they’re still releasing some of their best material.

[Perlon]

Alan Abrahams needs little introduction at this point, having over the last decade carved a wholly distinct niche in the spectrum of house music as both Portable and Bodycode. This Life of Illusion, his latest 12″ as Portable for the Perlon label, is not dissimilar to most of his back catalog. Both sides present lengthy, perpetually shifting compositions led by kinetic kicks and (on the B-side, at least) Abrahams’ baritone croon. For all their merits, though, his tracks have never been very compromising — motifs are set out early and repeated often; you have to decide if you’re along for the ride. This Life of Illusion exemplifies this, a record effectively split by its vocals.

A pitched-down monologue runs throughout the A-side, “Life Magically Is.” The voice, potentially (but probably not, unless he’s hiding his South African accent) Abrahams, sleepily slurs a disjointed lecture on mindfulness, “living while you’re alive,” and some related life-affirming topics. Used sparingly, this sort of vocal wouldn’t be too bothersome. But at over twelve minutes, one ends up wishing he would shut up for a bit for the sake of all the tweaked percussion fidgeting underneath, yearning to breathe. Still, “Life Magically Is” probably works wonders in those druggy club situations, a pseudo-profound vocal breakthrough after an hour of instrumentals. “Find Me,” however, is a textbook house anthem, impossibly hooky and also totally poignant, with Abrahams spilling his soul all over the track. Most of the base elements — a hyperactive, swirling jack, placid pads, a looping piano melody — stay put throughout, with Abrahams singing on top. The track is propelled forward by the smallest touches. Midway through, a yearning wail appears in the background, and on top, the producer’s pleas somehow become so much heavier. It’s a concrete rebuttal to the corny self-help advice from the A-side, heartfelt honesty triumphing over cerebral mumbo-jumbo.

[Perlon]

Between the two of them Markus Nikolai and Thomas Franzmann are responsible for a dizzying number of pseudonyms and musical projects. Their most successful of course is their long standing label, Perlon, which has for thirteen years and counting been setting the benchmark for minimal house and techno. As Pile they released several different versions of their Modern album, but only ever released one dedicated twelve, the Perlipop three tracker from 1999 (though they were also individually or partly credited with every Perlon release up until that date, bar one).

The sound of the EP, particularly the title track is very indicative of the time and the ethos of the label. Deeply rooted in house music, Perlon were offering a dry, reductionist theory on the genre while losing none of the feeling or swing. “Perlipop” epitomizes this crossover with a regimented percussion sequence that takes a good four minutes to acquiesce into rounded keys, a looser groove and a throaty husk of vocal. For its frosty beginning, “1 Of Those Days” straps on a warm dub house rhythm, Keith Denis’ rich, spoken timbre about the inclement weather in Seattle adding further heat despite the subject matter. It is the most minimal of the three tracks, using the sparse percussive accents to develop an identifiable groove, eventually adding simple, soft, reverberating pads and muffled, shimmering chimes to round off the track.

The version of “The Spirit” which appears here is remixed by Bernd Maus under his Innervision moniker, though no official release was ever made of the original. If you were lucky enough to attend the Perlon five year anniversary at Panorama Bar in 2002 then you might have been handed one of 500 copies of a 7″ containing the track backed with the equally impossible-to-find Thomas Brinkmann and Markus Nikolai track “Florida.” Though the original crafts a summery, laid back vibe that would have been more at home on the Compost or Sonar Kollektiv label from that time, the Innervision mix is the keeper. Chords as wide and bright as the blue horizon stretch over the slow paced arrangement, utilizing small parts of the original vocal to create a beautiful refrain. True testament to a classic release, this could be released today and hit just as hard.

[Perlon]

When I first sampled the little sips of this 12-inch on the Hard Wax 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.

As with most records, it wasn’t until after several homefront listens that my infatuation subsided enough for a clearheaded evaluation. “Don’t Know Why” delivered the same swampy low tones I loved in “La Noche De Ayer,” calling to mind the sloppy, droop-eyed sways off an exhausted dance crowd at 8 a.m. But a few more rotations revealed that beyond the first few moments the track becomes, frankly, a bit of a bore. The chimes are prime, the chords are fine, but ultimately there is no narrative. (Not that there necessarily needs to be one, but it’s something I loved about her last record and many of her DJ sets.) Nevertheless, the reverse side’s “Feels Like” more than redeems any overdue yawns that might creep onto dance floor faces during the chiming lullaby of “Don’t Know Why.” Here, the track unfurls like a lovely nightmare, with a beat that manages to be both punchy and plodding accompanied by dangerous, druggy faux-vocals. A beautifully flittering, perfectly processed melody swims to the surface just long enough to ensure a bit of uncomfortable introspection before plunging down below the bass again. While in the end this release may not yet be Maayan’s magnum opus, it is certainly a stepping stone in the right direction.

[Perlon]

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’ 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.

I have one complaint for the most prestigious record label in European house and techno, and it’s a somewhat fussy one: while I honestly can’t name a bum Perlon release off the top of my head, I can’t think of one from the last couple of years that’s transcended the label’s quality standards and freakish consistency to offer truly surprising music. Shackleton, sort of by default, seems the hired gun most likely to muss up our expectations, but Three EPs — Shackleton’s Perlon-fronted debut LP — hardly shakes off the label’s reduced-yet-enhanced aesthetic. But can one honestly boil down such jaw-droppingly definitionless beat science to a “subtle tweak” on an established formula? Shackleton’s productions have often mined a primordial, unknown quadrant of the human psyche (though when Skull Disco wound down at the end of last year, his under-pitched excursions sounded fatigued and overly dependent on stereotypically near-eastern flourishes). Going two or three steps beyond our usual conception of deep, not to mention leaping ahead of Shackleton’s “Rusty Nails” white label remix for Moderat, Three EPs shelves dancing skeletons and the light at the end of the tunnel for a more open-ended exploration of whatever unnamed terror lurks just beyond our comprehension.

Like Zomby on One Foot Ahead Of The Other but with a somewhat smaller bag of skunk, Shackleton eschews separate and distinct album tracks for a kind of multi-part exploration of a single arrangement — hand drums and digital cymbals, nauseous organs, and a whole host of disembodied voices wade with greatest care through various incarnations of purgatory. And then there’s his bass: powerful yet surprisingly plaintive and unpredictable, it nimbly charts one of the strangest melodic courses you’ll hear on anything remotely resembling dubstep. When he’s on point with these elements, he’s unbelievably on point. “It’s Time For Love,” maybe the most subtly impressive moment in Shackleton’s discography thus far, finds multiple, incongruous melodies swirling around each other without quite resolving — an inscrutable arrangement that adds up to surprisingly tender moment. “Skull disco” indeed: despite ripping my cranium nearly to shreds, its expertly nuanced percussion keeps the track from drifting into the fog. The triplet feel of giant toms on “Let Go,” a moment reminiscent of the Villalobos and Andrew Gillings collaboration “Andruic & Japan,” thrusts manic, jazzy drum and bass interplay into moments of slow-motion levitation. When warbling, shroom-brained singers yell “Ay ay ay” over the track’s rapidly-shifting rhythms, you can’t help but wonder how Shackleton had the foresight to include your precise thoughts at that moment in his mix. Though generally keeping his tempos in the unrelenting range currently favored by buzz producers Untold and Joy Orbison, his somewhat slower compositions like “Moon Over Joseph’s Burial” and “There’s A Slow Train Coming” feel fresher, meaner, and more mystic than they have before.

The bass continuum has filled to the brim with wild, expansive productions as averse to genre affiliation as they are to a consistent downbeat. While the rosters of Hyperdub and Hotflush have churned out some albeit excellent wackiness, Shackleton here has thrown down the gauntlet to a scene he was instrumental in forging: eschew the bog standard, sure, but don’t let the prospect of supermassive subwoofers and the purple stuff break your ultimate focus. Like its closest referent in techno, Villalobos’ Perlon triple pack Thé Au Harem D’Archimède, Three EPs just skirts the rabbit hole by combining way-out compositional ideas with exceedingly impressive control over his tools. But I’d encourage Shackleton to continue tightening his gaze. The spoken word samples in a track like “(No More) Negative Thoughts” seems distracting at first blush, and familiar spiritual that bubbles up through “Asha In The Tabernacle,” while melodically adventurous, can feel at odds with the seriousness of the musical endeavor. Despite these minor quibbles, I’d be hard pressed to think of music more on-point and new from any electronic producer these days (save, perhaps, Moritz Von Oswald). It’s precisely the sort of quality we’ve come to expect out of a Perlon release while sounding very little like what we’ve come to expect out of dance music.

[Perlon]

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.

“December 10th” is a stripped back rhythm track, its heavy beats underpinning the kind of eerie synths that used to define Nu Groove releases and a super dark vocalist who sounds like he was trained in the Blake Baxter school of sexual prowess. However, this is not just a retro paean; when the wild whiplash stabs kick in, sounding like a malfunctioning robot screeching its last sounds, the listener is reminded the record inhabits a contemporary setting. The title track is even more effective: sinister metallic riffs hang in the air as an ominous vocal instructs the listener to “keep it raw.” This is the rallying call for Proper to drop a powerful, pumping groove, fueled by a titanium-plated organ bass that will level any dance floor and is sure to occupy a prominent position in the end of year charts. A proper anthem in waiting.

[Perlon]

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. “Invisible Circles” creates immediate atmosphere through the sound of a record needle picking up background ambience as it travels its circuitous journey. When it picks up steam the track revolves around heavily accented, palm slapped drum skins with a demented, undecipherable, pitch-skewed commentary adding a maniacal edge. Further layers of percussion echo and decay in the mix, heightening the sense of unhinged fervor created by the incoherent voices. “Invisible Circles” is one of those tracks that completely casts you adrift in a club, depriving you of spatial awareness and messing with your ears with its ambiguous, distorted vocals.

“Frankly” is almost entirely at odds with its predecessor. Whereas “Invisible Circles” was a relatively barren affair, “Frankly” is plumped up with a myriad of sounds, from the obvious strummed guitar and muted jazz horns to the barely noticeable ringing of bicycle bells, birds chirping and trains squealing to a halt. The muffled horns breathing through the first part of the track are themselves at odds with the use of guitar, which is introduced later on, but Dygas somehow makes these disparate elements work together. The strummed, acoustic licks veer perilously close to the edge of cheesy abandon, but are roped in before they are allowed to develop any further. The compressed, punchy arrangements give “Frankly” a bristling, energetic quality while the incidental noises and lighthearted feel of the melodies contrast against the brooding lower frequencies. Dygas’ Perlon debut highlights a skillful kinship with Baby Ford and Ricardo at their best and hopefully marks the beginning of a more steady stream of releases from this extraordinary talent.

[Perlon]

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.

There’s a transparency to the a cappella in dance music. By themselves, they stand starkly naked, existing under the microscope for their potential to be remixed. Not only are their durability and mutability assessed for instances of appropriation, but their fitness to the original works considered. You wonder if the track lived up to the a cappela’s potential; you make a comparison between extant and ideal circumstances. As parsed details, a cappelas function as invitations to deconstruct the multi-tracks into their components and understand how the gears make the clocks tick. At first I thought “Gravy Train” sounded too similar to “Waiting 4 A Way,” but that was missing the point. In realizing the voices are being held constant, it became easier to note the records’ differences: the percussion of “Waiting 4 A Way” having more to do with Melchior’s style than Baby Fords’, the bounce of Baby Ford’s organs in “Gravy Train” — a signature of his since “Noddy” on BFORD 9. The parts and their microscopic details are built up into a dense sound that defines these records and the maxim that a sum can be greater than its parts.

“Waiting 4 A Way” is a crown jewel for both Soul Capsule and Perlon, and as much as “Gravy Train” catches its vibe it’s just not as revelatory. Fortunately, there’s some sense of urgency from Baby Ford to break new ground on the B-side, “No Day.” The track’s got several things going for it: Larry Heard-like keys for one, but perhaps the main thing is it’s quite nearly a song — that is, there’s an implicit musical relationship to the oratory. But there isn’t a voice on “No Day,” only the micro sounds that suggest a cappela. The “scat” on “No Day” sounds rooted in the twee of Aspect Music. It’s mildly cheesy, but you get a sense Baby Ford clearly had some fun with this one, and that there’s a story being told here. I started off this review with a quote from Baby Ford, and I’ll close with a quote by Thomas Melchior/Baby Ford, which is actually a remix of a famous “a cappella” by T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploring and when we come to an end of all exploring we shall return to where we started and know the place for the first time.” For Baby Ford, his most recent 12″ seems like a transition point, both a return to BFORD 9 and Aspect Music, and a progression of a sound nascent in Basking in The Breaklights and culminating in “Waiting 4 A Way.” However, “No Day” is also a point of departure from this progression, and if the quote holds true, hopefully Baby Ford will one day return to “Waiting 4 A Way” where something new and revelatory happened.