This Labor Day weekend at Randall’s Island, NYC, Made Events held its first Electric Zoo festival. LWE sent Chris Miller and Shuja Haider to scope it out. Electric Zoo instantly distinguishes itself as one of very few large dance music festivals in the Northeast. In spite of its disco and house pedigree, New York has not been home to an event comparable to Detroit’s Movement Festival; one attempt in 2008, Minitek, was notoriously plagued by technical difficulties. Electric Zoo, on the other hand, neatly caged in over 50 acts. The lineup featured a number of artists on the cutting edge of New York’s disco, house, and indie scenes, while some overseas acts rarely seen on these shores rounded out the weekend. The weather was perfect, and attendance was good. For the most part, sound was loud and clear, performers were easy to see, and everything was easily accessible. And while pizza and beer were available, so were falafel and coconut water. Was there a catch? Sort of.
review
Various Artists, The First Wave
With the sad passing of James Stinson of Drexciya some years ago, the dark aquatic electro sound of Detroit looked to be in decline, though in reality that has hardly been the case. Gerald Donald, the other half of Drexciya has kept busy with Dopplereffekt, Der Zyklus, and recording most recently under the name Heinrich Mueller. Sherard Ingram, aka DJ Stingray, sometime DJ for the mysterious outfit and member of Detroit techno supergroup Urban Tribe, has maintained the deep sea dwellers’ legacy through his own productions and now via his new Micron Audio label, which showcases a global community of like minded electro resistance fighters. The First Wave sampler throws up only one familiar name (apart from Stingray himself who features under the moniker DJS 313) in the shape of Aaron Atkins, nephew of Juan, who appears here under the name DJ XRAY. Other contributors include protégés from Greece, Italy, Belgium and Spain, all heavily reared on transmissions from the 313 area, which is surprising and heartening in equal parts given that some are barely out of their teens.
Various Artists, Total 10
It’s astonishing to think Kompakt is a mere ten years old. The shadow they have cast over the contemporary house and techno scene, not least through their distribution, never mind label releases, is gigantic. For younger DJs and fans, it’s hard to think of a world without the dotted imprint. Their Total series is a case in point: a summer without the compilation and accompanying party is difficult to contemplate. For casual fans, the CD issue offers the opportunity to catch up on the year’s hits, while the double, and now triple vinyl packs satisfy DJs with exclusives cuts and some venerable smashes of their own (Superpitcher’s “Mushroom,” DJ Koze’s “Mariposa,” and Jürgen Paape’s “So Weit Wie Noch Nie” for starters). They also illustrate the broad taste of the Kompakt collective, with tracks ranging from campy electro pop (Justus Köhncke, most likely) to teeth-grindingly hard techno (step forward Reinhard Voigt). This eclecticism is both Kompakt’s greatest strength and their weakness. Their determined and democratic stance that if any one of the label heads (Michael Mayer, Paape and Wolfgang Voigt) likes a track enough they will release it, means occasionally real stinkers can slip through the door that ruin things for everyone. Throughout Total 10, the suspicion that this hardly stringent quality control is set to an all time low is hard to shift. When Total 10 is bad, it is very bad. And when it is good, it is still far from producing any classics to rival those listed above.
Milton Bradley, Psychological Drama
When we last checked in on Do Not Resist The Beat!’s menacing aesthetic — think selections for a techno dungeon beneath another techno dungeon — the labels proprietor and sole artist as of this writing, Milton Bradley, sounded manic, painting the apocalypse in broad, fiery strokes at a high BPM. “Dystopian Vision” might be the best Ostgut Ton record the fabled Berghain imprint had no hand in releasing this year, and it wouldn’t have been a huge surprise if “Psychological Drama,” Bradley’s latest, continued to pummel its audience with similarly brass knuckle-imbued fists. I mean, ’tis the zeitgeist, and the guy sure has a knack for ferocious, stuttering rhythms. But on his third 12″, Bradley turns his prophet’s gaze inward and maybe farther downward, trading visceral beats for paranoid ones. If he left you feeling slightly concussed before, then prepare to get head-fucked.
STL, The Unseen Voyage
2009 may go down as the year of the private press, but STL (aka Stefan Laubner of Bad Harzburg) has traveled this hand-paved road for six years with his Something imprint, issuing scuffed-up house and techno tracks, field recording collages, and numerous combinations thereof. The best of these come off as soft-spoken bedroom curios, but garner enthusiastic support as potent groove tracks. Juggling a prolific release schedule and bankable quality control, STL’s steadily amassed a loyal fan base. Farming out the occasional release to Perlon can’t have hurt either, but it’s a new alliance with Smallville, bringing with it the overwhelmingly embraced “Silent State” EP, that’s really raised STL’s profile this year. Yet his in-house press is as busy as ever. Arriving in June, “The Unseen Voyage” is familiar, steadfast STL, a sign perhaps that neither “Silent State” nor the increased attention have disrupted the Something agenda. Don’t mistake it for a retread, though.
Baby Ford, Tin Of Worms
It’s difficult to mention Baby Ford in 2009 without feeling the need to also discuss the passing of his longtime production partner, Ian “Eon” Loveday. Ford’s Trelik label was established primarily to release his work with Loveday, whether solo or together as Minimal Man. Loveday also lent his talents to the now seminal Baby Ford & The Ifach Collective project. Although the frequency of their collaborations tapered off after the turn of the century, one imagines the bond between them never weakened. All the more reason “Tin of Worms,” Baby Ford’s latest single released only days after Loveday succumbed to pneumonia, feels inexorably linked with his partner’s untimely passing. Production schedules suggest the music was likely complete well beforehand, yet a pall hangs heavily over the release.
John Roberts, Blame
John Roberts claims to spend a lot of time tweaking tracks from his bed or couch. I find this both plausible and kind of baffling. While the American Berliner prodigiously crafts fresh-out-the-steam-room house tunes mirroring the laid-back circumstances of their creation, he populates his sides with some of the most hyper-tangible and painstakingly textured samples in deep house. Dance music nerds often fetishize records made on analog gear in elaborate custom recording studios, but shy of hiring an on-call chair massage crew, I just can’t see panel after panel of humming gear birthing ear candy as good-vibin’ and deceptively crafty as Roberts’s couch-and-MacBook music. Spooning a modular synth is also pretty difficult.
Rodriguez Jr., Kids of Hula
Perhaps more than any other genres, dance music inspires, nay, beckons for the existence of copycats. Whether it’s the natural tendency to follow hitmakers’ lead with one’s own interpretation or the myriad technological opportunities to emulate sounds found in the hits, clubbers tend to reward even shabbier, trend-riding producers with their presence on the dance floor. Sometimes this provokes ire in producers at the front of the pack (eg. Dan Bell’s frustration over Josh Wink’s “Phreak”-biting “Superfreak (Freak)”), other times successful mimicry means new record deals (eg. much of Cadenza’s roster in 2009). Yet the inevitability of copycats doesn’t mean they should be let off the hook, especially in more egregious instances of plagiarism. Rodriguez Jr.’s “Kids of Hula” is one such case.
The Hasbeens, I Fall To Pieces
The Hasbeens have released only three records so far, and all three have been greeted rapturously. The question left to answer about their simply constructed, repeatedly beguiling electro/disco cuts seems not to be whether or not they’re worth listening to (they definitely are), but rather what it is that makes them so damn good. “I Fall to Pieces” is the latest release, having migrated from Clone X to Frustrated Funk, another of the many arms extending from the Vishnu-esque Clone body. The 10 Euro asking price might seem a little steep for a platter containing one pleasant three minute piano ditty and only one traditional track. When considering that the record that started it all, 2006’s “Make The World Go Away,” will set you back about €40, “I Fall to Pieces” suddenly seems like a good investment regardless of the music inside.
Hauntologists, EP1/EP2
Though it surely wasn’t the only limited-run boutique techno label launched last December, the Hauntologists imprint garnered plenty of interest and, naturally, speculation. The only concrete information provided was that the EP was recorded in Berlin and Düsseldorf, and that it was linked to Berlin’s Hardwax record store. The colonialism-chic of the the hand silk-screened record sleeve teased hints of African drumming from the reduced rhythms (for instance, the opening track), and of course there was that name, “Hauntologists.”
Joy Orbison, Hyph Mngo
Hype can be a funny thing. Why are some tracks hyped while others slide under the radar? For one of 2009’s most talked about tracks, look no further than “Hyph Mngo” (hype is even in the name, sort of). Forthcoming on one of the hottest labels around, canned by numerous DJs, and even the subject of an entire column on Pitchfork, the hype surround “Hyph Mngo” has been immense, to be sure. But does it measure up?
BBH: D’Pac, Everybody/Wouldn’t Lie
It’s the deepness that first gets you when listening to this early Detroit house classic on the short lived Vicious Music label. The pads float on and on like endless clouds filling the sky, the bass burrowing beneath your feet, urging them to raise up and move. This 1992 record was one of only a handful of releases for the British born D’Pac who together with his brother had emigrated to Detroit via Toronto in the mid 80’s, before they moved back to Canada to focus on their Immigrant Soul project. Backed with the upfront house of “Wouldn’t Lie” featuring Terence FM on vocals, the cuts also had a helping hand from Chez Damier on production duties, which goes some way to explaining the unmistakable Detroit house sound.
Wax, No. 20002
When Marcel Dettmann casually admitted René Pawlowitz was the producer behind the anonymous Equalized label (and the subsequent transformation of Shed’s Myspace account into Waxalized), more than a few lingering suspicions were confirmed. In retrospect, the rhythmic complexity and painstakingly crafted timbres of these stamped white labels shared palpable kinship with Pawlowitz’s Shed and STP tracks — a degree of production prowess uncommon in the majority of releases being cranked out breakneck speeds. Shorn of identity intrigue, the second Wax single, “No. 20002,” offers further testament to the acuity of Pawlowitz’s musical vision.
Levon Vincent, The Medium Is The Message
Three words I hate throwing around in dance music: “buy on sight.” Face it, it’s a phrase that’s almost never true. In a music scene where “awesome” means something exceedingly specific to every DJ with a brain cell in their head, it’s a solid bet eventually even your own personal Villalobos will cut a platter that just isn’t your style. In principle, then, I can’t call Levon Vincent buy-on-sight. But I’ll let my record bag speak for itself: each and every paper-sleeved 12″ the New Yorker has hand-stamped his name on this year has found its way in there, and dammit do I want more. Mixing the minor-key dub atmospherics of records on Modern Love or Echocord with the metallic timbre and classicism of the Ostgut crew, Vincent doesn’t push a forgotten or underrepresented sound so much as he generously drizzles some much-needed (and ultra-distinguishing) big city sass on his contributions to the recent bumper crop of quasi-white label rawness.
Affkt & Danny Fiddo, El Prologo Remixes Pt. 1.1
Scrolling through new releases the other day I came upon “El Prologo Remixes Pt 1.1” by Affkt and Danny Fiddo, a record which seemed notable only for its superstar remixers, Ricardo Villalobos and Luciano. How did two fresh-faced producers with scant discographies on a new label, Barraca Music, snag these giants (and Radio Slave on the digital version) for remix duty? Listening to the originals makes it obvious: The meticulously groomed percussion, sputtering drum breaks, Latin diatribes and blurred marimba progressions of “Points” and “Cartas Para Geisha” are the bread and butter of Villalobos’s and Luciano’s sets. Recently these masters have taken good care of their emulators (see: Sei Es Drum and Cadenza’s last 10 records), so a couple remixes for their new followers is very in character. Yet as this EP makes clear, reworking tracks made in your own image has its pitfalls.
Dimi Angélis & Jeroen Search/Lowtec, Our Life With The Wave/Meandyou.dub
Hype-mongers have been talking up Smallville Records recently as label of the year based on a mere two releases, “Silent State” from STL and “Touch” by Steinhoff & Hammouda. Not that they haven’t both been excellent, but it seems some are only just realizing what long term admirers have known ever since the first hand-stamped release in 2006. Unlike that other famous record shop cum label, Smallville haven’t embarked on the empire building Kompakt had achieved at the same point, but nonetheless they’ve left quite a mark on the techno and house landscape. With distinctive artwork provided by Stefan Marx and a quiet, unassuming air in keeping with their name, Smallville have steadily built up an extraordinarily back catalog that features, among others, Move D & Benjamin Brunn, Sven Tasnadi and Sten. Celebrating five years of the record shop, Smallville now showcase these talents across four slabs of vinyl and eventually a CD entitled And Suddenly It’s Morning. The compilation’s title gives a clue to its intentions — music so entrancing it becomes possible to lose all sense of time, until the dawn light begins to seep through the blinds. This split, between Lowtec and Dimi Angélis with Jeroen Search, is the first installment, and fully delivers on that promise.
Two Armadillos, Hawthorne’s Theme
Having run one of London’s favorite parties for the better part of a decade, until recently it had been Giles Smith’s Secretsundaze co-resident James Priestley who was been getting all of the attention. Since teaming up with Martin Dawson (aka King Roc) as Two Armadillos, Smith has seen his share of the limelight as well. The pair have successfully assembled a tidy number of well received twelves that have curried favor with house DJs around the world. If there is one thing Two Armadillos have shown so far in their brief history, it’s that they know how to put a groove together and “Hawthorne’s Theme” is no exception to the rule.
Kirk Degiorgio, Mass
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.
Audion, It’s Full Of Blinding Light
I find it hard to believe anyone reading this site is not at least somewhat familiar with the work of Matthew Dear. His records have been both critical and commercial successes, resulting in bona-fide classics under multiple monikers (Jabberjaw’s “Girlfriend” and “EP2” under his birth name spring to mind immediately). 2008, however, was a disappointing year for Matthew Dear fans, and March’s “Love Letters” as False offered little reprieve. It was as if all Dear’s once-varied identities had simmered down to a similar, stagnant “minimal” sound. With the resurrection of Audion and a series of EPs building up to a full-length album, this has changed.