or the latest stress-free edition of Beatz by the Pound, we’ve got new reviews of The Knife, I:Cube, and The Lotterboys, as well as the latest from Areal, Bearfunk, and Playhouse. Plus the return of In Our House, with club musings by Michael F. Gill. Onwards we go…


When I was growing up, I wanted to live in a commune. Just to be in one building or a small area with all my friends nearby and everyone in constant touch with each other. Somewhere that didn’t foster as many inhibitions. It may seem like a cultish pipe dream now, but I really believed in it and felt I needed it, being yet another young person staring in the face of alienation. In one sense, this is what house and techno has been all about: supplying a refuge for the oppressed and frustrated through music and communion, creating insular families that share a vernacular with each other, and providing outlets for exploring both spirituality and sexuality. But in the same way, this close-knit circle cultivates a sort of distant, blurred elitism from the outside, which is not only daunting to dance neophytes (let alone general music fans), but also creates an intriguing and/or frustrating confusion as to how house and techno should be confronted and evaluated.

Part of my fascination with house music is these contradictions. Community and exclusion, sex and religion, the organic and the mechanical: all these factors are working off each other during the best DJ mixes, the best tracks, the best parties. The insularity of each little scene and sub-genre these days has made those transcendental moments seemingly more fleeting. I’ve gone to many minimal/techno nights where you’d think the DJ has contempt for any sense of humanity or motion in music, I’ve been to deep house clubs where the edgiest part of the night is deciding what color lounge chair to bring with me, and then there are nights where I’ve heard people frantically mix mash-ups with loud electro-rock until you get a headache stuck on one dynamic level. For me, the element that I often feel is missing in the music as well as the atmosphere is a certain “physical” component. It’s not necessarily something that’s overtly sexual, but one that gives off a vibe of kinship, while still challenging your comfort zone.

The two-sided coin of sexuality and spirituality is one that is becoming sorely underused in house and techno today. This idea fuels a great deal of Chicago House, where the soul could be redeemed through the body, where salvation and release often came from sexualized dancing and music. For the quintessential example of this, look no further than the seminal “Baby Wants to Ride” by Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle, which is no doubt one of the most sexually explicit tracks to come from the era, but yet it opens with a prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep…”) and a message from God (“Jamie, it’s time to tell my people the truth, it’s time to tell them the revelation of my second coming.”) While there are plenty of sun-coated soul divas and foul-mouthed ghetto-tech impresarios, there are too few people with the rawness of Chelonis R. Jones, too few tracks that play up the sense of community and physicality that is such an essential part to dance music.


This is a scene from the end of the film Morvern Callar that really illustrates the divide I often feel on the dancefloor. There is a sense of comfort being surrounded by these likeminded people, but there is also a sense of individuality. The headphones Morvern wears stress a sense of alienation as well as a kind of mute rapture. This sense of being almost paralyzed by a multitude of emotions is something that comes over me often on the dance floor. The scent and sporadic taste of these feelings, no matter how divergent they are, is something I chase, and is one of the major factors that has endeared me to electronic dance music.
[Michael F Gill]



Lexx
Sirocco
Bearfunk / BFK 020
September 2006

Not to be too gimmicky about this, but I was searching for this twelve in my iTunes like a sec ago, and instead of typing "Lexx" I wrote "Lindstrøm," weird little "ø" and all. So that's my touchstone, i.e. this is as dense and smooth and hooky-not-hooky as any mid-tempo Lindstrøm disco cut, though the guitar scraps on "Sirocco" are closer to "Mr. Magic" and early R&B-influenced smooth jazz than anything Balearic. At the moment I like the b-sides more: the same-tempo "Slow Burning," and a Mudd remix of the track that's really more of a dub—given its politeness. Mudd's fattened-up bassline sticks to the original's suggestive one-note thump, and the firm synths have a buoyancy that puts the track way ahead of otherwise verbatim space-disco. After Oorutaichi's "Misen Gymnastics," this may be the best weirdo-disco twelve Bearfunk's put out to date.

[Nick Sylvester]




Metope
Kobox
Areal / Areal039
September 2006

In my opinion, Metope was always the least interesting artist on Areal. His tracks, while possessing the same Machinedrum and Nord barbarity as his label mates, never contained any satisfying melodic shapes or rhythmic structures, repeated too much and developed too little— but hey, he runs Areal and gave Ada her break, so maybe I should do him the same favor. Sleeparchive has swarmed all over the original—like all his own recent productions, this mix is a fuzzfest, full of air and static. Increasingly, his techno seems to be utilizing distortion as a constant presence, like a sitar’s “javari” or a shamisen’s “sawari.” There’s something magical in his subtle understanding of drum machines and their resonances, and this cut, whilst hardly in dialogue with Metope, shows why he has a closer affinity than almost anyone else with his own circuits: he seems to be able to faithfully translate what the machines themselves want to say but can’t. Ada’s mix displays her usual gift for melody and structure—she takes his track and turns it into a song. After all the intimations on her amazing Blondie album, I think it’s time for Ada to come right out of the pop closet and make a fully blown pop album. Basteroid’s contribution here is a real disappointment. Far from the tech-electroid perfection of “Against Luftweiderstand” or the fist-pumping rushes of “Sympathy for Disruption” or “Sonnenbrilliant,” this mix noodles around without focus, looping irritating sounds into an ungainly, annoying hodge-podge.

[Peter Chambers]

Holger Zilske Meets Dave Dk
Rainshower EP
Playhouse / PLAY128
August 2006

Is this really Playhouse? I mention this only because Holger Zilke (Smash TV) and Dave DK’s EP here is either a welcome anomaly or an indicator of a new direction. Straddling headfuck electro-mnml and hypnotic (nobody say trance) tech-house, “Midishower” beckons you into the happy imagination of a field full of mashed, smiley dancers. It bounces off its face all over the place, pausing for a moment to bug out before banging the ecstatic sunshine back into you, one wave at a time. In fact, it’s such a grand and blessed-out eight minutes that it’s worth the overbearing euphoria of B-side “Mono Rain.” If it’s summer you want, this EP is the raygun.

[Peter Chambers]

I:Cube
Acid Tablet
Versatile / VER048
August 2006

I:Cube is a bankable producer, and “Acid Tablet” is no exception. While not tearing up any trees for innovation, if you like Europeans aping early American house/techno then you can’t get much better than this. “Acid Tablet” is a rather standard 303 workout with some typical I:Cube strings welling up in the background. “Danse De Saint Guy” is the kind of mournful soundscape that I:Cube has been doing for years, with huge synth washes and lots of cowbell, plus garbled vocal samples and what sounds like Gregorian monks chanting. “Un Proton Pour Moi, Un Neutron Pour Toi” is a nice piece of electro-disco in a Maurice Fulton style that caps off this quality EP.

[Ronan Fitzgerald]

JPLS
Program
Minus / MINUS44
October 2006

JPLS is midwesterner Jeremy Jacobs, and with this, his debut 12-inch, he drops three tracks of sparse, down-tempo percussion-based tracks in the mold of Minus boss Richie Hawtin. Two of the three tracks here (“Program” and “Program 3,” which sit together on the A-side) literally are nothing but percussion, reminiscent of Plastikman’s Closer LP in style and composition. There is a dark edge, and with not even so much as a bassline to keep your attention, you really need to either be in the mood for the most minimal of minimalist tracks, or be ready to mix them with something else. Standing alone on the flip is “Program 2” which takes twice as long to go pretty much the exact same place—nowhere. I swear to God, I got up halfway through to flip the speed to 45 only to find it was already there. There are some interesting spatial things going on here to be sure, and if you like your minimal reallllly minimal, you might dig this, but it sure as shit ain’t for dancing around the house or anywhere else for that matter—even pitched up to plus 8.

[Todd Hutlock]

Alexi Delano & Xpansul
Intelligence Reframed EP
Plus 8 / PLUS8092
August 2006

Santiago Ferrer, a.k.a. Xpansul, apparently has a fear of being alone in the studio, as only one of his six singles to date has not been a collaboration with another artist. This time out, Santiago teams again with Alexi Delano and the resultant four-tracker is a chip off the old Plus 8 block, falling in line with the label’s history for straight dancefloor techno with a flair. Opener “Echolocation” bounces around with some frayed-wire noises, modulated riffs, and a bouncy rhythm that manages to sound tight and slightly unhinged at the same time. “Cosmic Antipathy” follows up with a neat looped riff and some ping-ponging electro-style stabs, while “Vegetotherapy” is the most floor-friendly track here, with a regulated 4/4, nifty shuffling hi-hat pattern, and inspired percussion fills, and closer “Meta-Intellectual” drops some metallic percussion in the cosmic slop next to some tasty twanging. Treading the fine line between all over the place and immaculately constructed, Intelligence Reframed fits right in with the Plus 8 ethos.

[Todd Hutlock]

Tetine
A Historia De Garcia
Soul Jazz / SJR 150-12
November 2006

If there's one thing London based Soul Jazz Records knows, it's how to keep their collective fingers in a multiplicity of pies. Though best known for insanely high-quality compilations of classic and obscure reggae, funk, jazz, and soul, over the past few years they've been quietly building a stable of solid artists of their own—the great Matt Edwards project Rekid, awesome electro from Bell, and afro-house from Osunslade are just a few of the acts that have seen release. Tetine are a Sao Paolo-based duo that were instrumental in both the recent Mr. Bongo Funk Carioca compilation and the outstanding Brasilian post-punk collection The Sexual Life of the Savages. "A Historia De Garca" draws more on the latter sound than the former, with a slight, almost menacing down-tempo groove that cuts swathes of unease before breaking into a clean 80's DX-7 synth lead that evokes the mid-period sound of Cabaret Voltaire. Though the gurgling bassline is cold Northern minimalism at its finest, the drums are a pure shot of baile funk. A startling combination of influences and ideas that I'm still working out. Definitely one to watch.

[Mallory O’Donnell]

Abe Duque
When the Fever Breaks
Abe Duque Records / ADR-013
September 2006

There's a sense of joy in Abe Duque's records that doesn't often occur in the hardcore techno camp he's most often associated with. It's too bad—results this uniformly excellent aren't exactly abounding, and any "shtick" that might result from being so clearly enamoured of a pop approach is rendered null and void by Duque's methodical attention to detail. Sure, he might be an artist—but he's an artist unwilling to relinquish his role as craftsman, which means that every drum pattern and every denouement of "When the Fever Breaks" is a dance-worthy wiggle, a chance to slide across the floor with a slithering attempt at grace. House songs that exceed 13 minutes simply shouldn't be this much fun. Flip it over, and you've got "Ghost Dance," another nine minutes of pure pleasure, this time on a flanged-piano / female vocal motif. Irresistible and endlessly listenable.

[Mallory O'Donnell]

Lotterboys
Iron Man
Eskimo / 541416 501544
July 2006

Since yeah it's obviously that "Iron Man," electro-discofied to oh-so-campy proportions, and obviously it's terrible no matter who sings over it (the always annoying Princess Superstar) or remixes it (the pretty reliable [italo-]disco editor Serge Santiago), I recommend staying away. It's like not even worth knowing about. Lotterboys, to say nothing of composite parts Terranova and Detroit Grand Pubahs, have one pretty solid song called "Blazer," whose aux percussion breakdowns and horn stabs and hard-plucked basslines could land the track into those Klaxons / EdBanger / Institubes / Kitsune franco-disco-metal type dance sets. But the goofy-electro stuff they deal in otherwise, e.g. this "Iron Man" cover or the punny "Heroine," really never pops: the humor's either overbearing or not enough.

[Nick Sylvester]


The Knife
Like a Pen
Rabid / RABID 034
September 2006


Ronan Fitzgerald: There are few mainstream album producing artists whose remix packages are as fun as those of the Knife, but here the real surprise is that the best mix is their own “club mix.” By adding more jacking Carl Craig-styled drums, they extend “Like a Pen” into a fine piece of haunting techno. Thomas Schumacher’s remix is a growling bass-heavy piece of electro-minimal, proving that although the Bodzin production factory which makes his tracks may have overkilled things a bit, if they did more remixes instead of so many original productions some great feats could still be possible.

Peter Chambers: Silent Shout is shaping up to be one of the year’s best albums, and the remix project has given us an impressive group of producers so far (Shinedoe, Troy Pierce, Trentemoller, Radioslave). Now it’s the turn of Pierce’s M_nus label mate Heartthrob and reinvented “big room mnml” floordestroyer Thomas Schumacher to cut their slice—and boy, has the knife come out dirty. Heartthrob is given two look-ins here—the first “remix” version is a lump-looped wonkathon that sounds like an auralization of Quasimodo “avin it,” but doesn’t really take proper account of either the original’s vocal or its wonderful melody. The “Heartthrob dub” is more successful, but like Troy Pierce’s wigglin’ & noodlin’ version of “Silent Shout,” the end result sounds very little like the Knife and a helluva lot like each of the artist’s latest scribblings of their sound signature. In comparison, Schumacher’s contribution is clean-shaved and well behaved, very much keeping the adjectives “dark” and “ominous” caged in parentheses. Judging from the selections on their recent humourless Fabric mix, I can imagine Tiefschwarz will be all over this version, and hey, it’s bound to keep the big room kidz gurning and grooving. To these ears at least, the Dreijer’s own versions show up the experts here—theirs is the more satisfying, carefully written and musical remix that is still 100% floor-functional.


BEATZ GUEST CHARTS
DJ Barbara Preisinger [~Scape, Berlin]
Alix Alverez & Mr.V - Beat Bodega vol1 [Sound Channel Music]
Shed - Shot Selection [Selection records]
Deadbeat - Version Immersion [~scape]
STL - Purple Saturn Days [Perlon]
Pantha Du Prince - Lichten [Dial]
Ferrer & Sydenham Inc - The Black Door [ibadan]
Nathan Cole - Musik Freak [Funk´d]
Andy Vaz - Remixes [Background]
Herrmann & Kaden - Corroboree [Freude Am Tanzen]
Beckett & Taylor - Hired New Hands [Hand On The Plow]

BEATZ STAFF CHARTS
Michael F. Gill
And One – Sometimes (Instrumental) [Virgin]
Terrence Fixmer – Resistance [Gigolo]
Deepchild – Blackness of the Sea (Luomo Remix) [Future Classic]
Chagrin D’Amour – Chacun Fait (Dub) [Barclay]
Black Gold – C’mon Stop [Prelude]
Kiko – Solar [Notorious Elektro]
Alisha – All Night Passion [Vanguard]
Stephane Signore & Wehbba – Destiny [Bound Records]
Red Lipstique – Drac´s Back (Dub) [Magnet Records Ltd]
Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats – Let Them Talk [Soundway]

Todd Hutlock
Lawrence - “Deep Summer Hole” [Dial]
Lazy Fat People - “Shinjuku” [Wagon Repair]
Heidi Vs Riton - “Vejer” [Get Physical]
Sense Club - “Tommorrov Cocktail” [Perlon]
John Dahlbaeck - “Wet Summer” [Kompakt Extra]
Trentemøeller - “Always Something Better (Trentemøeller Remix)” [Poker Flat]
Meek - “Glowing Trees” [New Ground]
Andrew Weatherall - “Feathers” [Rotters Golf Club]
John Hassell - “Voiceprint (Blind from the Facts) (808 Mix Two - Latin In It Mix)” [Opal]
Dirt Crew - “Largo” [Dirt Crew Recordings]

Nate DeYoung
My My - Songs for the Gentle [Playhouse]
Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet [Kranky]
Rex the Dog - Maximize [Kompakt]
Matthias Kaden / Onur Ozer - Pentaton / Twilight [Vakant R]
Mobilee - Back to Basics [Mobilee]
Pikaya / Andomat 3000 & Jan - Grüne Raufaser / Entr'acte Music [Cadenza]
Bruno Pronsato - Lady Collage [Orac]
The Modernist - Presents "Popular Songs" [Faith]