We love to drag geography into discussions of dance music, and with Mr. Raoul K, it’s hard not to. Turned onto to electronic dance music after moving from the Ivory Coast to Hamburg, his reputation as a producer is founded on a growing catalog of euphoric and rather continental club tracks that swirl with traditional African elements. African motifs are hardly anomalous in dance music, but they’ve held an uncommonly prominent role in this particular producer’s discography, and not just the rhythms, either. From the balafon twinkling through last year’s excellent “Wind of Goree” for Mule Musiq to the shudders of kora heard on 2008’s “Le Cercle Peul,” Raoul’s keen interest in working with live recordings of African acoustic instruments is probably the first you notice when you hear his music — at least it was, anyway.
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nsi., Eitherway
More and more, the recordings of Max Loderbauer and Tobias Freund’s Non Standard Institute seem to parallel the ineffable and absorbing audio artifacts they namecheck from time to time — records like Cluster’s Großes Wasser, Pharaoh Sanders’ Thembi, or This Heat’s This Heat. Like those records, their latest EP sounds as though conceived through exploratory tinker-now, edit-later studio sessions where the ultimate goal isn’t necessarily a new record. All the same, their latest eccentric collection of fascinating, too-brief compositional sketches is a richly satisfying listen. Cut from the same cloth as the track LWE hosted as a free mp3 this month, you could imagine Eitherway as something like last year’s RA-podcasted Mutek set, but parsed into discrete vignettes.
Lopazz & Zarook, Studiorevox Taperecordings
Former Output Records labelmate, Get Physical cohort and all round badboy Lopazz aka Stefan Eichinger and Italic records chap Eddie Zarook get back together after a slew of remixes to drop this sample ridden double A-side. And if you’ve not heard their wonky remix of Gus Gus’ “Add This Song,” I advise you do so — it jacks like a iron fist in a padded glove against a brick, sweat covered wall. They do it again here, and the producers’ respective styles complement each other perfectly with Lopazz’s somewhat warm in tone, house-fused vocal stylings together with Mr Zarook’s stripped back, near minimal techno leanings.
BBH: Robert Hood, Stereotype EP
Robert Hood’s burst of activity in 2009 was composed half of new releases and half of reissues. After reissuing the classic Minimal Nation Hood fired off a couple new jams (including the wicked “Superman”) before continuing the reissues with The Pace/Wandering Endlessly. Which leads us to M.PM number 5, the legendary Stereotype EP first released in 1998. Last year we noted the strength of 2009’s reissues, and Hood’s were a big part of that.
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.
André Lodemann, Still Dreaming
You get the sense that André Lodemann’s ears aren’t made from the same stuff that yours are. Producing since 2004 but really picking up speed in 2009 with his self-released output on Best Works, Lodemann has a way of rendering strange, tiny melodies into much catchier, dreamier, bigger components than they might fundamentally be. His definition of a hook, not to mention his sense of pacing and melodic development, might not be yours, but his level of execution — from a technical standpoint, dude’s biting at Martin Buttrich’s heels — and sheer earnestness go a long way towards selling you on such wacky deep house logic. Derided as cheesy by some, Lodemann rivals Reggie Dokes as one of house’s most idiosyncratically appealing voices. The aptly named “Still Dreaming” for Freerange, perhaps his highest-profile release since the Wanna Feel EP on Simple in 2008, brings to the big room those mystical, meandering melodies Lodemann spent 2009 perfecting. He’s made one of the more distinctive European house anthems in recent memory.
Ryo Murakami, Just For This
Since Steve Bug first discovered him in 2007, Ryo Murakami has been busy giving Japan’s techno scene a good name. Following close on the heels of his deep and dubby Lost It EP, the producer has delivered yet another aural treat from Tokyo. Rarely do house singles have the coherence and consistency found on this release. Put simply, this is just good stuff. The three tracks fit together like the matching pieces of a china set: the slow and sultry title track is the bulbous tea pot, steeping some seriously deep house grooves; the remix is the flare-rimmed teacup, delicately endowed with fresh organic drums; “Untitled” is the wide-mouthed sugar dish, full of party sweets. Each piece earns its distinctive place in the set.
Peter Van Hoesen, Variable Parts EP
Free. In whatever digital format you like. Possibilities like these make me question the very purpose of reviewing such a release. “Is this record good enough for me to shell out the money to buy it?” LWE generally hope to provide such answers. But here you’re being treated by Peter Van Hoesen to three reworks of his tunes, as well as a new one, for no cost at all. So whether I’m telling you if this release is worth your time, giving Van Hoesen a thumbs up or simply sharing my thoughts on a new record, you, dear reader, should be picking this one up and making your own judgments even if I determined it were terrible. But being the work of Van Hoesen, it most certainly is not.
Hell ft. Bryan Ferry, U Can Dance
Taken from Hell’s ambitious double album Teufelswerk, “U Can Dance” unapologetically looks back at electroclash with rose tinted glasses, Bryan Ferry lacing the track with his languid, lounge lizard tones. Hell’s original (with help from Peter Kruder and Christian Prommer from Trüby Trio on programming) starts off strong, merging icy cool, arpeggiated synths with Ferry’s equally frosty serenade to a club nymph. Though clocking in at nearly ten minutes, it is in danger of overstaying its welcome after two thirds of the way through. The keyboards start getting a little cheesy and Ferry has long since left the vocal booth, presumably in search for a cigarette or a martini; in any case the magic is over by the six minute mark or so.
Simon Hinter, Klappsn’ Funk EP
Generally speaking, I can’t say I’m much a fan of the ProgCity Deep Trax label. The name itself suffers from genre fatigue with a potentially misleading composite of modifiers that typically do not sit well together. How often do you see “prog” and “deep” in the same sentence other than as a nullifying denouncement of one or the other? The music that has typified the label runs a consistent line of tech-house with occasional interjections of clean cut European deep house. And being a sub-label of ProgCity, which championed a gilded house sound through much of the ’90s and early ’00s, doesn’t inspire much confidence in their releases either. Once I put all that aside, though, something caught my ear with Simon Hinter’s Klappsn’ Funk EP.
Alex Smith, Here With Me
Omar-S is dead, long live Alex Smith. OK, Omar-S isn’t dead, but still, long live Alex Smith. The most provocative and precocious of the Detroit new-school is back on his latest outing for FXHE and this time he’s releasing under his God-given name. Oh, and this time he is on fire. Here with Me is a stunning micro-statement of intent, an atomic particle of sonic abundance that twinkles brightly amidst its creator’s finest achievements.
Roni Nachum, Guest Service Shalom
The Hebrew word “shalom” means peace, but it’s also a greeting and sometimes a goodbye. For Roni Nachum, a young producer from Jerusalem, “Guest Service Shalom” is one hell of a hello. His vinyl debut, which so skillfully walks between deep house moods and techno’s edges, arrives care of the shrewd A&R work of Nitzan at Fine Art Recordings. It’s also backed by a superb, decompressing remix by Mark E.
Oskar Offermann, Apple Crumble Beneath My Feet
Dance music is nothing if not purpose-driven. And when one of your primary concerns is filling up a floor and making those on it go apeshit, it’s tough to resist what’s tried and true. But how does a producer not reinvent the wheel without engaging in outright hackery? In the weeks since I received Oskar Offermann’s latest White 12″, “Apple Crumble Beneath My Feet,” I’ve been scratching my head over whether the producer and labelhead is painting by numbers or insidiously distinguishing himself from the hordes of producers making records nearly identical to this one. WHITE008 brings you three tracks of bog-standard, disco-flecked Rhodes riffs — your laptop wearing a Moodymann wig, basically. But I can’t help but feel like Offermann has a compositional sense that pushes him beyond his music’s ever-obvious sound palate. It’s quite possible you already own this record in about twenty or thirty near-identical forms. Is it worth buying again?
Anton Zap, Take It As It Comes EP
Within a few short years Anton Zap has made himself an indispensable part of deep house and has displayed a growing talent for mining late night emotion from his productions. The aquatic feel of his Take It As It Comes EP sounds like a nocturnal journey to the briny depths to preach the word to all manner of sea floor dwellers. Spread over four tracks, Zap washes layers of dreamy pads and chords over waves of rolling bass and textured rhythms. It’s an approach he uses for every track here, which may lead to some seeing the EP as samey and uninteresting, but I feel that what Zap is aiming for here is creating moods and vibes with these tracks, which he does and does incredibly well.
The Mole Presents Guilty Pleasures, Family/Rotation
With a veritable glut of disco-tinged tracks raining down on 2009 like The Weather Girls’ beefy protagonists, it would have been easy to pass much of it off as sound-alike twaddle, and of course within any popular music trend it would be fair to do so. The Mole’s scant few releases last year showed he was in no trouble of falling into that camp though, as is the case with this collaboration of sorts with Guilty Pleasures. It’s hard to say how much of a hand the producers behind Guilty Pleasures (including Tyger Dhula and Danuel Tate of Cobblestone Jazz) played a part in these two tracks, sounding as they do like vintage works from The Mole, though their credits are listed so we can only assume that input was shared.
Various Artists, Significant Others Too
While out in Tokyo, I once read a review in which a DJ was described as playing “insidious house” due to his ability to get said reviewer from “happily sitting with a drink to dancing thirty minutes later without knowing what happened.” The kind of deep, warm groove ridden sound which creeps under your skin and is as conducive to listening as it is to shaking it on the floor. Unfortunately I forget the DJ referred to, but the term captures the trend which has been prominent during the past few years. Injecting soul and an infectious warmth back into house as an anathema to glacial minimal sound that came before it. And it is this non-pejorative, soul-infused “insidious house” which Wolf + Lamb have made their signature and stock in trade. This collection of new projects, first releases and previously digital only tracks sounds strangely more like an EP pulled from a Best Of compilation rather than a showcase — each of the tracks presenting themselves as dusted down nu classics. Even the title Significant Others Too bears the hallmarks of a quiet confidence Wolf + Lamb have created for themselves over the past four years.
EQD, Equalized #003
Equalized #003 is not an easy record to identify, and not just because its creator went through reasonable pains to stay anonymous. Both sides of the disc feature thoughtful, hard tripping grooves that feel like they might disintegrate into warm, gooey, and rhythmless piles of mash at any moment. Drums lurch into the mix on one off-beat, never to be seen again; towards the end of the A-side, a house stomp emerges from the techno shuffle: this is a record that makes unpredictability into an art form, using surprise, rather than an emotional sonic palette, to deliver pleasure. On its own, this might not make the latest from EQD worthy of careful discussion. Plenty of tracks in techno history evolve in unexpected ways — I’m thinking now of Jichael Mackson’s dubby rework of Chris Isaacs — but very few producers are skilful enough to avoid using the genre conventions of house and techno enough to let the surprise do so very much of the work.
Brandt Brauer Frick, Wallah/Button
If you don’t already know the names, nota bene: this three-man acoustic techno team is one part Paul Frick (classically trained musician cum dance music producer) and two parts Scott (aka Dan Brandt and Jan Brauer). After only a handful of releases — all noteworthy — the hubbub surrounding this trio means that each new addition will be met with great expectations. Here, although their self-recorded acoustic sounds are ripe for the picking, the group falls slightly short of their soulful reputation.
Hydronaut/Aquarhythms, Deep In The Feeling/Warm Seqs
Jay Ahern’s name has crept up a lot recently, often in the same sentence as his Hauntologists project with Stefan Schneider or his Cheap and Deep moniker/label born in 2009. Seasoned techno watchers, however, will recognize Ahern as the scene stalwart behind Aquarhythms (who recorded for Astralwerks), Add Noise, and a handful of other monikers dating as far back as 1992. With a new crop of listeners awaiting his next transmission, Ahern offered a personal history lesson that was remarkably germane for 2009’s sonic climate. The “Deep In the Feeling/Warm Seqs” 12,” which features mid-90’s era remixes from Morgan Geist and Carl Craig, feels more than 10 years ahead of its time.
Reggie Dokes, Untill Tomorrow
I can’t think of a producer with a stranger idea of what constitutes house music than Atlanta’s Reggie Dokes. Like fellow Detroit expats Octave One, he gives listeners the sense that every off-kilter drum hit or plaintive piano chord has been placed with great care. Yet the melodic logic he’s employed since he leaped into production in 2001 has rarely made anything close to perfect sense. To be blunt, Dokes is positively all over the place, brewing up for his own Psychostasia imprint and labels like Philpot and Clone Loft Supreme a psychedelic suspension of weird chord changes and jarring phrase shifts. His Spectacle of Deepness EP on We Play House, a serious highlight of my 2009, even played like the hallucination of a madman. But what a gorgeously schizophrenic mess it was. His final transmission of 2009, “Untill Tomorrow” [sic] for Clone’s absurdly limited Royal Oak series (who knew you could press just fifty records?), finds him doubling back on the haziness of that release to produce a record on the whole more direct, more floor-oriented, and more obviously funky than most of his output to date. Unsurprisingly, however, those of you longing for those same old Rhodes vamps and Sascha Dive vocals might still want to look elsewhere.