Sometimes you just need to let shit get out of hand. Oni Ayhun seems to understand this perfectly as nearly everything on his fourth record dives right off the deep end. The text accompanying the record on his site discusses both acid and music, but laden with chemical formulas and instructions it’s difficult to decipher. Even the record’s center label is a skewed picture of which might be clearer had I held on to my Avatar 3D glasses. Needless to say, those looking for a return to the melodic stylings of OAR003 should immediately accept that any traces of melody here are accidental: incidents arising unexpectedly from mixing “alkaline component(s), one or more acid salts, and an inert starch.”
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Tensnake, Coma Cat
March 18, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Despite what seems like a rapid ascent for Hamburg’s Marco Niemerski, the man best known as Tensnake has been honing his craft for over a decade. His breakout Keep Believin’ EP for Endless Flight and 2009 smash hit, In The End (I Want You To Cry) on Running Back sounded so fully realized because he’d worked out the kinks on one-off singles for smaller labels like Trax of Interest, Various Delight Recordings, and Players Paradise, as well as releases on his own Mirau imprint. With the Coma Cat EP, released by nu-disco hotspot Permanent Vacation, it appears Niemerski’s sound has crystalized even further around the neon tone palatte and taut arrangements that brought him many plaudits on In The End.
Tom Trago, Voyage Direct Remixes Part 2
March 17, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Last year’s Voyage Direct album saw Amsterdam’s Tom Trago manipulate his disco-house to fit a variety of templates, establishing himself as a producer unafraid to cross genre boundaries for dance floor success. The first edition of remixes for Voyage Direct
Matt O’Brien/Peter Van Hoesen & Donato Dozzy, Into the Red/Talis
March 16, 2010 – 10:01 PM
The Belgian label Curle Recordings continues its impressive release schedule with a pan-European heavyweight techno line-up. Representing the UK is the refreshingly unorthodox Matt O’Brien. Favouring a quality over quantity approach that has not yet projected him into the limelight, O’Brien’s selectiveness is nonetheless admirable. Last year, he delivered two of 2009’s best remixes — the eerie take on The Subliminal Kid on his Offkey Industries imprint, and the insane bell chiming cacophony-led reshape of Roberto Bosco on Mowar — along with the excellent From the Periphery EP. While “Into the Red” marks a fresh departure for O’Brien, it sees him maintain the same high standards.
James Blake, The Bells Sketch
March 16, 2010 – 10:01 AM
I’m not exactly sure how to peg James Blake. But if dubstep professes to be music made for dance floors, then the young British producer almost certainly isn’t making it. His proudly unquantized beats (throbs of crunchy sound more than proper drum-hits) skitter in and out of the mix like confused cockroaches; his melodies, while warm, soulful, and usually ripped from records made in far simpler musical times, float over the proceedings like a minute-old ganja cloud — still pungently present, yet barely there. Despite sounding more than a bit like Untold, who’s championed his productions as labelhead at Hemlock, refashioned as a sleazy lounge act, Blake brings a strangely anthemic quality to productions which otherwise would probably be too experimental (or just downright blazed) for club consumption. Indeed, his latest offering, The Bells Sketch for the seriously in-bloom Hessle Audio label, has already attracted the attention of adventurous jocks like Dub War residents Dave Q and Alex Incyde, who managed to move floors (while simultaneously weirding them out, in a good way) when they each closed out recent sets with the A-side. It’s Blake’s most sophisticated record to date, but that doesn’t mean his dance floor credentials make a whole lot more sense.
Red Rack’em, All I Ever Wanted
March 15, 2010 – 10:01 PM
I read a review recently that took issue with a release not treading new ground, of sticking to familiar pathways within its genre. Like rock music with all of the best chords already used up, there will always be a certain amount of familiarity within electronic music. The 808 and 909 drum sounds are an instantly recognizable feature within the medium, while there are a plethora of production tricks and sounds that are aped, rehashed and re-molded by the bulk of producers. Red Rack’em may not be breaking new soil with his latest twelve for the coveted Untracked label, but through employing some of the classic deep house sounds and themes on the release he also touches on that vital quality of creating a classic vibe.
Elektro Guzzi, Hexenschuss/Elastic Bulb
March 11, 2010 – 11:01 PM
Three or four dudes hunched over laptops, MIDI controllers, and a tangle of cable — is that a band? With relatively few exceptions (the Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Theo Parrish’s Rotating Assembly, and Innerzone Orchestra all come to mind), that’s about as close as you’ll get to one in club music. Plenty of red-blooded guitar wielders have owed a massive debt to house and techno; some, like Animal Collective or Hot Chip, owed one massive enough to make us reconsider the genre to which we’d had them pegged. But has a power trio — the “rock band” in its most elemental form — ever tried to straight-up play techno? On their 12″ debut for eternally unpredictable Macro imprint, Elektro Guzzi do just that, and they claim to do it without overdubs, loops, or laptops.
Falty DL, All In The Place
March 11, 2010 – 11:01 AM
The music of New York based producer Drew Lustman, best known as Falty DL, could lazily be described as dubstep, in part because his records have found homes on Planet Mu and Ramp Recordings, two labels that have pushed a sound which could also be imprecisely termed dubstep. So does his appearance on Rush Hour Direct Current, a new sub-label of an old house standby, mean he’s gone and made a house record? No, the All In The Place EP still contains his characteristically fragmented two-step seen through a kaleidoscope of sounds.
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.
BBH: South Street Player, (Who?) Keeps Changing Your Mind
March 10, 2010 – 11:01 AM
You’ll read a lot about how house music and in particular vocal tracks, lift you up, carry you along with a feeling, make you moist around the tear ducts. For me, most of that carries about as much weight as hearing kids in California harp on about P.L.U.R. back in the mid 90’s while they sucked on pacifiers and sported gargantuan, street sweeping baggy jeans. But I have to be honest that there are a select few vocal house tunes that can, to this day, send a shiver up my spine and have me dabbing at the corners of my eyes. Roland Clark’s South Street Player alias only graced two releases, but throughout his entire career that has spanned over twenty years this Strictly Rhythm release under that name is undoubtedly the highlight.