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.
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Anthony “Shake” Shakir, Arise
Whether out of self-censorship or plain old yacht rock ignorance, almost none of the press surrounding Anthony “Shake” Shakir’s Frictionalism 1994-2009 has mentioned that “Arise,” one of the retrospective’s standout inclusions, is basically just a beefed-up edit of the closing drum break from Steely Dan’s “Aja.” That’s right, techno brethren: Shake just made you listen to Steely Dan. Featuring the percussion acrobatics of legendary session drummer Steve Gadd (who, rock ‘n roll lore has it, pulled off his contribution to the eight-minute track in a single take), the title cut from the band’s 1977 album has always felt like something more than a guilty pleasure, a soft rock epic with enough funk and stoney strangeness to win over even the Dan’s most humorless anti-fans. And on a 1998’s …Waiting For Russell 12″ for his Frictional imprint, he officially brought Walter Becker’s and Donald Fagen’’s irony machine — perhaps the smoothest conceptual art project of all time — into the fold of his myriad influences.
Clement Meyer, Midnight Madness EP
Clement Meyer is somewhat of the youthful upstart. Emerging back in 2007 through Get The Curse, his influential electronic music blog focused on dirty house and electro, he’s seen his stock rise quicker than eco-energy. First earning a residency at hipster Parisian haunt Social Club, he’s since become an associate (and eventual co-owner) of Fondation Records with Danton Eeprom, lined up residencies at East London’s T Bar, and released the double A side Get The Curse on Seinan Music with apparent partner in crime Olibusta. Now he’s launched the Get the Curse Records imprint and begun its tenor with his own Midnight Madness EP. It’s not that this type of rise is unusual in the slightest, with cats such as Fredski from Tartlet Records, or fellow Social Club resident and infamous blogger for Fluokids, Casper C rising in a similar fashion. However, unlike some of his contemporaries, Clement’s music has a maturity that seems to reflect more than his age.
Terror Danjah, Acid
Terror Danjah and Hyperdub seem like a neat fit. One of grime’s finest and most innovative beatmakers was given a fitting retrospective on Planet Mu in 2009, and here he delivers his debut on Kode 9’s equally innovative label. For those that listened to Gremlinz (The Instrumentals 2003-2009) or any of Danjah’s After Shock productions, you’ll know what to expect. Mr Danjah crafts gold out of the detritus of electronic music. Rave sirens, the trademarked Gremlin sample, and piano house riffs are recontextualised into a broken carnival of beats that are recognizably his own.
Cherry, World Waits EP
As Cherry, Teruyuki Kurihara’s debut EP for the Four:Twenty imprint may not have scored much of a blip on the techno radar when it was released mid-way through last year, but his follow up effort, the World Waits EP, should register some more deserving attention for the Tokyo producer. Keenly focussed on the emotive layering of melody, Cherry nevertheless fuels his tracks with plenty of kinetic groove. “When the Truth Is” tracks chiming, Detroit infused techno through wandering pathways of euphony, passed through bursts of steamy noise and rough shod wooden percussion. The relentless high notes figure in to the track like Robert Hood style minimalism played out in long form, though each element is scuffed up around the edges, taking the shine off that distinctive Hood chrome plated feel. Kurihara’s hard whiplash claps slam the opening track into overdrive and bounce off the wistful melodies, giving them more onus, not allowing them to succumb to their own precious beauty.
Joy Orbison, The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow
Being the recipient of the unholy amounts of hype the English press loves to dish out must be oddly flattering and scary as hell at the same time. Joy Orbison may well have felt both of those things when his debut release midway through 2009 was hailed as nothing short of sheer musical brilliance. It would be enough praise to potentially leave some producers forever trying to scale the heights of a bar set way too high for them from the outset. Joy Orbison, however, has shown that not only was he worthy of the attention he received (maybe save for quite so many superlatives) but he has more than enough chops to back up a blinding start with a well of equally impressive releases to follow. His remixes of Jose James’ “Blackmagic” and Four Tet’s “Love Cry” both showed that the producer could mine a wealth of melodies and crucial dance floor pressure, whilst his “J.Doe/BRKLN CLLN” twelve proved beyond doubt the original success of “Hyph Mngo/Wet Look” was more of a comma rather than an exclamation point in his career. “The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow” then follows the familiar pathway of warm melodies and R’n’B vocal swatches that have thus far defined Joy Orbison tracks, though both of these elements are underpinned by an almost faultless production style propelling these fairly standard tropes towards the upper echelons of the genre.
Jellphonic ft. Zacky Force Funk, 100 Snakes
When does east become west? I mean who’s to say Auckland isn’t west, rather than east, of L.A.? Listening to the New Zealand-based Jellphonic aka St. Liquor-ish’s 1000 Snakes EP on the brand new Clone Limited (I know, another Clone sub-label), it soon becomes clear he’s not an artist that bothers with such arbitrary geographical distinctions. This is the wheezy west coast sound taken to its illogical antipodean extreme, a synth(etic) ass wallop of electric boogie-woogie that constantly threatens to collapse under the various anxieties of influence the record operates under.
SCB, SCB001
It’s almost silly that Paul Rose would go make a house/techno alias (somewhat) different from his well-established one. Lately Scuba’s productions would be more readily categorized as techno than dubstep anyway, even though his wide range of tempos and blend of styles comes out genre-less anyway. After the sublimely subterranean debut of the SCB moniker remixing his own “Hard Boiled,” the SCB project developed further with one of the mixes of 2009: the 37th mix in the mnml ssgs mix series. Kicking off a new series of catalog numbers on Hotflush, Scuba now looks to firmly plant the SCB flag with the succinctly titled SCB001.
Manaboo, Unhuh
It’s getting to be full-time work keeping tabs on Brendon Moeller these days. Spread over his assorted monikers, he issued at least eight records of new material in 2009. Cohort Shigeru Tanabu has conducted himself a bit more discretely, though he did notch a soaring, string-laden peak time record with Wave Music early last year, and followed it with the loose “Jazzin'” for Apt. International. Originally a guitarist, he’s also made numerous contributions to Moeller’s Beat Pharmacy records, but Manaboo presumably brings the duo’s collaboration to full interactive fruition, the label press release emphasizing an engagement of their shared enthusiasm for jazz. Don’t let track titles like “Blutrane” mislead you, though; techno and house are the crucial touchstones here.
Santiago Salazar, Your Club Went Hollywood
If you have a penchant for dance music, are over 21 and living in any moderately sized US city there is almost no avoiding nightclubs. They serve as the most likely environs to experience a DJ but often times they are venues ill suited for the music. Be it shitty sound systems, poor layouts or staff with attitude to spare, a bad club can ruin a great DJ’s performance, but more importantly they counteract the whole reason for going out in the first place. Santiago Salazar’s debut 12″ for Wallshaker Music takes the modern club owner to task for those very sins and more.
Ation, Lovers Dub
The power of the sample simply cannot be ignored within the realms of electronic music. It is essentially how house music as we know it came to be; playing around by re-editing other records, reshaping older ideas, reinterpreting axioms of the strains that came before. Opinion can be ruthlessly divided amongst critics, fans and producers alike over just how much should be sampled, whether it should be done at all or how much credit should be given to the original. There now exist within electronic music countless versions based around the same samples to the point where they are seen as standards. First Choice’s cover of Al Green’s “Love and Happiness” has long been a house music standard, and the allure of those sultry, smoky tones still inspire today. Ation’s “Lovers Dub” on Scuba’s Abucs off-shoot enterprise pays its own homage to the track with a brilliantly deep, stripped back, steppers riddim that uses large portions of the vocal.
BBH: Circuit Breaker, The End (1991-1996)
He may be a media-savvy new technology evangelist these days, but back in the mid 90’s Richie Hawtin was the kind of sketchily dark character you would think twice about leaving your kids with. The Canadian producer was known during that period for the gloriously haunting ambient techno of FUSE — which occasionally and unforgettably on “Substance Abuse” veered into the kind of deranged acid that this installment of BBH focuses on — and the complex poly-rhythms and LSD-referencing menace of his Plastikman project. Yet despite the rumors of acid tabs embossed onto copies of his debut Plastikman album, Sheet One, there was a far more belligerent side to his character: Circuit Breaker. This double pack, released in 1996, charts the laying to rest of the Probe Records sub-label, an outlet that had allowed Hawtin to explore this grungier, edgier identity.
Nico Purman, Rhapsodies
When evaluating music it’s not uncommon for music critics such as myself to overemphasize innovative sounds and structures and overlook the artists who work well inside the dimensions of established forms. Novel thrills get rarer with each year of new releases, with each new software edition, so by setting the bar inordinately high we discount some still worthy releases that are a bit more familiar, especially within dance music. Yet you would be hard pressed to find a full dance floor that expects aural alchemy from its DJs, or a DJ who resists all but the most revelatory records — it’s just not how things work away from our computers. Rhapsodies, a late 2009 release from Argentinian producer Nico Purman was my latest reminder of where my head should be at. Although he’s best known for his tenebrous tech-house on Modelisme, Curle Recordings and Vakant, this record finds Purman unexpectedly tossing his hat into deep and ethnic house rings. His outsider’s perspective lends a lot to these well worn paths, making this one of his most enjoyable EPs.
Steffi ft. Elif Biçer, Kill Me
One of Ostgut Ton’s greatest strengths has always been the canny A&R work involved in each release. Their ear for talent is nearly unmatched in contemporary house and techno, having provided big breaks for Marcel Dettmann, Ben Klock, Tama Sumo and Marcel Fengler, and hosted career milestones by Shed, Prosumer & Murat Tepeli, and Cassy. Yet there is no sign of Ostgut Ton resting on their laurels or their reputation as the label arm of Berlin’s most highly regarded clubs. The imprint’s first release of 2010 is also Panorama Bar resident Steffi’s debut solo single, one so skillfully and confidently produced it all but insures everyone involved will reap rewards for their efforts.
Putsch ’79, Samasavel
It can’t be much fun being cloaked in solid darkness 24 hours a day for months on end, but then the prospect of experiencing equally tedious endless daylight can’t exactly be appealing either. But so it is for Sami Liuski and Pauli Jylhankangas who, based in the northern climes of Finland, put up with the dual aspects of luminosity and murk for long stretches of time. Perhaps to counter the the interminable winters or rather to celebrate the wonder of boundless sunshine they create warm, ebullient electro/disco sounding like it’s been beamed in directly from the early ’80’s.
Joshua Iz, Vizual Rydims #2
Back in 2000 at the apogee of Classic Records and Music For Freaks, DJs and producers such as DJ Sneak, Justin Harris and of course Derick Carter were de rigour. The entire Chi-Town bent on boompty bass lines and a serious penchant for fun sounds, be it the unfortunately too short lived Charleston house sound exemplified by Greens Keepers’ “What’s Your Man Got To Do With Gan” (and check the Igloo Records and G-Swing imprints) to bells, whistles, meows and barks blew up dance floors and headphones. On the flip side there were the deeper house sounds of Chicago with Iz & Diz’s enduring “Mouth” on Classic and “If You Love It, Dub It” on Silver Network. That’s probably how you know Iz; these days he’s all about his new imprint Vizual Records, using it as a vehicle to release music across the gamut of electronic music from Jamaican dub to Detroit techno. As with many contemporary solo artist led imprints, all the initial releases have been by Iz himself, but they’ve not lacked diversity. After an honorary bow to boompty on the first Vizual Rydims release, he decided to take a slightly deeper, Detroit lean while attempting to retain a hint of breeze from the windy city.
Wbeeza, City Shuffle EP
City Shuffle is the second EP by Warren Brown, better known as Wbeeza, to proudly declare “THIS IS THE HOUSE SOUND OF LONDON” on its sleeve. Oh, that it were true. London’s clubs are currently soundtracked by Phonica-approved, nutrient-deprived, pseudo-deep house, but anyhow, let’s leave the negativity (or truthspeak) to Dope Jams, and accentuate the positive. This is the third EP for Third Ear by the young, Bermondsey, South London resident, and shows his sound maturing from the rough style of the New Skank or Heavy Stuff EPs. “Maturing” in music critic language usually translates to some variant on “dull,” “bland” or “smoother,” but while Wbeeza’s new stuff is certainly more polished, there’s enough bite here to avoid it being lumped in with the aforementioned dross.
Pangaea, Pangaea EP
One could argue that dubstep traditionally thrives on massiveness: those seemingly infinite bass lines wobbling up from the deep like tsunamis, those scythe-like snares ripping the fabric of the track at each half-step. But in the years since Skull Disco cut its singular path out of wamp-wamp-stomp, producers have become far more willing to manipulate eardrums on a much finer scale. The world’s subwoofers may continue to suffer abuse, but their previously bored tweeter brothers and sisters have found their work on weekend evenings getting a bit more technical. Kevin McAuley, the young Leeds-based producer, DJ, and Hessle Audio co-founder better known as Pangaea, comes from this school of bass music thought, and his soul-soaked singles for Hessle Audio, Hotflush, and — perhaps most memorably — his as-of-this-writing one-off Memories white label have tweezed ecstasy out of a more whispery sound pallet. His burgeoning discography, however, has yet to feature anything as distinctive and defining as what’s on offer over the four sides of his self-titled Hessle Audio doublepack.
Kuedo, Starfox EP
With production partner Roly Porter, Jamie Vex’d released a respectable number of sides for the likes of Planet Mu and Subtext, though for the past year or so he has been going solo. Under his own steam he has also been moving away from the DMZ-styled low end rumblers and in to more experimental territory, highlighted by last year’s In System Travel EP and this new work under the name Kuedo.
A Made Up Sound, Sun Touch
Throw a stone anywhere in house and techno and you’ll hit a production alias. Plenty of producers release music under a couple of different names, but only a handful have been able to embody each persona so fully that none of them feels like a side project. Rene Pawlowitz, whose aliases have gone so far as to remix each other, is one of those producers. Dave Huismans, the Dutch bass juggernaut whose A Made Up Sound project Pawlowitz championed on his Subsolo imprint, has proven himself to be another. The softer side of 2562, AMOS lets balmy house syrup flow over chapped dubstep knuckles, and the combination has made for some of Huismans’s juiciest and most effective material. So it’s no wonder there’s a lot riding on AMOS’s latest self-released sides, especially for anyone who heard his house-flecked “Rework/Closer” 12″ last year and still has goosebumps. Hardly the house coming-out party you might have expected (if anything, his 2562 full-length Unbalance pretty well accomplished that), “Sun Touch” instead finds the flecks of wiggly, pale house that distinguish Huismans’s personae burrowing even deeper into the spaces between all that jagged steppin’. It’s another stand-out AMUS record, but he’s hardly just showing off.