Both functional and unique, Patrice Bäumel’s Mutant Pop 12” for the Trapez label was one of my most heavily caned platters of 2005. Anytime I couldn’t find a link in a DJ set, there were “Mutant Pop” and “Shower of Ice” with their building, extended intros ready to bail me out again. After that intro, though, came the unique part—where Bäumel basically built a mini-DJ set of his own inside the track as elements took their time in presenting themselves and then gradually fading away.

Bäumel’s newest 12”, Just Electricity, doesn’t work in the same way. Instead, each of the two tracks here are primarily useful for DJs looking to subtly change the tenor of their set. That’s why “Just Electricity” leaves you that synth pad bed underneath its pseudo-trance melody and even goes so far as to stop with a minute left for a few seconds to let slower DJs mix something right quick. “Fantomas” works similarly, seemingly begging its entire run-time for another, more distinctive tune to run up alongside it and guide the prospective set elsewhere.

Trapez / Trapez 073
[Listen]
[Todd Burns]

It’s been a long gap between releases on Underground Resistance—just over a year—but those expecting Mad Mike to come back with some sort of reinvention of the UR wheel will be sorely disappointed—but only for a second. “Hi-Tech Dreams” is classic Detroit techno funk, deep and smooth but with a distinct grit to it thanks to the slightly harder elements of the main bass riff and snapping beats. Distorted vocals come courtesy of UR Agent Chaos alongside some female wailing, giving the jazzed-up space groove a sharper edge, as do the rather sinister out-of-time breakdowns and rhythmic jumps. It won’t make you forget “Jupiter Jazz,” but it’s definitely cut from the same cloth.

On the flip, “Hold My Own” is a downtempo hybrid of rock, funk, and hip-hop that works as a political statement but not really as a memorable piece of music, but “Lo-Tech Reality” is the A-side’s evil twin, reprising the rhythmic punch of “Hi-Tech Dreams” in a stripped-down mode and a sinister voiceover explaining that “You don’t really understand any of this.” Oozing with urban politics and some truly wicked analog noise loops, “Lo-Tech” is what ghetto menace sounds like when transmitted from Detroit directly to Mars. This is a fine return to form, and as long as they don’t take a year to issue a follow-up, UR should be back on top of the Detroit techno dogpile in no time.

Underground Resistance / UR-071
[Listen]
[Todd Hutlock]

“Man, Detroit is such a has been.” Ouch, eh? Those were the words I heard the other week, out of the mouth of a techno-loving friend whose opinion I trust. A person whom, I might add, was once a fully-fledged Detroit head. His comment may be unfair, it may be untrue, but it resonated somehow. With notable exceptions, the Detroit masters lost it somewhere, and went from producing some of the most sublime machine music ever to globetrotting on the residues of their former glories, using nothing but their reputation as “Detroit legend” to ensure a steady supply of drink cards and one nighters. How fascinating, then, that the so-called Neo-Detroit sound emerged—a whole new generation of (mostly European) producers carrying the torch for the “Atmospheric Detroit style,” as Delsin’s description on Discogs would have it. More than that, but Neo-Detroit is “really it,” (say it in the Sharevari voice for full effect).

Newworldaquarium’s “Twenty” is a funny record on this tip, for whilst it seeks to present itself as “Neo-Detroit” on a label famous for keepin’ the vibe alive, it’s actually more like a dodgy trance record from the mid-nineties (a time, mind you, when techno was exploring its trance-self). The sins of the father visited upon the sons? What next? Will Redshape release a jungle record? Both “Bond” and “Twenty” rely on the same swirling, delayed “da-da-da da-da-da” melodies that were hallmarks of the trance of old. This is a thin facsimile of an original trope that was itself fraught with catastrophic taste lapses. Strangely though, the three short tracks on here are really interesting, and seem to have had more thought put into them than the “normal” length ones. Brian Eno talked about his work developing the sounds for Windows and Nokia, and how he would put as much work into a three second hit as he had into a whole song. I can’t help but feeling the same thing’s happened here. Strangely though, I tend to think that lends it an interest in and of itself.

Delsin / 61 dsr/nwa4
[Listen]
[Peter Chambers]

I’m no Jones fanboy, but this is a monster release. Here he’s closer to Isolee than My My as far as how the whole track blossoms, which is deceptively, from pleasant but humble conditions—really lush Food and Revolutionary Art-type synth progression, harder flutters here and there, a modest kick, a rhythm-keeping bassline thump—to a storm of octave-climbing polyrhythmic figures deployed like an expert military attack. Psychically it’s overwhelming, morose by one turn, bright-eyed the next, all traceable to meticulous detailwork born of an intractably deep heart. Remixer Prins Thomas bulldozers the song into throbbing subbass frequencies I don’t have the headphones to appreciate, but I can intuit its hugeness from the disco-fied void PT leaves. It’s like the sonic inverse of the a-side, blunt where Jones’ was sharp, murky when Jones’ was crystal clear. So big; just wow.

Aus Music / AUS0604
[Listen]
[Nick Sylvester]

Swedish Derrick May devotee Aril Brikha made a big splash with his early releases on May’s esteemed Transmat and Fragile labels back at the turn of the millennium. It seems, however, that along with a taste for spacious and silky-smooth Detroit techno, Brikha apparently picked up some of May’s horrific work ethic, as this two-tracker on Kompakt is only his third release in the last five years. Brikha apparently hasn’t spent the time reinventing himself musically, as the two tracks here follow the same funky, spaced-out template as his previous work.

Not that this is a bad thing necessarily, but if you’ve heard May’s classic works (and if you’re reading this and you haven’t, turn off the computer and go directly to Innovator and don’t stop until you can hum each individual synth part to “Strings of the Strings of Life” in your sleep), or even Brikha’s own Deeeparture In Time LP for that matter, you’ve heard all of this done before, and done better. There’s always a place on my shelf for this kind of ice-cool Detroit material, but these aren’t particularly inspiring or inspired readings on the template, merely Motor City by Numbers.

Kompakt / KOM 151
[Listen]
[Todd Hutlock]

Mallory O’Donnell: A thing like this should just arrive on the doorsteps of all techno devotees with a big black stamp on the mailer proclaiming it an “EVENT RELEASE.” Von Stroke’s anthemic non-anthem gets tarted up for the party by Audion, Tanner Ross, and… Kevin Saunderson?! Kev, what up, how you doing, it’s been what… two years? Three years? Afraid of Detroit? No sir! What follows all the fuss and excitement is as best as could be expected, which means it’s quality achieved by playing to the strengths of the remixers, rather than taking any big chances. Starting us off, Matthew Dear / Audion does his thing with the rubberized freakbeat baton for eight minutes of squeaks and creaks. I recommend playing this as loud as possible, preferably while doing something like showering or quietly running in place, but the key is LOUD—just to hear all the little nuances and revolving circular nipple-twisters of sonic nutriment Dear’s installed in his refit. Tanner Ross stays pretty close to the original, which is fitting, because nobody knows who the hell he is. He’s actually done more of a smoothing job than a remixing one—if the original was straight-up double chocolate fudge this is more of a peanut-butter / mocha swirl. Nice enough, but not really needed. Last but surely not least, Kevvy Kev throws down a classy-as-fuck version to show these young whippersnappers how it’s done. The word here is LUSH—it’s basically a big band swing tune masquerading as roots techno, sympathetically warm, grooving and brassy. Naturally, the jaggedness of the original has been lost, but Saunderson’s scorched it away by applying a soulful fire to the canvas—something added, something taken away. Pick it up.

Nick Sylvester: For not being too sold on the original, I’m pretty psyched how these remixes turned out. Audion goes way sleek, way minimal, emptying the track of its middle so he can pingpong and hiccup and squelch the VonStroke’s rubber synth hook until it accrues those trails of clean reverb I can only describe as Audionesque. Sometimes when he does that, it really derails the track’s momentum; not here. The opening puddle-splasher-type vamp on Kevin Saunderson’s sounds more Juan Atkins than KS, but when the beat drops, everything mellows out into that muted mid-heavy funk I get out of E-Dancer and Reese. The other remixer, Tanner Ross, I’d never heard of until now, and he’s by far the most respectful of the three, just making what sound like EQ tweaks here and there, adding an additional squelch in the bottom, etc. But then all the sudden he starts deploying vocal cut-ups as rhythmic accents, then all these really fast-cut swells and Luomo-like swoops. Man to watch maybe?

Dirtybird / db 008
[Listen]

Marcellus Pittmann’s music works in the tradition of the Detroit House of which he is the “third chair.” The sound borrows its melodic tastes from ‘70s soul and jazz, and its rhythmic sensibility from the stiffness of elderly drum machines. Moodyman and Theo Parrish (chairs one and two) have always had a considerable talent for extracting pathos from nothing more than a wonky drum loop, a soul sample, and a lot of repetition—and likewise with Pittman’s work here, it’s all about the indefinable atmosphere of the track and the poignant heart that beats beneath an underwhelming surface. “Come See,” the A side, uses a naïve drum groove which bumble-shuffles along under a mesmeric, mechanic riff and Pittmann dropping in some keys every few bars. The B is much more classically “jazzy” sounding, but has the same lumpy, humpy rhythms below it that make the whole thing sound quirkily endearing.

Unirhythm / AR-13354
[Listen]
[Peter Chambers]

Rick Whilhite, Theo Parrish, Marcellus Pittmann, and Kenny Dixon, Jr. are all quite capable of getting it done on their own, and so when they get together, something special usually happens, but this four-tracker of shag-carpet deeposity is a bit more abstract than you might expect. The title track opens things with a bongo-and-organ riff that shuffles along through deep space, flashes of noise and other weird bits whizzing by as if they don’t have a care in the world. This is light years from the sort of floor-fillers you might expect, but “Camillion” gamely tries to move asses with some intricate hi-hat patterns and jazzy chords and riffs, and “Congo Mambo” moves in a Latin direction while staying dead mellow and low-key. The sample heavy and thoroughly filtered “BABO” is a bit puzzling (and also sorta funky), but this is clearly music aimed at the after hours set rather than peak time, and at that, it succeeds beautifully.

Three Chairs / 3CH 6
[Listen]
[Todd Hutlock]

Eminently listenable throwbacks from techno’s second wave sonically, these benefit from hindsight too: none too ravey breakbeats, no overblown overly chromatic hooks (i.e. stuff that sounds like the Mortal Kombat soundtrack), the grind felt, not heard. Part of its success comes first from Aroy Dee keeping more insistent rhythms soft in the treble, which reminds me of Gottsching’s unrushed hi-hat sixteenths in E2-E4, and second from drizzling the synths onto the ear rather than dropping them like knives. Modern parallel: Juan Maclean’s “Dance With Me,” but without that track’s lovesick subtext. The track “Embrace” has a Morr Music-like comfort food quality to its longtoned lullabied progression, but the palette is totally food-and-arts-era Carl Craig, subdued analog, legitimate warmth. Like I said, really easy on the ears, and, serving tradition well, second b-side “Shade” makes for a nice beatless chaser.

MOS Recordings / mos0005
[Listen]
[Nick Sylvester]

Welcome to the Beatz By The Pound year-end roundup for 2006, a veritable smorgasbord of lists, thoughts, and reflections about the current state of dance music. And while all of our writers handed in very diverse ballots, we were able to come to a consensus on a couple of key releases, producers, and labels. Let the madness begin…

(more…)