eatz by the Pound hits the quarter marker, and this time we’ve got new reviews of Sans Soleil, Prins Thomas, and Dominik Eulberg, as well as the latest from Eskimo, Philpot, Mighty Robot Recordings, and Firm. But first off this week is Mallory O’Donnell’s interview with the legendary French Eurodisco producer Cerrone.


French disco producer Cerrone is, undoubtedly, a legend of dance music. Beginning his solo work in 1976 with the classic Love in C Minor, he has gone on to sell more than 25 million records and win five Grammy Awards for his efforts. In the course of promoting the reissue of his first four albums and the upcoming NY Dance Party for 2007, Stylus sat down with the man that brought us Supernature.

First up—tell us a little bit about the NY Dance Party for 2007. How did you become involved with this project and with Nile Rodgers?

Yes, Nile, he's been my friend for thirty years. We're going to celebrate thirty years of dance, also thirty years of his and my careers, too! (Laughs) It's going to be in New York, during the Columbus Day weekend, and it's going to be really huge. We have fifteen different sites, the main stage is going to be in the park (Central Park), and the event will be between 3 PM to 9:30 PM. Every site is going to have something different—some will be a DJs, some singers, but at 6:30, from the main stage, we're going to have the big show, with a lot of stars involved from the last thirty years of dance, and that (will be broadcast to) all the sites by satellite, because all the sites (across the city) are going to have a large video screen on the back of the stage. With all of the sites in New York, we could have more than 3 or 400,000 New Yorkers dancing in the streets—it would be a great image for the World, and for New York. This is what the Mayor wants, too.

So, the Mayor has been enthusiastic and positive about it?

Oh yes, and if the mayor was not enthusiastic about it, you know, how could we do it? The mayor understands very well what we are trying to do, and likes the idea to give back the image of New York to the world... it's sad, because after the Eleventh of September of 2001, the image of New York for the rest of the world changed very much. You know, it's become much more a city of business than music, like in Europe we have Geneva... but New York is a wonderful city for music, and we want to celebrate the city as the home of dance music. The image of the people of New York, young or old dancing in the street, it's a tremendous, beautiful image that we want to give back to the world. We are still working on the sites for the event, but we are thinking Battery Park, other parks, some sites for 3,000 people, some for 10 or 15,000, maybe something by LaGuardia as well... every month the event is getting bigger and better, with more and more people getting on board.

You've been doing a number of live events and dance parties recently, haven’t you?

We did the event in front of Versailles, with 100,000 people, which you can see six minutes of video from on my website... that was last year... Two months ago I played (an event) for Dolce Gabana, next month a tour in Moscow, in February another tour in France... and I'll be working in the middle on a new LP to be released in the spring.

This will be all original material?

Yes, right now we have 14 new tracks.

So, do you enjoy the live performances as much as the studio work? How do you feel about that?

Oh, I love it! Did you see the video?

The DVD you released last year? Yes, I saw that.

OK, because if you see the video, you have the answer for your question.

Very true!

After 30 years in the music industry, when you have the chance to play in front of so many young people... I take a great pleasure, it's a surprise and a pleasure... and I thank my God that I could do this!

It's great to see some of the things that you've done as far as live performances—not just concerts but theatre events, operas, the global peace concert back in '92... do you still see yourself as primarily a musician? In some ways it seems like you've become more of an artist in the broad sense, a cultural force of sorts.

When I'm on stage, I'm a musician. More a musician than an artist. I have to be. But, I mean, when you start in a group, in a band, as a musician, it's for the rest of your life. When you take an American star, like a Carlos Santana, no matter what you have going on in the front, they are still a musician in mind.

How do you feel about your relationship with the dance music world? It seems that you've moved away from dance at times, doing rock and doing more neo-classical music, but that you've never really turned your back on dance music as a whole...

Well, every few years I have a DJ who remixes or releases some of my old music, so the radio plays new stuff, but also, plays the old stuff with a new style, and the DJ puts me right on the floor where I have to be. For example, William Orbit made a remix in 1990, 1991 and then David Morales and Frankie Knuckles and so on, I mean there are so many DJs who have remixed my back-catalog, so no matter what, if I want to move from the style—and I say to you, I don't want to move—the DJ kicks me in the... (laughs).

You don't have a choice!

Yeah, and thanks, it's perfect! Those guys make my life easier, so I don't sound like a has-been!

Well I think you've combined enough looking back with looking forward that no one could accuse you of resting on your laurels or taking it easy...

Thank you!

But, looking back for a moment, what are some of your favorite or most memorable of your own releases?

Of my back-catalog, oh wow... I don't want to sound pretentious, but I like I lot of it—starting from "Love in C Minor," to "Got to Have Loving," to "Supernature," and so on... I like them all, they are my babies, if I can say that! I have to love my babies, you know? (Laughs)

How about your productions for other people?

If I made a production or a track for someone else, like Don Ray or Kongas or something like that, it's still 75% myself, so, it's still my baby! For example, for my last LP I composed 18 songs, and I know that I'm only going to use 12 or 14 songs for the record, so the other four songs are maybe going to go to someone else, but... I'm going to do something with it. Like, the Don Ray album—I had too many tracks for my album Supernature, and in the meantime, because Don Ray was my arranger for strings and brass, I said let's make an LP for you—and we finished the LP together, but as I said, these are still my songs, my production—my babies!

What else are you listening to right now?

There is a lot. A lot, a lot of good music right now—I like a lot of R&B, I like also... the Madonna, I love the last Madonna!

How about when you started?

For strings, I got very influenced by Barry White, of course. And because I'm a drummer, I put the drums at the front on the mix. At the moment everybody told me, it's crazy to have the drums up front, you have to remix that for the radio. But, to make sure that the record company isn't going to remix my songs, I made it 60 seconds or a few minutes longer so that I was sure I'm not going to be played on the radio and no one is going to touch my mix!

Well, it worked out well for you and for the dancers as well...

Yes!

[Mallory O’Donnell]



Andy Stott
Nervous EP
Modern Love / Love025
August 2006

Andy Stott borrows his sound palette from surgery; these deep, clean cuts get right under your skin and aim for the wires of your nerves. There’s a delicate brutality in the way Stott pulls living rhythms out of the beats and cut them into time/pieces. This is Modern Love—and like label-founder Claro Intelecto’s recent Patience EP and the classic “Peace of Mind,” this is an electroromance: solid-state siren songs for the eternally lost object. “Nervous” is a tight, tantalising deep techno number that creeps, then looms, then swarms all over you. The percussion is clipped and calm, with a wonderful use of warm, low subs to bed-in the mix; while the synths stab, cluster, and recoil over the top. It’s an exceptionally well-composed track, and by contemporary standards, outrageously brief at only 3:54. “She’s Gone Wrong” works off the same tools and cool intentions, but takes everything to the nth degree. There’s a fabulous interplay here of sub-bass, classically electro-tech percussion which builds and breaks and, again, the wonderful ebb and flow of atmospheric, menacing synth lines that move like the quiet arcs of the aurora. If you’re feeling fragile and need cheering up, then this is hardly the stuff to “put the smile back on your dial.” But where the neurons crave hard signals across steely skies, this is a kind of beauty.

[Peter Chambers]



Justus Köhncke & Dirk Leyers
An Ounce of Memories
Firm / FIRM 20
September 2006

If you were silly enough to pay money for Kompakt’s latest overblown mediocrity (Total 7), your listening adventure would have begun with a wonderful understatement: Dirk Leyers and Justus Köhncke’s magnificent “Grey Skies to Blue,” a track which evoked the spirit of classic melodic minimalism that made both Kompakt veterans’ previous gems like “Maria,” “Departures,” “2 After 909,” and “Jet” so outstanding. Here’s more of the same/difference, but with vocals. Releasing the EP with an instrumental and vocal version of the same track seems to suggest three things: that the track is strong enough to stand on its own; that both versions offer a unique listening experience; that people will either definitely want OR not want to hear “An Ounce of Memories” with its vocal. Fact is, the track does stand on its own without the vocal—does that make it extraneous? In instrumental form, “An Ounce of Memories” conjures that wonderful “open sky” feeling that Leyers pulls from his mesmeric melodies. It’s harder to hear Köhncke’s sound signature, or at least, Leyers’ contribution bleeds the cheese out of Justus’ disco, leaving a whimsical, light-minded tug that pulls the track into the light. With Eric D. Clark’s (Whirlpool Productions) vocal added, we get a pale version of Jay Haze’s wonderful “Soul in a Bottle” or Schwarz, Ame, and Dixon’s “Where We At,” leaving these heartstrings thoroughly untugged.

[Peter Chambers]

MAS 2008
Alles Klar?! EP
Electronic Corporation / ELCO 14.0
March 2006

2007 Prediction: EBM is the new old shit. Industrial's chrome-scented revival may take a bit longer, though cuts like "Waters of Nazareth" imply that it will arrive hotly-tipped when it does. For now we'll have to satisfy ourselves with New Beat-flirtations and genre exercises like those of MAS 2008. These boys have spent their studio hours well, whittling away at that perfect '82 drum sound, and emerged with Alles Klar—six wickedly good excuses to strap on paratrooper boots and shave your head like Travis Bickle. "Blicke" crunches and churns like Legowelt, "Memories" brings the synthpop flavor ala Soviet, and "Beatin' Faster" could easily soundtrack your next experiment with leather restraints. What else you need to know?

[Mallory O’Donnell]

Maarten Van Der Vleuten
Kremahitz EP
Mighty Robot / MRR 00000003
July 2006

Four sinister, slithering slabs of techno come our way from Holland with the Kremahitz EP on the Scotland’s new-ish electro/disco label Mighty Robot. Caught somewhere between soundtrack-y menace (check the murder mystery strings on "M&M2") and thick, heavy textures (the spacey thunk of "Eltec" and crystal meth thrills of "4barloop2"), Van Der Vleuten finds time to bust out some pure electro via Rude 66’s “Gortex Remix” of "Eltec." A well-rounded EP covering multiple angles of the noir dancefloor.

[Mallory O’Donnell]

Bruno Pronsato
All Night Blahblah…
Philpot / PHP 019
September 2006

So many of this guy's twelves are totally interesting but way too busy, as if the Canadian micro-clicker is worried about getting called lazy or something. I've worked in slow restaurants and know the feeling; you just want to do *something* so the boss knows he's getting his money's worth. But dude, the boss is out of town! Relax! You're not going to get fired! Re-released from 2004, "Blah Blah" isn't too glitched out but there's something groove-averse about it, very little space explored dynamically. The best things the track has going for it are these warped deep-dub basstones that slurp under the fracas, and the lyrics, which seem to moralize coke use: "talking all night," "blah blah blah." "wasting our time," "do ya wanna grind [teeth?]?", etc. Jackmate's remix actually literalizes said dental grind at the track's end, though the remix never pops, and maybe I'm reading into things.

[Nick Sylvester]

Prins Thomas
Fehrara
Full Pupp / FP05
September 2006

Aside from that fat kick drum sound, I'm not sure what to recommend here. "Fehrara" is by-the-numbers space-disco, not the best look for Lindstrøm's sidekick as he tries to distance himself from that fellowship. The bassline just idles on the chord notes over and over while Prins manipulates the timbre; the percussion sprinkled above and beneath never congeals into hooks, it just remain atomized in their rooms. At eight minutes long, I dunno, I'm just expecting more than, like, a lessonbook etude, even if the build is pretty and patient throughout. If "Fehrara" is practice, "Is It Big Enough?" is performance: a really sparse, spacious bassline, plus those funny mouth-music Seinfeld theme noises. Prins doesn't pretend that the bassline counts for a melody, that's a relief, so all the swollen longtones stay soft focus but make sense sequentially—the melody's there, in other words, just hidden, elongated, and definitely big enough.

[Nick Sylvester]

The Glimmers
Time 4 Action Remixes
Diskimo / DISKO 6001
September 2006

It's like I only review releases of mid-tempo or nu-disco around here. Anything with a thick semi-driven bassline, lots of reverb, and the occasional guitar flange—at the very least I'll listen to it all the way through, forgive bad melodies for good texture, etc. This one tries my patience, though. It's not Padded Cell's fault, but that slight chromatic riff they keep from the original really blows, a shame because everything around it is aces, especially the new drum sounds, all programmed with different piston-like pneumatic qualities, like it's this massive space-disco super-engine. There's even one towards the end that sounds like a blowdryer; that's a new one. The flipside is the CJ Bolland/Glimmers remix; sounds like a dubbier disco edit of the Brennan Green "Cerebral Tremolo" remix for Kaos, which is more interesting rhythmically and goes better places.

[Nick Sylvester]

Sami Koivikko
Pääjääsä
Spectral Sound / SPC-41
October 2006

Armed with some nice electro basslines and more umlauts than you can shake a stick at, Finnish producer Sami Koivikko’s debut on Spectral Sound follows the tech-house template laid out by his Shitkatapult and Festplatten releases. The title track rolls out with some nice modulated riffs and a slightly discofied undercurrent that create a groove somewhere between playful and menacing, Italo and German. On the flip, “Dore” leaves things a bit more spacious and adds some nice effects for something a bit more edgy, while “Pientare” is a bit more traditionally minimal with a repeated analog riff and a recurring hum turning the lights down a bit before Koivikko adds the popping snare drum loop and some atmospheric pads. The hybrid works, and this sort of multilayered, style-treading release is always welcome in a DJ crate, but there’s enough going on to keep home listeners interested, too. Another winner from Spectral.

[Todd Hutlock]

Sans Soleil
Asprovalta EP
Truffle Music / TRUFFLE03
October 2006

Michael Trommer’s first releases were on Derrick May’s seminal Transmat label, and May’s sonic fingerprints are all over this classy three-tracker. The title cut goes sans drums for the first two minutes or so, building up a groove reminiscent of the classic beatless mix of May’s “Strings of Life.” When the beat does kick, it launches a smooth Detroit groove that keeps that familiar spacey vibe firmly intact. The two tracks on the flip are more of the same—long on ambience, complex multilayered programming, and funky yet laidback rhythms. With Detroit long since having moved on to other sounds, this is a refreshing step back. Those looking to reminisce, or simply looking to groove around in a state of bliss with their eyes closed should most definitely check this one out.

[Todd Hutlock]

Dominik Eulberg
Blueten Sind Dem Grossen Schillerfalter Fremd RMX
Traum Schallplatten / TRAUM V77
September 2006

Eulberg seems to have something new out every other week of late, be it a new track or a remix, and so here another release, and another absolutely ridiculous track title for the mad German naturalist, this time in remixed form by Renato Figoli and Adam Beyer. Figoli crafts a loping, funky, uptempo mix with lots of shuffling, blooping, and popping. The nearly nine-minute run time stays so busy and dense, you hardly notice the length, but it also manages to stay in the pocket without losing the plot—no mean feat. At about the four minute mark, a short phaser riff hits that will send floors into frenzy—mark it with your grease pencil—and then breaks it down to an echoing laser beam of sound before bringing the beat back with extreme prejudice. In short, this thing smokes. Beyer turns in another of the “Mad Eye” remixes he’s been on of late—this time a dub—drawing on the same palette of noises as Figoli, but leaving far more space between the squonks and blurbles.

[Todd Hutlock]

Detalles
Hello Donee EP
Kupei / 12S05
November 2006

Kate Simko and one of the Bucci bros. (not Pier) reunite after a long sit-down with the minimal playbook and bring two new tracks, “Hello Donee” and “Move On,” in advance of their forthcoming full-length. Detalles’ discography consists of a single full-length on Traum, released a few months before Cologne became the epicenter of neu-teuton cool. On “Hello Donee,” the duo makes moves like they’re trying to catch up, even as they’re weighed down by Simko’s welcome melodic sense and down-pillow beats. It’s perfect for a Pier Bucci remix and, a few noogies later, that’s what we get: Pier’s more assured beat-construction lending better troughs for the melody to wallow, writhe, and worm around in. “Move On” is closer to Detalles’ earlier work, giving up stiff-house beats for chunkier concerns that act as poles around which the duo’s sedate melody glides passively. Before you say glorious Sunday drive, though, we get Jonas Bering’s mix—an effort that comes close to the neu-teuton cool espoused by Dettinger back in the day.
[Todd Burns]


BEATZ STAFF CHARTS
Todd Hutlock
Isolée - Willy Skipper [Playhouse]
Shakir - Sequence 10 [Virgin]
Thomas Brinkmann - 128 Rua Villalobos [CMYK Musik]
Andy Stott - Nervous [Modern Love]
Ricardo Villalobos - Heike (Mood Mix) [Lofi Stereo]
Trentemøller - Le Champagne [Naked Music]
Domink Eulberg - Blueten Sind Dem Grossem Schillerfalter Fremd (Renato Figoli Remix) [Traum Schallplatten]
Anders Ilar - A Day Ago [Narita]
Jeff Mills - Fists of Fury [Axis]
Plaid - Scoobs in Colombia [Warp]

Michael F. Gill
Yabby You - Run Come Rally [Prophet]
Sparkle - Disco Madness [Jam Sessions Records]
The Brides Of Funkenstein - War Ship Touchante [Atlantic]
Night Moves - Transdance (NY Disco Mix) [GC Recordings]
T. Life - Somethin' That You Do To Me (Keeps Turning Me On) [Arista]
Octogen - Save Your Saviour [Soma]
Cant - Camels [Tic Tac Toe Records]
Stereo Mutants feat. Emelia Dabrowski - I Wonder (Stereo Mutants Afro Rmx) [Diamondhouse]
James Flavour - Eternity [Players Paradise]
Laurent Garnier - Controlling The House (Frederic De Carvalho Remix) [Absolut Freak Records]