Here’s a salutary tale for anyone starting up a label and seeking to gain some coverage through the blanket mail-out approach: under no circumstances call your label something that could be mistaken for spam email. This fate almost befell this release by Rennie Foster on the unwieldy sounding Greta Cottage Workshop label. My email program, struggling to decide whether it was yet another ad for penis enlargement or nicotine patches — I really hope that there’s not a subliminal message in there for me — decided to consign it to my spam folder and I only noticed the release during a ritual clean out. Thankfully it wasn’t lost in the ether because More Songs for Homeless Housers shines a fresh light on the talents of Canadian producer Rennie Foster.
Events box
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Mar.10
@Smart Bar
Trus'me -
Mar.12
@Smart Bar
Stacey Pullen, DJ Lady D -
Mar.12
@Spy Bar
Loco Dice -
Mar.20
@TBA Nicolas Jaar
Ciao!
richard
Mike Dehnert, MD2
Limited to 150 copies and containing scant information, Mike Dehnert’s latest release (and the first record on MD2) could hardly be seen as an attempt to build on his recent high-profile work for Clone. Like the unassuming presentation, the Berlin producer also delivers music that, coming after a succession of grandiose re-approximations of chord-heavy classic techno, is more understated and less, well, epic.
MLZ, One Cycle
2009 must have flown by in a blur for Miles Whittaker. When he wasn’t invoking the spirits of local witches and making painstakingly pieced together but chilling soundtracks with Sean Canty as Demdike Stare — Symbiosis was a slow burning album highlight of the past 12 months — he was attempting to and largely succeeding in reuniting techno with the analogue grit it so patently lacks together with Gary Howell under his other witchcraft-inspired project, Pendle Coven (the evocative, sometimes menacing swagger of the duo’s Self-Assessment album should also feature prominently in any discerning “best of” list next month). In between all this group activity, Miles found the time to fly solo as MLZ to deliver a storming, spiraling acid take on Peter Van Hoesen’s “Attribute One,” and now “One Cycle.”
Redshape, Paradox Dubs
Mysterious German producer Redshape is one of the most impressive examples of a general shift in techno back to classical sounds and styles, and “Paradox Dubs,” released in tandem with his stellar Dance Paradox debut album, will reinforce his reputation as a torchbearer for traditional techno. Even the presentation typifies a purism — and I thought I’d never get to say this — that is welcome against the backdrop of a seemingly infinite slew of paper thinly produced techno. “Paradox Dubs” is available on a limited edition 10″, dished out on a first come, first served basis to customers who buy the vinyl version of the album. Until the next major Redshape project, “Paradox Dubs” also brings a neat, though possibly unwitting sense of closure to his output to date.
Hakim Murphy, Black Robots Having Sex
Hakim Murphy may be a relatively new artist, but his latest release, “Black Robots Having Sex,” recalls the jack, swing and shuffle of classic Metamorphic Recordings and some of Dan Curtin’s own mid-90’s productions. Of course, it’s not that simple: the title track unfolds to familiar lo-fi, hissing percussion, but soon veers into dark, enveloping chords and chilling strings that draw references from Sean Deason or Carl Craig in brooding Landcruising mode.
Roberto Bosco, Login Exact
The label Mowar has described Robert Bosco as a techno producer, but there can be little doubt that “Login Exact” is a house track, or that the Italian talent has spent many long evenings absorbing everything that he can glean from 90’s releases.
Cassy, Simply Devotion
When Cassy Britton released the inaugural Panorama Bar mix back in 2006, her selection preempted attempts to blur the boundaries between deep house and minimalism. However, as her sets so fluently attest, the devil really is in the detail. The prevailing flavour on Panorama Bar 01, after all, was a tendency to fuse timeless reduced techno — Ø, DBX, Baby Ford — with the warm tones of Rick Wade, D5 and Redshape, not a convoluted combination of one-dimensional tinny mnml and coldly rigid interpretations of deep house. Given her previous form, it’s no surprise that she employs a judiciously sharp approach to track selection for Simply Devotion, her mix CD for Cocoon Recordings. This time however, it seems Cassy has been caught in the house headwinds.
Robert Hood, Superman/Range
While Detroit producer Robert Hood has enjoyed a renaissance in the past few years on the back of his exhilarating Fabric mix, the inspired Hoodmusic series and quite possibly a realisation in some quarters that what he has been doing for the best part of 20 years makes the mnml explosion look like a minor ripple in his vast creative depths, it was almost inevitable that at some stage he’d fall foul of a backlash.
Demdike Stare, Symbiosis
Brrr, did anyone else just feel the temperature drop a few degrees? Autumn is on the way and the days are getting shorter, but there’s no doubt Symbiosis adds to the gloomier atmosphere. A collaboration between Miles Whittaker (aka MLZ and one half of Pendle Coven) and Sean Canty, Demdike Stare draws on a range of influences to create a subdued yet menacing collection of mood music. There’s an underlying sense of dread audible here, with Whittaker’s love of sampling obscure music — something Canty probably enjoys too — giving Symbiosis a familiar yet eerie feeling. The fact that the project’s name, like Pendle Coven, references witchcraft and the supernatural, and is accompanied by album artwork featuring skulls, white roses and a lone eye suspended under a woman’s wig while an arm holds what looks like either a small wand or a big needle, only adds to the occultish theme.
Artist Unknown, Hate 5
Finally, some light relief amid the furrowed-brow seriousness that’s all too prevalent in electronic music. The fifth release on the Modern Love-affiliated, rave/hardcore-inspired Hate label sees yet another unknown artist inject some humour into their work. Sampling Simon & Garfunkel singing the line “Hello farkness my old friend” from “The Sound of Silence,” she/he then loops the word “darkness” and splices it up with a standard amen break, a cartoonish hoover bass and some bleak chords. Like the scene and the music it so clearly apes, it’s daft and utterly disposable, yet infinitely more entertaining than much of what passes for cerebral techno or house in 2009.