Teleosteopathy

(From Clockwork Creature)

I thought i’d echo the great writers over at mnml ssgs by saying just how amazing Kate Simko is. The set they posted here is a great introduction to her singular style, and it finishes with one of my top tracks of the moment, “She Said”. How slinky and seductive but also sinister. Beautiful record, I recommend it. (Buy it)

Secondly, the mnmlssgs people are very big on Marcel Dettmann, and rightly so. The sets they’ve posted are hypnotic, sometimes painfully good, and completely classy. The guy is just very cool! At the same time, his kinda partner in crime (and good looks), Ben Klock, has released an absolutely wicked new Klockworks EP (and that’s wicked as in the original sense, not some 12-year-old-describing-a-yo-yo sense). “Steady Plus” wreaks havoc with stereo and bass - absolutely devastating - while “Red Handed” has one of those INCREDIBLY SATISFYING whirr-and-CLAP rhythms, where the snares, when they come, feel like the crack of a bullwhip at the end of each 4/4. It’s an incredible EP.

Finally, the third track that’s had me going a bit crazy recently isn’t even named yet, as far as I know. It’s Alexi Delano’s new one, which was aired on the m_nus/Radio Fritz show a few weeks ago and also makes up a good few minutes of the set I linked to here (originally posted on RA). I can’t express how annoyed I am to have missed him at Unit 7 a few weeks back, but the night clashed with Anja Schneider at East Village. I never thought I’d be complaining about too many DJs playing near me… The new track is one of the darkest things I’ve heard in a while - that kick/bass is just unremitting. I can imagine the track sending dancefloors into absolute chaos midway through a night. I really want to hear it out somewhere. I think there’s some sort of connection between this track and the Simko, some hipshaking swagger that they achieve which might signal a welcome new trend in techno. Who knows?

I included Delano’s quirky “Two Stops To Williamsburg” track in a mix I made recently for a couple of good friends:

JUST FLESH MIX ‘08

Tractile - “To Go To” [M_nus]
Alexi Delano - “Two Stops In Williamsburg” [Clink]
Luna City Express - “Seven” [Moon Harbour]
Format: B - “Flat Call” [Upon.You]
Audion - “Just A Man [Ellen Allien Version]” [Spectral Sound]
Ludovic Vendi - “Limbo [Paul Ritch Remix]” [Paradigma]
Pierce & Jerl - “Bouquet” [My Best Friend]
Agnès - “Lowdown Cycle” [Resopal Red]
3 Channels - “It’s Gettin’ Kinda Hectic” [Trapez]
Dominik Eulberg - “Kriechender Günsel (Ajuga Reptans)” [Traum]
Rone - “Flesh” [Infiné]

This was a post-Richie at Fabric set. I wanted to make it heavier hitting than usual, and that Agnès track hits as hard as anything. What a deep kick! 3 Channels has been doing all sorts of great things recently (his remix of “Hay Consuelo” is great) and the Tractile/Rone tracks that start and finish it have been top of my list for a while.

I’m off with a friend to the Mulletover/RA event tomorrow night: Prosumer, Dixon, Sebo K, Maurice Fulton, Geddes…all in a car park?! Let’s see how it goes. Then on Sunday it’s off to the O2 to see a band I was sure I’d never get to see live: MOUSE ON MARS. I am ridiculously keen for this, having listened to their Live04 album often to hear how mental they can be. If they play “Doit” I will be super chuffed. Oh, and Gui Boratto, Burger/Voigt, Thomas Fehlmann and Jonas Bering won’t hurt either. In other Kompakt news, the interview with Wolfgang Voigt in the current issue of The Wire is fascinating stuff. I’m going to be saving up for the GAS boxset.

Finally FINALLY, this is some of the most exciting news I’ve heard recently…

Soulphiction, aka Michel Baumann, aka Jackmate has produced a wonderful home-listening album for Sonar Kollektiv. I’ve found Do You Overstand? far more enjoyable than the new Quiet Village one because of its much looser, easy-going, unforced atmosphere. Where Silent Movie sounds clinical in places, Soulphiction’s tracks can ooze out at you slowly or jump up suddenly; they’ve got an immediate pull which probably comes from the use of, you know, actual instruments.

“Cargo” is a jazzy romp which could also do a good job doubling for a BBC2 kids’ science show (those synth washes are SO BBC Schools), while “Ghana Wadada” stomps along on the kind of groovy beat that Quiet Village would be glad to smother in the pursuit of that Avalanches sound they can’t quite imitate. Soulphiction instead accents it with beautifully sparse vocals and a delicate string section. Understated and authentic, the track presses the same buttons that dOP have been jabbing over the past six months (see “Foly”, which I put in the last mix posted here).

“Velveteens” seems to reference Homework-era Daft Punk and Jan Jelinek all at the same time. “Prison Song” beats Matmos at their own foundsound game, and “Whizzdom And Understanding” provides the album’s most upbeat, driving cut. All in all it’s a luxurious but unfussy album, unhurried but lively. Continuing from his stellar Blackbox album as Jackmate last year, Michel Baumann has now made a wonderfully complimentary album here, one that could soundtrack many people’s long, idle summer evenings. There are some samples on the label’s album page, and you can buy the CD or mp3s from there too:

Soulphiction - Do You Overstand? [Sonar Kollektiv]

(Image from The Bowery Boys)

Check out this incredible piece of writing about the Paradise Garage, which certainly brings into focus the relatively hostile atmospheres of some clubs operating today. I have to recommend the absolutely glorious Journey Into Paradise: The Larry Levan Story compilation, which was for me an eye-opening introduction to the type of music Levan was playing back before I’d been born. As for my favourite edit by him, it’s probably his edit of Jimmy Ross’ “First True Love Affair”, a tune for strolling down the street in summertime flashing grins at everyone walking past. Maybe even doing jazz hands. Here’s a funny robot video:

(Youtube link)

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Polder have made what promises to be one of my staple listens over the coming months, a rip-roaring collection of tracks called Poldermodel. I’ve mentioned their “Topdrop” track a couple of times recently simply because it’s one of the more memorable, fun tracks from the last few months. I’ve heard it out a couple of times and it has really ramped up the vibe both times, injecting that little extra energy that’s often needed to get me really into the dancefloor.

This album has some older tracks (”Strange Ways”, “Dirty”) alongside newer ones, but all of them are united by the same jumpy, excitable, almost hyperactive sense of rhythm. They trip and stumble along, irresistible in their immediacy. There’s something so satisfying about the way they build up layers of clattery hihats, ponderous bongos in the mid-range, beefy bass and those crafty cyclic beats that are somehow both regimented and trippy at the same time. “Ginger” is very much in the “Topdrop” vein, which keeps me happy, although its endlessly tweaked synth line adds a certain wonkiness to its otherwise singleminded drive.

“Frisky” is the track I would love DJs to use when they’re stuck in a deephouse rut - it’s got the wooshy synths so beloved of late, but they’re a lot stabbier, punctuated by leaden kicks and vicious snares. It’s the track that would signal the end of all that muddy noodling and lead to darker, more dangerous territory, i.e. towards the stuff that I would want to, you know, actually DANCE to, rather than waving my hands around vaguely trying to look like i’m having fun, which is the reaction that most deephouse tracks have got out of me on nights out so far.

I’m sure there’ll be some who say it’s all far too straightforward, far too clinical, not original enough, whatever. But to me the tracks are all distinctively ‘Polder’, they’ve all got that signature bounce and ping. This shines through on the 51 minute ‘Continuous Mix’ version of the album, the latest in a welcome trend of mixed albums accompanying their unmixed components. Here, Polder’s singular sonic statement is made explicit, as the tracks blend into one another around the central groove. Tracks like “Tofudog” which may have sounded awkward unmixed suddenly make perfect sense, briefly sending the mix into darker, grimier territory before the lighter, blippy “Strange Ways”. That track, out last year on Intacto (which is where you can get the album from), is like a younger brother to Mouse On Mars’ muscular “Doit”, after several packs of Smarties and a pack of bubblegum. And he’s got a piano from the Early Learning Centre. Try out the poor quality mp3 below if you like the sound of that.

What i’m saying, in a very roundabout fashion, is that Polder have carved a niche where many would say there was no longer any purchase, that is in lovely, direct, straightforward, danceworthy minimal techno. Their tracks burrow into my mind even as I hear them for the first few times. For all the references and connections you could make for each track, the album simply sounds like pure Polder.

Polder - “Strange Ways” [Intacto] (Buy it)

Finally, if you want even more good listening, then you could do far worse than giving this radio set from Alexi Delano a listen. Recorded for FM last month, it includes his monstrous new track for m_nus records amongst other, similarly sinister heavyweight tracks.

Alexi Delano @ FM, March 2008 (Link from OBC at Resident Advisor)

That’s all today - I’m hoping to be down at the Âme event this weekend at Café 1001, depending on if they’ll let me in or not.

Well, my good friend G was brilliant enough to discover the name of the tune I posted that video of last time. Far from being a new sound, it was in fact released in the year of my birth. When I found this out, I didn’t pick my jaw up off the floor for quite a long time. Virgo’s “My Space” was the B-side on the Free Yourself single, released in 1986 on the Trax label. I’ve since discovered it was part of the same era that brought us Phuture’s seminal “Acid Tracks” and Adonis’ classic “No Way Back”. “My Space” got played twice at that m_nus night, by both Magda and Hawtin, and both times I started dancing in ways I didn’t know I could.

It sounded so futuristic; I guess it’s both chastening and reassuring that it’s actually so old. Chastening because it shows how little I know about the history of the music I love, but reassuring because it means that any argument about new vs old is trying to draw distinctions that in my mind aren’t necessarily there. Whether you’re Magda using Serato to drop a 1986 trax record alongside the latest (futurest?) Hungarian import, or whether you’re Detroit legend Robert Hood and you don’t know that Magda is a girl but you think that (s)he is incredible anyway, the fact is that the impact when you play a track like “My Space” is, to me, as relevant now as it probably was the day I was (literally) born.

Virgo - “My Space” [Trax] (Buy the reissue)

This weekend we went to see Anja Schneider DJ at East Village near Old St. It was a pretty good venue and the sound was wonderful. I recognised a couple of tracks - the ominous title track from her Beyond The Valley album eluded identification on the night but I’ve since chased it up, and “Belize” was a shoo-in - but I wish I knew the names of a few others that she played, especially one with an endlessly ascendant synth note that took about 2 minutes to peak before the beat dropped back in. In all it was a great set, given that she only had 2 hours to play; we even missed the end because we didn’t realise she’d finish so soon so went for a badly-timed cigarette break. I greet Polder’s “Topdrop” with the broadest of grins every time I hear it now, although I did think she got lost in a few too many deephouse meanders towards the end of her set. Still, a very worthwhile night in a very pleasing venue. Here’s to more of the same.

And, lucky me living where I do, next week Âme are DJing just down the road at Café 1001 on Brick Lane. The week after, Dixon/Prosumer/Sebo K/Maurice Fulton/Geddes are playing in a Mulletover vs Resident Advisor Brazilian bonanza in some secret location out East somewhere. It promises to be a colourful, flamboyant, blissful night.

Video from prakashwicked

First person to identify this gets a hell of a lot of love. This track was one of the ones that actually took my breath away at the m_nus 10th anniversary Fabric party a few weeks ago. On that soundsystem and through that floor, this went all the way up my legs and into my chest and made everyone dance, and I mean dance not just jack their arms, it made everyone dance like their lives depended on it.

I guess it has a bit of a vibe similar to Tractile’s “To Go To” from last year’s filthy-and-groovy Silent Movie EP (on m_nus) but it’s a bit more cosmic and clompy, fatter and funkier. Cannot wait to find out what it is, probably in about a year’s time knowing how far ahead Richie is…

Finally, give a listen to this hour-long set from Microwave, who does all sorts of techno/glitch/idm-type productions but is also a demon DJ. Here he plays it thick and fast, mixing things like Marc Houle’s “Edaname” and James Holden’s “Lump” in with his own productions and loops. Great stuff:

Microwave - Spastic Surgery [Live Mix] (Myspace blog link)

I’ve been listening to Agnès’ album from last year on Resopal Red, called Dumbles Debuts. I enjoyed it when it first came out, but not in a huge way. I thought it was diverting, I suppose, but not much more. But listening to it again properly (i.e. to distract myself from the daily grind) it has started to reveal more layers, more facets than I originally heard. It really is a good album in the proper sense, rather than just a collection of good tracks.

The central trio of his “Carbonela” remix, the subterranean “Lowdown Cycle” and the skittering “Personal Dub” form a really dense, impenetrable centre - “Lowdown Cycle” in particular seems to foreshadow much of Marcel Dettmann’s recent (stellar) work. But around this heavyset core are some brilliantly cosmic moments, tracks with much more breathing space. “Drowning” is, as you can tell from the title, not the cheeriest of tunes, but the gurgling samples and bass are given a lot more room to swell and decay. “The Break” actually sounds like it’s in the process of expanding in an echo chamber, while the beautiful closing track, “Things Recur”, is practically a Gas track, albeit with some form of chord progression.

This album structure - starting off loose, slowly contracting to a tight knot, then expanding to the finish - basically makes an album-length breath. Tension mounts during the inhalation, things get pretty twisted as the breath is held in the middle, and then it’s slowly let out for a relieved 8 minutes at the end. That’s the sort of great structure that all techno albums should be aiming for if they’re going to avoid coming off as a kind of compilation rush-job.

Anyway, this is all by roundabout introduction to the fantastic new EP from Luna City Express, a duo project between Marco Resmann and Norman Weber. Resmann is probably best known as one third of Pan-Pot (the sharp-looking ghost merchants responsible for last year’s amazing “Wake Up” on Mobilee) but he’s also done great work under his own name (”Gouache”) and as Phage (”Elevator”, which I wrote about a while back). As Luna City Express, the duo have been doing well for a while, but it’s this new Seven EP that’s really made me prick up my ears. The title track is classic minimal - the bass is deep, the percussion is hollow and there’s a well-deployed cowbell. A funky vocal breakdown after 5 minutes is the final piece of the jigsaw.

Give that track a listen, but I recommend getting your hands on the whole release as well. “Suki Zuki” is wonkier - there are even some Ricardo-style crowd-samples - but the fun really kicks in with a little flute line halfway through. From then on it’s another marketplace/carnival jaunt, like Matt John’s “Soulkaramba” or Johan Fotmeijer’s superior “Batucada Da Villa”. And finally I get to the point of that whole Agnès discussion earlier: the man turns in two extra special remixes of the title track. The club mix is stripped-down and tripped-out - check the frazzled vocal at 3:30 and the eerie finish - while I can see the dubhouse mix serving as a great tool for many a deep mix.

Agnès’ track record with remixes continues to be pretty exemplary - and I wouldn’t miss out on his own productions either. He also has some pretty incisive things to say on his myspace blog. On analogue vs digital: “what the fuck, do with what you own…” and on macs: “they crash, freeze, and fry your brain like any PC, only more elegantly, and in nicer colours…”

Both so true.

Luna City Express - “Seven” [Moon Harbour] (Buy it)