Gerd Janson first heard Jacob Korn’s “I Like The Sun (But Not On LCDs)” almost two and a half years back at a Red Bull Music Academy gig in Toronto. Not that you would know it, as the three tracks on the latest Running Back still sound box fresh and, in fashion-editorial speak, “on trend.” What that says about how far ahead of the curve Running Back are, or how retroactive house music is these days, or even how laborious the process of signing, pressing and promoting a track is, are matters best discussed elsewhere. What matters here (this is a review, right?), is that eventually the music got released, and it’s really rather good.
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A Work in Progress, Untitled EP
New releases from Yore always catch my attention. Some days you’ll get a fresh release from a revered veteran like Alton Miller, while on others you’ll find something unexpected from an artist you’ve never heard of before. The “Untitled EP” from A Work in Progress is a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. The single’s two metropolitan house cuts come from Priceless One, described by the label as “a club kid from Detroit,” but also boast contributions from deep house royalty Chez Damier.
Social Disco Club & Maia, The Way You Move
The name of Social Disco Club’s monthly party in Porto, Portugal is “Are You Re-Edit?” which up to now has been an apt description of Humberto Matias’s dance floor MO. On the SDC blog, Matias has been exploring the history and consequences of disco and posting choice and cheeky vinyl-rips and re-edits since 2007. His wholehearted enthusiasm (even for the English language) has made the SDC a popular watering hole on the disco blog circuit and eventually given him the opportunity to reach a vinyl audience last year with releases on Spanish label OCSID Music and Belgian label Mindless Boogie. While “The Way You Move” shows Matias trying his hand at original production with X-Wife band member and fellow Porto native Rui Maia, it clearly reflects a re-edit sensibility with some left of center vocal sampling and a restrained, indulging pace that maintains both tension and release.
Various Artists, Lo-Fi Soundsystem
Stephen Hitchell continues to plumb the depths of dub-influenced techno to bring us further crucial low range soundscapes via the Echospace and Intrusion labels. His recent cv313 release “Sailing Stars” found him geting deliciously minimal with the cuts all employing a less is more approach to their output. Here Hitchell calls in assistance from kindred spirits Mildiou and Lo-Fi Soundsystem to further engage fans of dub-rooted house and techno.
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.
Wax, Dub Shed Sessions I
It’s easy to gloss Rene Pawlowitz’s essential Shedding the Past album for Ostgut Ton last year as an exercise in purity through genre affiliation (in that instance, industrial-strength techno). Yet I suspect the man — recording variably as Shed, EQD, Wax, STP, and Deuce (with Marcel Dettmann) — believes less in adherence to a particular beat structure and compositional strategy than in finding club music’s future in a raw envisioning of its past. How else can Pawlowitz’s instantly recognizable sound (bass boom + sharp synth burst = swift Armani Exchange model genocide) wend its way through steely retro house (Wax’s “20002B”) and soulful dubstep (his Shed remix of Peverelist’s “Junktion”), all the while keeping the fire of true techno music better than any of his more clear-cut classicist Hard Wax associates?
Tolfrey & Ramirez, Bounce to Me
Record shops housing their own record labels is becoming increasingly. Clone, Kompakt and Smallville immediately spring to mind, as do the many stamped records that come out of Hardwax. London vinyl haven Phonica has long been the destination of choice for Soho crate-diggers in search of quality house and techno, so it was perhaps only a matter of time before the store stocked its shelves with its own records. However, London lacks a distinct house or techno sound like Hamburg or Cologne do, instead priding itself on giving rise to a new sub-genre of syncopated dance music every six months or so. Phonica stock is hardly relegated to a single aesthetic either. As such, it’s difficult to anticipate what each transmission from the newly minted label will sound like. The first release from Hector & Bryant featured a genre-bending remix from Appleblim and Al Tourettes, while PHONICA002 from JC Freaks dabbled in pale minimal house. It seems fair to wonder, what’s next?
San Proper, Keep It Raw
San Proper is the latest in a long, long line of dance producers to come from Holland. While his hometown of Amsterdam is often seen as a techno hub thanks to the work of first-wavers like Steve Rachmad and Orlando Voorn, as well as newer talents like Shinedoe, it also has a rich house heritage that stretches back to the early 90’s days of Outland Records. It’s this period that Proper looks to for inspiration on his debut on Zip’s Perlon.
DVS1, Klockworks 05
Private press labels — those insular imprints built primarily to house an artist’s own work — offer something akin to a Fortress of Solitude for their owners. When Shed, Swayzak, Villalobos or Levon Vincent wants to release a record unbound by the expectations of label owners and their bean counters, they retreat to their respective private press labels and turn their unadulterated visions into a vinyl realities. So when such a label invites an outsider into their hand stamped fiefdom it can be interpreted as a sign of great respect towards the invitee. If most label additions are unsurprising (Reboot and Los Updates on Sei Es Drum, Norman Nodge on MDR), the name emblazoned on “Klockworks 05” is sure to raise eyebrows. The first outside artist released on Ben Klock’s self-styled Klockworks label is the virtually unknown DVS1, a Russian born, Minneapolis-based producer most often affiliated with his Hush promotion company. Any concerns about letting an American (and a Midwesterner not from Detroit, to boot) take the reins will surely be allayed by caliber of “Klockworks 05.”
BBH: Steve Bicknell, Lost Recordings Number 1: Why? & For Whom?
It was 1996. The UK’s techno scene was reaching the tail end of its “golden” period. By 1998, the landscape would have changed irrevocably, with the one-note loop dullards dominating, flooding the scene with cheap knock-offs of Purposemaker’s dynamism. However, just as the lights started to fade, Steve Bicknell, the resident DJ and promoter at London techno mecca Lost stepped up with the Lost Recordings series (confusingly, on the Cosmic label).
A Made Up Sound, Rework/Closer
After falling under dubstep’s spell, Dave Huismans was, like a lot of people, eager to get his hands dirty and produce some tracks of his own. However, situated as he was in the Hague — well outside the South London epicenter of the day — he was hesitant to jump into a genre whose impact, at that time, had a lot to do with the insular vitality of its scene. He finally gave in, though, by embracing his outsider status. Banking on differences in background, geography, and taste to, in his words, “add a different sound to the spectrum,” his early forays into dubstep found a distinct voice that, among other things, drew heavily on techno. In turn, the more overtly techno productions he’s recorded since then for his A Made Up Sound project have tended to sound gripped by an enthusiasm for dubstep, which, interestingly enough, has made him something of an outsider in techno as well. It’s a status he seems comfortable with, allowing the AMUS brand to operate outside any scene narrative or, for that matter, pat auteurist line. It hasn’t stopped these records from finding an audience, either. Indeed, there’s been enough interest that Huismans has dedicated a new label to A Made Up Sound. “Rework/Closer” is its first release.
Prosumer & Murat Tepeli, U & I/The Jam
Touching hearts is only half of the Prosumer & Murat Tepeli experience, as evidenced once again by their first single since 2008, the rousing “U & I/The Jam.” Setting aside emotional themes to reach for their dancing shoes, Prosumer and Tepeli have crafted an irresistible call to the floor.
Roska, TWC EP
To put it nicely, garage MC turned funky functionalist Roska isn’t exactly what you’d call a home listening guy. While his super-percussive tools work perfectly in the club, they hardly evolve enough to maintain your headphoned attention. Even in their intended environs, a DJ has little reason (aside from track length, which can occasionally push a tedious eight minutes) to choose one Roska track over another; they’e all basically some iteration of the same kicks-and-snares (plus supermassive bass) patterns for which the man born Wayne Goodlitt named his label. Admittedly, Roska’s jams have become slightly more intricate and interesting with each release, and his recent remix of Untold’s “Just For You” hinted more than ever at broader compositional horizons for his pitch-perfect drum samples. But the quality of the tunes found on the “TWC EP” — while falling far short of stone-cold classics — still comes as something of a shock. It’s as if this guy woke up one morning, ate Sven Weisemann for breakfast, made an appointment with Efdemin’s tailor, and became a fully-fledged dub house producer by midday. Behold the first 100-percent recommendable Roska record.
Still Going, Spaghetti Circus/Untitled Love
On July 12, 1979, during the intermission of a doubleheader between the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers, rock radio DJ Steve Dahl hosted an event called Disco Demolition Derby at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. Amidst cries of “disco sucks!” a seething army of Middle America, fifty thousand strong, participated in the destruction of disco records, culminating in a near-riot and prompting the appearance of police on horseback. Though the myopic, racist, homophobic nature of such an event should be glaringly obvious, the likes of Dahl have had a lasting effect on popular conceptions of dance music, and particularly of disco. Since then, the efforts of those who produce and play disco are often branded with the faddish tag, “revival,” invoking the “day disco died” as an actual fact and a possible recurrence.
Rainer Trueby, To Know You/Ayers Rock
Rainer Trüby’s name (slightly misspelled) is the one on this record’s label, but he is not the only person responsible for the music in its grooves. There is a whole cast of characters to go through, but since Trüby is not exactly a household name himself, it might as well start with him. A key player in the nebulous “future jazz” sub-genre, Trüby titled his 2003 debut album Elevator Music, cheekily anticipating the criticisms most likely to be leveled at his smooth, mellow music. Danilo Plessow, better known by his production alias Motor City Drum Ensemble, is a collaborator on these two tracks. Equally crucial, however, are certain other collaborators unaware of their own involvement: Roy Ayers, Syreeta Wright, and Stevie Wonder. Ayers is mentioned by name on “Ayers Rock,” based on an uncredited track (tracks?) by the legendary soul-jazz vibraphonist. It is reminiscent of one of Plessow’s edits as MCDE: a chiming Rhodes, snatches of a soulful female vocal, and real hands really clapping. You’ve heard it all before, but you rarely hear it done this well.
Delta Funktionen, Electromagnetic Radiation Part 2
One of the great things about electronic music is that it constantly allows new producers the opportunity to shine. Despite the increasingly high volumes of music released, it is still possible — arguably the high proportion of substandard work makes it even easier to get noticed nowadays, but that warrants another piece, hell, even a thesis — for talent to get noticed. Before last year, Niels Luinenberg couldn’t get arrested, but after two after two releases in 2008, the deep dubbed out “Electromagnetic Radiation Part 1” and the sinister and more satisfying “Silhouette” for Ann Aimee, the latest release under the Delta Funktionen pseudonym is eagerly awaited.
DJ Hell feat. P. Diddy, The DJ (Radio Slave Remix)
When I read in July that Radio Slave would be joining hands with DJ Hell and P. Diddy on a 28-minute remix of the latter pair’s recent collabo, “The DJ,” I felt as though I had finally found the master plan behind my existence. “Go forth,” God seemed to be saying from between the lines of this bizarre Resident Advisor news blurb, “and review this record.”
Stream an exclusive track from Model 500
Juan Atkins and his Model 500 project are at the cornerstone of what we know as Detroit techno, so finding out there’s a new song from this legendary group is like a religious adherent realizing their holy book has a previously unknown chapter (or something close). The fine folks at Fabric nightclub have made this a reality in anticipation of Mr. Atkins playing there on September 26th. “Huesca,” previously released only with a magazine comp, features a warped electro gait encircled by flowing strings and twinkling keys. LWE is your exclusive authorized provider of this little gem, which you can snap up below.
The Mountain People, Mountain008
In the span of seven releases, André Schmid and contributors Serafin and Roman Bruderer have charted a wide-ranging course for the Zurich-based Mountain People label. But whether the records paid homage to seminal house tunes (“Mountain001”) or helped spark the return of tribalized minimal house (“Mountain005”), their impeccable construction was conspicuously identifiable as a Mountain People production. Schmid (better known as Rozzo or Peter Dildo) imparts a certain snappiness, a sexy gait such that even the label’s lowest points (the threadbare “Mountain006″) are far more palatable than the majority of house singles I receive. While the eighth Mountain People 12” is equally surefooted, the record’s droning arrangements are more aligned with those of Schmid’s other guises than its predecessors. The results are less compelling than one might imagine.
Floating Points, Vacuum EP
To say it has been a good year for Sam Shepard, aka Floating Points, is a gross understatement. He started 2009 as a relative unknown, but thanks to four faultless releases has quickly become an exciting new talent keenly watched by all manner of musical enthusiasts. His debut 7″ release, “For You,” quickly pricked up the ears of purveyors of chalky hip-hop and squashed funk before he grabbed the listening cavities of house heads with the endless cresting waves of sunshine on wax via “Love Me Like This.” Left-footed dubstep pundits were also sated with his “J&W Beat” twelve on Mu and now he returns with possibly his best work yet on his own imprint with the “Vacuum EP.”