Klock Watching

More sets for the coming winter months…some have tracks in common which are quite good. I’ve made all the links to juno samples this time round under the (perhaps misplaced) assumption that people would rather hear samples straight off than have to go digging…but then again there’s something so comforting about discogs listings and also there are reviews on discogs and none on juno…which is better? Or do you even care?

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I tried to do as good a job as possible here describing the quality of the last Oliver Deutschmann podcast I heard, but I think I may have blathered a bit. I’ll do the same this time in saying that this new promo mix is also amazingly trippy and trancey.

Oliver Deutschmann Oktober Promomix (direct link)

Through my amazing detective skills (which involve looking up Deutschmann’s November top 10 on juno) I can tell you it has tracks from Alex Cortex, DJ Madskillz, Brothers’ Vibe, Gowentgone (whose ‘Love & Respect‘ is on Deutschmann’s own Vidab label), Spencer Parker and DJ Koze (whose ‘I Want To Sleep‘ is pitched up quite a lot and therefore sounds really quite different from all the other mixes i’ve heard it in – but no worse off I don’t think). This mix doesn’t have anything quite approaching the sheer INSANITY of the track 15 minutes into his Get The Curse mix (which I have yet to identify), but hey, there are very few things in this world that do. This mix is a great ride through some of the more driving reaches of house and I like it quite a bit. If anyone fancies booking Deutschmann for a gig in London then i’ll be first there at the door…and if anyone fancies furnishing me with the entirety of the Vidab catalogue on record (minus the Siem Reap EP which is the single one that I own) then, you know, FEEL FREE.

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In the GetTheCurse podcast, Deutschmann mixes out of the TRACK OF INSANITY into something G and E may have described as ‘reggae-like’ at one point. I’ve just found out what it is by looking up the tracklist for Ben Klock’s marvellous Bodytonic podcast – the track’s the B-side on the elliptically named No. 10001 EP out earlier this year. I’m with the discogs commenter who reckons it’s Shed – it definitely fits in with the sounds on Shedding The Past. If you liked that Ben Klock podcast then OMG here’s another stunning set from him, recorded back in May:

Ben Klock @ ALRT, Eindhoven [NED], 17/05/08 (direct link)

The recording starts off with the ‘Spastik’-like percussion workout of ‘Blank Scenario‘, which segues into a now very Shed-like percussion workout, with the snare phasing between clipped and splashy in a really satisfying way every 16 beats. Then the gloom starts building and Klock moves from playful-but-volatile to just motherfucking-terrifying, all done very skillfully but also all very threateningly. The first hit of any NOTES, as it were, comes with his own megalithic ‘Sean‘, released under the Klockworks moniker last year. The slamming but sweet ‘Red Handed’ from the Klockworks 03 EP is one of my tracks of this year and ‘Sean’ is a similarly fantastic track, somehow being huge and Berghain-like but also irrepressibly POP at the same time. That’s an amazing trick to play when you think about it. Klock’s played it several times already – think of the immensely groovy ‘Similarity‘, also from 2008 – and I can only hope that he plays it a few more times.

Klock then moves through more behemoths, including fellow resident Marcel Dettmann’s huge ‘Corebox‘ off the Clime EP. Dettmann spits on pop music…this is all about scraping up the sodden earth off the top of a rotten coffin, dousing it in petrol and setting it alight, before chucking the earth back on top of it and stamping up and down on it for good measure. Filthy but addictive, I’d say. I love it. Klock compounds matters soon after by playing ‘Lattice’ off the same EP. Later comes the track the two of them are probably most famous for as collaborators (at least it’s the one I’ve heard the most) – ‘Places Like This‘ – off the Scenario EP that the earlier ‘Blank Scenario’ was taken from. I’m beginning to realise that I have criminally ignored that EP up to now, because when I think about it ‘Places Like This’ has been one of my favourite tracks of the year (it kicks off Dettmann’s what I think of as SEMINAL mix for Mixmag.ru) and ‘Blank Scenario’ is also a pretty killer track. As are the other tracks on it. Right i’m going to buy it now…

Later, Klock basically makes me the happiest man alive by playing Radio Slave’s most pop track to date, ‘What Happened?‘ Now, I think this track is immense and I played it at a sexyparty last weekend. Klock’s playing it considerably faster than its normal speed so it’s a bit odd to hear…but at the same time I can now attribute the track with even more genius, because sped up it takes on a real pulsating drive that completely contrasts with the almost laidback vibe of the normal speed. This can’t just be a tempo thing – it must be in the track itself, in the tones and echoes and syncopation…what a fucking powerful track. And the A on that EP, ‘K-Maze’, is just as incredible. I can’t recommend it enough.

So yeah I think this Ben Klock mix is pretty good. Maybe you should listen to it.

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A few more quick ones just if you have the time I guess. Adriaan Vankeerbergen recently posted an ace set on his blog which is spacey, echoey, deep and all those other dub techno adjectives you can think of, but without being boring, which is some achievement. In fact it’s one of the best mixes of its type:

Adriaan Vankeerbergen – Elevation II Mix (blog post with tracklist)

I’m a particularly big fan of the track 39 minutes in…OH WAIT LIVEBLOG TIME this is me thinking on my feet…I can’t believe i’m such an idiot, because this is actually the same INSANE track from the Deutschmann GetTheCurse podcast! And Adriaan has been kind enough to put up a tracklist with his mix, so I now know it’s ‘Index I‘ by Helical Scan. Now I feel really stupid. Oh well, I guess it shows that it wasn’t an ‘oh I like this’ and then forget about it…I must really like it eh. Apparently this was originally released in 1996? It’s going on the wantlist…

Adriaan also recently linked to a mix by Function, whose recent ‘Burn‘ on Sandwell District has been getting a lot of attention it seems. His Bunker podcast is really good stuff:

Function – Bunker podcast #07 (direct link)

It’s more Klock-like than Vankeerbergen-like but even that’s a stretch – it’s more techy, more trancey in places…very propulsive throughout. At about 27 minutes he plays a track that also appears 5 minutes into this set from Efdemin from a little while ago:

Efdemin @ Pacotek, Tel-Aviv [ISR], 07/06/07 (direct link)

I wouldn’t have expected Efdemin to play tracks like this, but actually it kinda makes sense…all through his self-titled album you get this sense that although most of the timbres are kinda comfy and the melodies are sweet and there are kids chanting and bells ringing…that there’s something slightly eerie going on too, that there’s a much more masculine side hiding under the surface. At least I get that impression – far more than I do from This Bliss, which I otherwise see as its companion piece. This meanstreak I’m speculating about is quite apparent in Efdemin’s recent track ‘Kamm‘, in his Pigon collaboration with RNDM. This set from 2007 is by turns deep, jacking and rave-tastic. By the end of the hour it’s turned almost introspective. I expect the same sense of a journey from his upcoming mix CD.

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This post ended up rather longer than I had expected and now it’s way past my bedtime. But then again it’s worked for me because i’ve identified a lot of tracks I hadn’t previously known, and I’ve also relistened to these sets again and really really enjoyed them. Especially the Efdemin and Klock sessions – I’d relish the chance to see them DJ as soon as I can. I’m off to look up dates…