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Net Decks 14

  Tobias

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reviews

It sounds very much like a cliche: Percussionist wants to found a band, can't find anyone to join, buys himself a drum machine and a sampler and turns into an electronic musician and a DJ. It is the simple truth, however, in the case of Zhao, nom de pluie for this Nice-based label owner, producer and party organisor. A fan of both Drum n Bass (his first calling) and techno (his second), he now operates in both fields individually – and, as the sinisterly sceletised, nightmarish, minimal, medial and premonitious future visions of „Le Passe Reste“ prove, in both at the same time as well. The dark concrete aesthetics and frightening emotional coolness of Jungle team up with the percussive propulsion and straightforward dance-message of dry four to the floor beats. In between the pumping metronomicity, collosal metal objects reverberate inside virtual canyons, sending ripples through the fluidum of time: „Nuages et Fumes“ is a sort of Cyberdine-version of what a dub track would sound like in robotic hell and the effective tinglings at the back of the pleasantly skewed „Monochrome“ simulate spaceousness on a dusty desert plain. Zhao doesn't beat around the bush, his pieces get right to the point without delay – except, maybe, for opener „Allenaide“, a bleepy melody-driven hybrid between Detroit and Electro even Kraftwerk would consider spartanly arranged. Although some of the tracks appear to be highly minimal, they always transcend the pure techno philosophy by creating a narrative, a background story which holds the strings together. This is even more so in the grand finale of the title track, a sensous, magnetic monster of six and a half minutes, which glues old school drum sounds, delayed digital dots and warm hiss together in an erotic tale of potentially infinite proportions. „Nowadays I am trying to offer a creative approach of "dance music" by mixing all my influences into innovative tracks and live performances“, Zhao says, „Sometimes it works, sometimes not !“ This time there are no doubts whatsoever which of the two options applies.
www.archipel.cc

Emission aka Mint 4000 has different aims. With his own netlabel Epicure Business, he intends to support the music scene of his homebase Thuringia (as well as his personal circle of friends) and with his music, he champions a borderless approach with allusions to 70s space music, hiphop, funk, folk and the avantgarde, all mashed into a seemless minimal panopticum. Ambitious? You bet. Academic? Forget it. Emission is just in much in love with all of the abovementioned styles as with the process of creating music itself and the subsequent colourful playfulness turns his current release with the Tropic Netlabel into a work of serious electronica with a pop-edge. Consider the latter a reference to the eclecticism of „Isolation“ only, however, as these are, effectively, immediately forwards-oriented groove-driven club tunes packed into smart arrangements with a slew of surprising elements. „Tapez et Frottez“ lifts off on the wings of a sympathetically detuned melody, „Tortoise“ sways between deep ambiances of cathedral magnificence and pure, elastic downbeat easiness, while opener „Kalista“ even unpacks an acoustic guitar after heading off to a start of hypnotic trance power. Very intelligently presented, extremely emotionally charged.
www.tropic-netlabel.de

„Work Out“, his statement from about two months' back on Epicure Business, is ,by any means, at least equally impressive, a fascinating melange of bewildering, bizarre fictional field recordings, dense atmospheres and minimal beats. „Adlib“ and „bang-bang“ are no longer techno tracks, they are constantly moving experimental states of uncertainty and excitment. The other tracks are more „conventional“ (if that is the word), but none of them takes the obvious route. Expect the unexpected, but expect this man to be back with more of the same incomparably fruitful madness soon.
www.epicurebusiness.com

Closing, I just discovered that it's been quite some time since I last visited the pages of the Inoquo netlabel. Seems I missed quite a bit since Mikel Mendia's „Clouds Melting“. First, Saint-Petersburg-based artist Waveform makes his Inoquo debut with „Return“, a four-track EP based around slow-motion beats and dubby fantasies. Then, the Inoquo-allstars team up for a reworking of Project Swirl's „Echo“, one of the prize pieces from this Hungarian producer's „Then Nothing“ release from a while back. Mikel Mendia leads the way with a gargantuan bass line rising from the ashes of psychedelic smoke plumes forming over the tip of the tipi. Acidface, meanwhile, takes the original and feeds it through a reverb-distortion pedal. Suprisingly simple and deadingly effective, this barking hellhound of a techno track will scare the living daylights out of any sane mind. Almost all of the acts represented here remain faithful to the original, even Sr. Click's „Transgressive Mix“ relies on the latter's fundamentals, despite them appearing in razorsharp mirror images in his reworking. The artist with least respect for the blueprint is Project Swirl himself, using the title as a guideline and transforming his own material into a mellow, mysterious and magnified dream of endless oceans and blue skies.

And then, of course, there's the latest by Russian Coldicus (you may have figured out by now that internationalism plays an important role in the label's philosophy). As the EP's header „Space Switcher“ already indicates, there is a dulcet cosmic theme running through this one, although it does not manifest itself in the form of typical bubbling and gurgling sounds, nor in vast seas of dark ambient emptiness. Space is a friendly place for Coldicus, a galaxy of childhood dreams, which suddenly come to life thanks to his beats and moods. Disassembled into its constituent building blocks, „Space Switcher“ may seem rather raw and unpolished, but the magic happens when these snippets start interacting by sending coded messages between each other. The outcome is an irresistibly soft pull, as sweet as a ripe, juicy, red-cheeked apple freshly fallen from a friendly tree. „V cosmos drugi moi“ is the odd exception with its menacing rumblings and stoic rocket engine linearity, but the warm choral harmonies of happily dancing „Vostok minus dva“ pick up the theme of naive aural pointilism immediately after. Makes our milkyway sound like a music box.
www.inoquo.com

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“Net Decks” is a weekly feature of tokafi.com covering Netlabel releases from the techno and electronica scene. It is published each Monday. For including your infos, having your releases reviewed or joining the reviews team, please contact us at tobias@tokafi.com