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Diverse Artiesten | Short And Snappy 9

Sometimes you want the reviews to be short'n snappy because your attention span can only take so much. DaVolgaBabe serves 10 reviews. Because sometimes less is more.
12", Various

Tekst: da volgaBabe

Publicatiedatum: 23 februari 2002

DANIEL WANG | NOCTURNES (12", Environ)
METRO AREA | 4 (12", Environ)
There is no stopping the nectar-flow emanating from Morgan Geist’s Environ imprint. Now take these two recent releases. Daniel Wang, of Balihu fame, provides more proof of his Faustian sensibility for melody when hypnotizing downtempo house is courted by moody 70ies disco idiosyncrasies, violins, antique synths (we’re talking clavinets and theremins here) and what we can only describe as a friendly cousin of electro. If Kraftwerk would have tried out Lsd, it would probably have sounded like these ‘Nocturnes’.
Labelboss Morgan Geist, together with his partner in crime Darshan Jesrani, provides us with what is already the fourth instalment in the thrilling Metro Area saga. Three times in a row you get deep disco-electro put together in one room with a genuine string quartet, eastern percussion, beautiful keypads and acoustic guitars. The already classic ‘Miura’ catches the instant appeal with its Jazzanova-style voice sampling and Moroder rhythm track, but the intimate disco of ‘Let’s Get…’ and the soft-in-a-good-way, Balihu inspired ‘Strut’ are equal treats. One hell of a classy label this is. Two times Essential Magic.

DJ BUCK | RELEASE THE TENSION (12", Bluëm)
DJ BUCK | THE BUMP (12", Siesta)
Halo Varga, Hipp-e, Tony Hewitt, Rocket, Dano, Joeski and Doc Martin: to the volgaHotlist of West-Coast House we can now safely add one Dj Buck. On Siesta he’s one of the few artists on the roster who consistently deviates from the typical label sound. There is of course plenty of percussion looping going on, but on ‘Siesta Tribe’ he casually inserts Indian chanting into his jazzy textures and trademark vibes. Flip ‘The Bump’, a case of Siesta-meets-Disco-meets-Detroit, actually succeeded in reminding us of the dirty funk of Prince’s ‘Black Album’ days. Groovy as fuck.
After Halo Varga’s stunning first release on Bluëm, any follow-up could have been slightly disappointing. But Buck carefully avoids copying the master’s sound. ‘Release the Tension’, taking off with an intriguing intro that reminded us of Romanthony’s ‘The Wanderer’, just can’t seem to decide on whether it’s going to do breaks or just plain house. But again he amazes with his inventive use of percussion and off-kilter rhythms. ‘Don’t Take The Weight’, presumably a remix of the first, has a darker mindset and could find grace with people like Digweed and Tenaglia. And a nifty dub was also included to allow dj’s all over the world to relish in his man’s incredibly spicey rhythms. Hasta la Vista, Dj Buck.

JT DONALDSON | A ROOM WITH A VU (12", Lowdown)
Rejoice in the festive big band arrangements of the very Windy City floor hopper ‘Do Dat’, a record both Derrick May and Masters at Work would die to get hold of. Next, try to forget about the Barry White vocals of the dreadful flip ‘In the Name of Love’. It’s all in the game, isn’t it?

SUBA | SAMBA DO GRINGO PAULISTA (12", Zirguiboom)
More music for carnivals and crazed-out celebration situations with future heroes Zero dB on SSR’s Latin offshoot. With their trademark distorted bass and dirty acid lines they add a potent rhythm track to the stirring tribal drums and chants of the festive original, thereby joyously propelling this Yoruba traditional into the second millennium. Zero dB just refuse to do wrong. Which is fine with us.

SOMETHING J/DJ MAXXIMUS | MERCEDES BENTLEY VS VERSACE ARMANI(12", Warp)
A powerful brew of fat, raving-and-thumping electro sounds and agitated punky vocals from the label that hardly ever disappoints. It all sounds like a rough ride with the gang through the darkness at the edge of the city. And to us that alone is substance enough to label this certified good electro. The two mixes are equally enjoyable so it’s another best buy from a label that after so many years in the business still succeeds in being ahead of the pack

VITALIC | PONEY EP (12", Gigolo)
Four times more pure retro rapture from the Godmother of all Electro labels. Relishing in tough eighties loops and happily recycling epic new wave synths, the titletrack is sinister and thrilling at the same time. Invoking the evil spirits of Front 242, Cabaret Voltaire, Nitzer Ebb and Anne Clark and subsequently forcing them into a more appealing up-to-date millennial cloth, the whole is similar to the exciting stuff people like The Hacker and Oxia are producing over in France. On the flip the seriously scorching ‘La Rock 01’ proves you can actually get away in style with throwing Giorgio Moroder, Kevin Saunderson and Joe Satriani in the mixer, while ‘You Prefer Cocaine’, another pumping electro-rocker with epical intentions, contains a cleverly hidden Front 242 sample and ends up sounding like New Beat overdosing on the said drug. All this adds to our growing suspicion that the institution called Techno hasn’t played out the last of its trumps yet.

ROCKET | THE EZ EP (12", Grayhound)
Eric and Garth present us with their continuing investigations into psychedelic dub- house. And, honestly, we just can’t get enough of their half-lucid, stretched-out house panoramas. ‘Out of the Tide’ delves up more of those smoking, bassed-out electro breaks. Loosily toying with echoeing percussion and ominous sci-fi score snippets, a lost sax player has a chance meeting with a delirious diva in the distance. ‘Ez Rider’ jumps on the same echoeing electro-bass train with some neat funky acid-lines adding to the overall pleasantly tripping atmosphere. Dano gets all wild with the percussion bits of the original, thereby producing the kind of free-flowing percussion breaks we hadn’t heard since Liquid Liquid themselves. There must be something in the water on the West-Coast.

MR. C | CLICK (12", Alola)
Ebenezer Goode is on the loose again. With an excellent two-tracker on 16B’s reliable-as-ever tech-house paradise Alola. The propelling percussive tech-house of ‘Click’, spiced up further with an agitating voice bit, would justify the buy alone. But flip ‘Dizzy Spell’ is, apart from what it promises in the title, 100% acid-tinged 16B-style entrancing tech-soul. C is good for you.

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