n the 24th tick of Beatz by the Pound, we’ve got new reviews of Brennan Green, Jay Haze, Andrew Weatherall, and the return of Isolee, plus new stuff from Sender, Perlon, Crosstown Rebels, and Rekids. Leading things off this week is Mallory O’Donnell interview with DFA stalwarts Juan Maclean and Tim Sweeney.


On the occasion of the 2006 US DFA DJ Tour, Stylus stopped for a moment to chat with the Juan Maclean and Tim Sweeney over sushi and Sapporo as they swung through Houston...

So, Juan, working on album number two?

Juan: Yeah, album number two is the next step.

Are you gonna be using a lot of players from the live setup?

Juan: Sure—it's really become a different thing live—like a happy acid house jam band. Like the Grateful Dead crossed with the Chemical Brothers.

My friend saw you play at the Winter Music Conference in Miami and he wanted me to ask you if you'll be getting more use out of the big button? The one that makes everything super-loud...

Juan: Oh—the up-down button. We do this crazy thing where we break songs down really quiet, then build up a big drum fill that comes crashing in on the one, and I press the button and everything comes screaming back in.

Tim: The target button!

Juan: I do a similar thing when DJing. It's very sneaky. I just set up two records but really there's a mix CD in there, 'cuz I don't know how to DJ or anything.

They won't notice here.

Juan: They'll know. When they see my skills. Mad skillz! (Laughing) No, he likes to make fun of me (points to Tim) because he says that guys who play in bands can't DJ. It's true though, that just trying to DJ without having produced anything of your own is really tough.

How long have you been DJing? Even just playing with it?

Juan: Oh, I don't know—years!

Were you ever a radio DJ, or...

Juan: Yeah, years and years ago, but real club DJing I didn't really take seriously until a little while ago.

I usually find it a lot more fun when people don't take it too seriously...

Juan: No, no... I take it seriously...

As far as the mixing, or what you play...

Juan: Yeah, definitely! (Meaning all of it)

Well, that's good too—it's just another instrument, really—if you can bring a musical approach to it, it really rewards the listener.

Juan: Coming from playing instruments, it's just another instrument that I have to learn how to play, I'm not gonna just get up there and not be good at it.

That's good, I guess what I meant more, is that I get tired of as a listener is the cult of the DJ where the DJ plays a four-hour set of basically the same song.

Juan: I hate that! It's really boring.

Especially with the focus lately on minimal sounds...

Juan: I know... well, I won't say their names... I have friends who are minimal guys. And I like that stuff, but it's endless...all that stuff sounds like an endless track, like the same track after a while...

Tim: You're talking about minimal stuff? Who?

He's not gonna name names, we're on the record here.

Tim (gleefully): Name names!

[Juan looks askance]

Tim: What's your problem (teasingly)? I thought you had more of a diverse outlook on music than the rest of the DFA?

Juan: Well, they make fun of me at DFA for liking certain things.

Like what?

Juan: Well, I'm probably the most tasteless DJ on the DFA, cuz I'll play things that are just like retarted and fun or whatever...

Tim (smiling): Oh, I'll agree...

Juan (continuing): But there are DJs that are infinitely tasteful, but it's like nobody wants to hear it...

Tim, give me your rundown on radio DJing versus live club DJing

Tim: Well... it's two different things... on radio, you obviously don't have to worry about the crowd, or if anyone's listening...

Do you get into that vibe when you play live, or find yourself wanting that freedom?

Tim: No, I love playing with the crowd, because sometimes you have this connection or whatever and you work with that, but you get a lot more nervous, worrying if something's going to clear the floor or whatever... but opening for Juan, it's like I can't do any worse than he does. (Laughter)

Juan: I can do whatever I want to, because of who I am!

You have carte blanche, then?

Juan: A blank slate, even.

Tim: Oh, you don't have a blank slate.

[Mallory O’Donnell]


Isolée
Hermelin
Playhouse / PLAY130
October 2006


Peter Chambers: Recently, Warp artist Clark has commented that “four bars is a long time.” In the artisan world of Isolée’s music, it seems equally true to say “five years isn’t much time.” One listen to the bespoke animals of his imagination on We Are Monster was enough to explain where a decade or two could have been spent. While genre artists scribble, tinker and “produce,” Isolée’s music is a careful creation of storytelling and illustration better compared with master children’s illustrators like Maurice Sendak, Tomi Ungerer, or Bruno Munari. The title track “Hermelin” sounds for all the world like “Rest” or transitional period Isolée, with its straight, open structure and oddly tuned and effected synths. It’s unusually linear by the standards of his usually tangential arrangements, and doesn’t ever really blossom or rupture like my expectations wanted it to. The B1, “Willy Skipper” contains strong elements of Niun Niggung-era Mouse on Mars, even if it retains Isolee’s trademark melodic overstuffing. From the B1 to the “Sleazy Bee” (B2): this one’s a bumbler, clap-waddling along with a deranged hip-hop groove. These aren’t tracks, or even songs, but precious treasures, and yearn to be kept and cared for, and passed on.

Nick Sylvester: Busy as hell but no beat outta place, "Hermelin" reps the detailwork of 2005's fantastic We Are Monster, and its sense of surprise: kicks come in a beat before expected, melodies compete and combine and deflate, sonics mutate, creating impossible space. Typical of Isolee, the composition grows up and out pretty logically, so it never feels overwhelming. The track darts out of the box with like this bluesy, slightly paranoid subway-car rattle, balanced out perfectly a minute or so later by these pillowy horn stabs that float like juggled handkerchiefs. Rhythm becomes tone, tone becomes rhythm, and it's all so facile, like when that crisp laserlight melody snakes around the low-end like a laser in a labyrinth of mirrors, or how the held flute tones at the end torment each other by moving in and out of each other's harmony. I haven't even gotten to the other two tracks—I'm sure they're great too—but, holy shit, is this guy in his own league or what?


Brennan Green
Cool Ranch
Modal Music / MODAL005
June 2006

Two sides from the Daniel Wang-affiliated Green, two different shades of roomy instrumental grace. A-side "Bunko" is spaced enough for Prins Thomas fans but provides enough catchy thrills that you're more inclined to have a dance-off than nod off. The organic guitar that runs through "Bunko" like a warm salt-water wave turns a sun-tanned shoulder or two in "Divisadero," reappearing as a strummed cascade on an acoustic six-stringer(!). This track should warrant immediate inclusion on every one of the 60 downtempo collections coming out this month, except it's far too toothsome to be wasted on that crowd. God, I miss the summer already.

[Mallory O’Donnell]

Tony Allen
Moyege
Honest Jon's / HJP32
July 2006

Mark Ernestus takes two stabs at afrobeat legend Tony Allen's "Moyege," with a vocal mix and a dub. One of his simmering (and I hesitate to call 'em this) slow jams, the star here is the bass, full-bodied and shaking like a voluptuous maiden at sunset. Offset by Allen's usual sparkling polyrhythmic percussion work, it's really the kind of thing one feels almost ashamed to be listening to at home—it warrants a cold drink, the feeling of sand in your toes and such buoyancy of your body that you could swear you just hovered in mid-air for a full second. The "Disco Dub" widens out the bass and pushes it to the point where it's more a part of your body than a conscious sound. Warmth personified.

[Mallory O’Donnell]

Jay Haze feat. Big Bully and Sven VT
“Soul in a Bottle” E.P.
Kindisch / KD 002
September 2006

Haze is one of those producers whose persistence and willingness to experiment promises to yield occasional gems and eventual masterworks. His compositions, with an emphasis on atmospheric space juxtaposed with interestingly used vocals and well programmed, slightly off-kilter beats have created floor friendly dubspaces and murky pearls for Karloff, 240 Vaults, and his own Contexterrior imprint. “Soul in a Bottle” sees all these formative elements in full-flight—the tension between playfulness and sincerity is brushed smooth and shiny, and the huge kick, interesting static and “incidental” sounds lend a marvellous opening for the hypnotic “three keys from Chicago” melody that carries the wonderful vocal, which seems to float over it all. Following Holger Zilke and Dave Dk’s great Midishower EP reviewed last week, this one is thoroughly ecstatic, summer sunshine music, skillful enough to give the headz goosebumps and make the pretty girls yelp delightfully. The irony of the EP is that even, as the lyrics suggest, “you can’t put soul in a bottle,” it seems like, occasionally, it finds its way frozen into the scratched surface of records.

[Peter Chambers]

Melchior Productions
Different Places
Perlon / PERL 58
September 2006

Melchior’s got the sneaky freaky deeky goin’ on. “Nothin’ to see / Hear, folks,” well, no gimmicks at least. These are tracks, not tricks. Either by accident or through some deep, machinic symbiosis, the shuffle function on my pod selected two tracks after listening to this that contextualise it nicely, Luomo’s “Synkro” and Portable’s “Liquid Crystal Display”—and just as with those tracks there’s the sense that both of Melchior’s extensive workouts need their enormous palette to work out and work through the combinations of grooves. Both “Different Places” and “The Phantom” are extended excursions, and they take their time leading the willing through the fullness of their landscapes before returning to where they began. The A starts with a moody, looped melody that blues the vocal refrain “I get lonely in different places,” but then the track seems to leave the thought, rambling into twinkle-toed terrain characterized by a nice descending bassline, squiggling/malfunctioning noises and a whole lotta repetitions. You get so lost in listening that by the time the “lonely” returns, you wonder where you’ve been. To the unattenuated ear, this is the quintessence of “the dreaded minimal,” uneventful music that goes nowhere. But there’s no muddling, or even meandering involved. Tell your ears to shut up and listen, and maybe they’ll hear.

[Peter Chambers]

Andrew Weatherall
The Bullet Catcher’s Apprentice
Rotters Golf Club / RGC011
October 2006

After more than 15 years of recording under a laundry list of pseudonyms and group names—and a two-year hiatus—maverick U.K. dance music pioneer Andrew Weatherall has finally unleashed his debut under his own name. I’m pleased to report that it was well worth the wait. Available as a three-track 12” or a five-track CD, The Bullet Catcher’s Apprentice picks up where Two Lone Swordsmen’s From the Double Gone Chapel left off—and builds exponentially from there. Opener “Feathers” is funky dancefloor techno played on guitars, bass, and drums rather than computers, but bears more of a resemblance to vintage PiL or Killing Joke than the DFA, turning something new out of the retro influences rather than merely trying to recreate them. Uptempo beats, Wevvy’s own distinctive croon, and a mirrorball diva chorus do turn up on “You Can’t Do Disco Without a Strat” (also on the CD version in a Repeat/Repeat remix that loses the Studio 54 for a clicky/glitchy reinvention, as is “La Sirena,” all rattling percussion, distorted guitar riffs, and analog electro menace.) “Edie Eleven” finds Weatherall amid some sizzling uptempo minimalism laden with the sort of unique noises and effects that made his back catalog so utterly distinctive, as well as an unexpected but entirely wonderful treated acoustic guitar riff. The old boy has most definitely still got it. Great to have him back.

[Todd Hutlock]

Minilogue
Hitchhiker's Choice
Crosstown Rebels / CRM 030
October 2006

There's a head-nods-back propulsion to "Hitchhiker" that will remind some of Luomo's "Market"—not necessarily that track's sprawl but definitely its rubber. What's a shame is that Minilogue didn't drop this five years ago, when he could stick wriggles and wraggles and other hard techno accents on top of a pretty straightforward kick, without getting compared unfavorably to, say, the Perlon camp, specifically something like Melchior Production's "Different Places," which musically and rhythmically doesn't even sound like it's from this planet. Poor "Hitchhiker" is just stable, serviceable tech-funk next to that stuff, but that's no knock: lots of space here, unafraid of melody or familiarity or even a set of shitty computer speakers. Call me blasphemous, but the extra color actually makes the more so-called forward thinking stuff seem too ascetic, no fun. Hear hear, a compromise.
[Nick Sylvester]

From Karaoke to Stardom
Mon Dieu Moi Aussi
RRYGULAR / RRY09
September 2006

Nothing's got me gassed here, not the Super Mario World ghost castle sound that's surely meant to be the money shot, not the boilerplate "round" digital tones or the "subdued" excuse for a kick, not the hisses of smoky white noise, as if I've never been to a middle school dance. Why did this get released exactly? Besides the bassline on the A-side, which gets cross-panned whenever the notes change, all funk-performatizing I hope, I can't recommend much here, especially since the b-side tracks are same ingredients different parts, more or less. When a twelve is this bad, you have to wonder whether it's a case of bad composition, boring sound bank, lazy producer, or your own increasingly lower expectations.

[Nick Sylvester]

And Again
To the Moles and the Masses
Sender / send061
September 2006

Sean O'Neal (Someone Else) comes to Sender with the label’s most interesting release in quite a while. “Thirty One Times” is based around a chopped up guitar riff and a weird vocal sample, with a tight jacking groove. This record will work on any floor—minimal, electro, house—it doesn’t matter, this is infectious and brilliant. “Larry’s Circus” meanwhile is deeper but keeps the enjoyable and slightly wacky feel of this 12” going, with great random stabs of sampled vocals and piano keys. Definitely a change of pace for everyone involved, but still great dancefloor music.

[Ronan Fitzgerald]

Radioslave
Secret Base
Rekids / REKIDS 005
September 2006

Rekids has everything: nice packaging, great remixers, and quite a lot of goodwill. Nonetheless I haven’t been absolutely blown away by any of the releases since Roman Flugel’s remix of “My Bleep.” “Secret Base” is a little better than most, taking the Rekid aesthetic, which seems to be lo-fi Detroit techno or Chicago House sounds, a little further into primetime. Rob Mello’s mix loses the gritty sting of the original but some will prefer it—it sounds more expensive but removes any chance for playing “Secret Base” at peak-time. A decent 12”, nothing more.

[Ronan Fitzgerald]


BEATZ STAFF CHARTS
Mallory O’Donnell
My My - Songs for the Gentle [Playhouse]
Trentemoller - The Last Resort [Poker Flat]
Tussle - Telescope Mind [Smalltown Supersound]
Lil Louis - Blackout Phase 3 [Mathematics]
Hot Chip - Colours (Fred Falke Remix) [Astralwerks]
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - Tempo Tempo [Eskimo]
Tony Allen - Moyege (Mark's Disco Dub) [Honest Jon's]
Brennan Green - Divisadero [Modal]

Ronan Fitzgerald
And Again - To The Moles and the Masses [Sender]
Heckmann and Kaufelt - Kookaburra (Knarz Mix) [AFU-Ltd]
Alland Byallo - Buckets [Liebe Detail]
Pascal Feos - Timeless [Synaptic]
Reynold - Over There (Donato Dozzy Mix) [Montrose]
My My – Moneybowl [Aus Records]
Alexis Tyrell - Rebecca Loos [Weave Music]
Daniela Stickroth - Ghost In The Attic (Dan Berkson and James What Mix) [Meerestief]
Chaton - Précis 2 [Plak]
Shonky - Solar [Substatic]

Todd Hutlock
Ric Y Martin - Sini Est [Perlon]
Andrew Weatherall - Edie Eleven [Rotters Golf Club]
Tony Allen - Moyege (Mark’s Disco Dub) [Honest Jon’s]
Matthew Dear - Dog Days (Pantytec Interpretation) [Spectral Sound]
Six Cups of Rebel - Arp She Said [Feedelity]
Plastikman - Plink Plonk [Minus]
Terrance Dixon - Minimalism [Utensil]
The Infiltrator - I’m In [Underground Resistance]
Renegade Soundwave - Space Gladiator (Dub) [Mute]
Shane Berry - Fillertet 2 (Gabriel Ananda Remix) [Trapez LTD]

Michael F. Gill
Was A Bee - On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever) [Schema]
Jesse Rose feat. Solid Groove & Jamie Anderson - Nice & Slow [Front Room Recordings]
Citizen Kain - Above The Influence (Oliver Koletzki Remix) [Regular]
Logistics - Call Me Back [Hospital]
Lady Saw - Sweetest [Soul Jazz]
Breeze - Get Back [Heartbeat]
Underground Resistance feat. Yolanda - Your Time Is Up [Underground Resistance]
Minimal Vision - Vertigo [Vibraphone]
Raven feat. Jocelyn Brown - So In Love [Silver Cloud]
Convertion - All I Want Is You [Sam Records]