The past couple of years saw a flurry of activity from Detroit techno maven Terrence Dixon, who added two LPs and a few EPs and singles to his already sizable discography throughout 2012 and 2013. However, a new post on the veteran DJ/producer’s Facebook indicates that those records will be the last to arrive from Dixon, as he has announced his immediate retirement.
Quick and to the point, the message reads, “I’m retired after 20 years of making music. Thank you,” and is now flooded with love, appreciation, and bewilderment from fans. That thread can be read here, and Dixon’s excellent From the Far Future Pt. 2 LP from 2012 can be streamed in full below.
An original member of Underground Resistance (alongside Jeff Mills and Mike Banks), an innovator in Detroit techno’s heyday, and a pioneering DJ/producer with a 20-plus-year career that includes a wealth of ambitious projects including Floorplan and Monobox, Robert Hood has a resume that’s all but impeccable. Now, we can add another accomplishment to the techno veteran’s list, as 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of his M-Plant label, an outpost which has largely served as a home for Hood’s own excursions into techno’s evolving forms. With a number of upcoming reissues and events planned to celebrate M-Plant’s two-decade milestone in the coming months, we decided that it was time to check in with the Motor City legend (who now calls Alabama home) via our 20 Questions series. Hood kindly agreed to answer our queries, some of which prompted him to pull out a few choice tales from his storied past. Over the course of our discussion, he looks back at Underground Resistance’s early days, recalls the time when he “borrowed” a Kraftwerk record from Anthony Shakir, and describes his first meeting with Jeff Mills.
1. Where were you born? Detroit.
2. What was the last great book you read? In Pursuit of Purpose by Myles Munroe.
3. From start to finish, how long does it usually take you to finish a song? It really depends on how the composition comes together. I have maybe 30 tracks that have been shelved for years, but I can also knock out a track in 45 minutes or an hour. Sometimes it’ll take weeks, sometimes months, that’s just the nature of it. But when you know the cake is ready, you know it’s ready. When it’s finished baking, you know it’s time to serve it.
4. Name a track or artist that you think is criminally underrated. Mark Broom. He’s been so consistent down through the years. He’s a techno mainstay, and still going strong, if not stronger. I really admire Mark and his tenacity.
5. What is the most memorable DJ set you’ve ever seen? I can remember a time I saw DJ Pierre play in Geneva, Switzerland, and it was just flawless. He’s one of my favorite DJs of all time. Frankie Knuckles is another one, and I had the opportunity to play with him in ’94 or ’95 in a small, tiny club, and what a treat it was to hear the master just put it down. I have fond memories of that.
6. What is the longest DJ set you’ve ever played? About five years ago, I played a six-hour, semi-live set in LA. I just went through the classics—old-school Detroit techno, Chicago house, some old progressive tracks—and then I had my drum machine riding shotgun with me, and we played a marathon set just like that.
7. What was the first album you ever purchased? I remember working at my uncle’s record store when I was about 13, and that’s when I first laid eyes on Kraftwerk’s The Man Machine. I didn’t buy it, but I ended up borrowing it from Anthony “Shake” Shakir—we had drum classes together in high school—so I borrowed it and never returned it. The first record I actually bought was Parliament Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” or The Whispers’ “In the Raw.” I remember spending my lunch and bus money for the week on that record.
8. What is your most essential tool in the studio? The Yamaha sequencers have been a mainstay in my arsenal. I started off with the portable QY100, and I remember programming tracks from X-101 on that pocket sequencer. Of course, I’ve used other hardware sequencers, but through the years, Yamaha’s QY700 series has been sort of my weapon of choice.
9. During an ideal DJ set, what is your mindset? Are you focusing on the dancefloor, getting lost in the music? I try to communicate from my spirit to the crowd’s spirit. Not just to play records and not just to hype up the crowd—I want make them forget about their troubles. I want to take them someplace they’ve never been. Even to just take them to Detroit and show them the essence of Detroit and show them that sometimes we go through adversity, but it’s okay, it’ll strengthen you. I hate to sound so corny about this, but it’s a spiritual journey, it really is.
10. Do you have any nicknames? My grandmother used to call me “Buster” when I was a kid. I don’t know why. And when I was growing up they used to call me “Hoo Hoo” or “Dr. Hoo Hoo.” The class clown saw me tinkering in my garage once and he said, “Look it’s Dr. Hoo Hoo,” and everyone cracked up.
11. What is the one thing you can only get in Alabama? The cheese grits are very prominent down here. They’re big on that here.
12. As a former Detroit resident, what do you miss most about the city? Just the essence of Detroit, the way the city moves in the day and at night. The sights and the sounds of Detroit—I miss the traffic, I miss the sirens, I miss the dogs barking, I even miss the gunshots that you would occasionally hear at night. I just miss the essence of the city and how Detroit moves through the expressways and into downtown and the different neighborhoods.
13. What’s your ideal day off? To sit down, have a cup of coffee, maybe read a book or watch Sanford and Son or The Three Stooges. And then take a good nap.
14. What do you remember most about the early days of Underground Resistance? We really wanted to create a movement, rather than just capitalizing on the hype around Detroit techno. I remember going out in force dressed in all black with our Underground Resistance t-shirts, and our berets and bandanas. I remember going to an army surplus store to figure out what we were going to wear on stage. We had a mindset that was sort of Public Enemy, X-Clan, Parliament Funkadelic, Guerrilla Unit.
15. What was your first impression after meeting Jeff Mills? I remember very vividly the first time Mike Banks took me to his house. Jeff left the door open, so we just went inside and upstairs and I was looking around the studio at all the posters and records and there is this little guy behind a two-track tape machine, and he’s editing tape for The Wizard show. And I said to myself, “This can’t be the guy, I wonder where The Wizard is?” Eventually I found out he was Jeff Mills, and he was nothing like I expected. Jeff talked very fast and his movements were very sporadic, and watching him edit tape was a show in itself. You’ve seen him DJ, but the way he edited tape was like a performance; he was so fast and so precise, like a laser-point surgeon.
16. For someone who has never heard any of M-Plant’s releases before, is there a record you suggest they should start with from the catalog? Protein Valve, which is the first M-Plant release. That’s the starting point—page one, chapter one.
17. If you could sum up M-Plant’s 20-year catalog with just three words, they’d be… I’m going to borrow this from Underground Resistance: For the progressive.
18. What is the most worrisome thing about the current state of dance music? Monotony. When we’re trying to imitate one another and trying to copy the latest trends, of course, it’s going to kill the music. We come from the school of the Electrifying Mojo and experimentation, and we really have to continue to dig deep within our own personalities to find something new.
19. What is the most inspiring thing about the current state of dance music? I’m inspired by those certain few artists who continue to be artists and recognize the artistic integrity of techno music. Those that are not afraid to stand out and be exceptional. There’s just a small handful, but they are the ones that inspire me to keep going and continue to be excellent.
20. What’s the first thing you’ll do after answering these questions? I’m going to read my Bible. I’m going to read a few scriptures and see what God would have me read that I can apply to my life.
Deemed Habits of Hate, the collaboration between Happa and Manni Dee will issue its debut self-titled EP via Rob Booth’s Electronic Explorations label on April 28. Serving as a preview to the upcoming release, the pair of UK producers has let loose a hard-edged freebie in “The Destruction of Words.” Piling machine-made percussion, overdriven textures, and bursts of straight-up noise across its six-minute run, the resulting track makes for a brooding piece of dancefloor fare unafraid to move at an, ahem, accelerated pace.
Preparing his Strange Artifact EP for the recently founded label, The Melt’s latest signee, Patrick Brian, has shared a lustrous remix by LA producer Queen Leaf. Set to be fatured on the record, the low-resonating “Trample (Queen Leaf Remix)” tools with watery synth drips and extended chords to paint a glacial soundscape of ambient tones. Queen Leaf’s richly textured remix will be featured alongside two of Patrick Brian’s original compositions when Strange Artifact EP drops on April 17.
Throughout the week, a whole lot of material gets posted here on XLR8R. And while we know—and love—that some hardcore readers will eagerly pour over every single news story, interview, podcast, video, and MP3 download that appears on the site, we also realize that for most people, it’s impossible to see everything, which means that some quality XLR8R content is likely to get missed in the hustle and bustle of everyone’s daily lives. In the interest of making it easier for everyone to catch up, every Friday we present The Lowdown, a weekly wrap-up of the top 10 tidbits from our site.
1. Aphex Twin (pictured above) unexpectedly found himself in the news this week when a test pressing of an unreleased album from 1994 (under his Caustic Window moniker) was posted for sale online. In the days that followed, an officially sanctioned Kickstarter was set up where those interested in acquiring a digital copy of the LP could donate online.
2. Canadian producer Venetian Snares announced the impending release of a new LP for Planet Mu, along with plans for a North American tour.
3. Jamie xx released an elegant new video for “Sleep Sound,” a song slated to appear on his forthcoming new 12″.
4. Just Jam continues to grow in popularity as a web portal for top-flight DJ sets, and this week, recent sessions from Daphni, Four Tet, and Pearson Sound were posted online.
5. Brandy & Coke, a documentary tracing the rise and fall of UK garage’s golden era, was made available to view online.
6. The latest XLR8R podcast was delivered by New Jersey house maestro Joey Anderson, whose debut LP was released this week.
7. Ableton released a new mini-documentary that captures Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory assembling and later performing the ensemble’s stunning live show.
8. Without question, the most celebrated new LP of the week was Todd Terje’s It’s Album Time, and our official review named the record an XLR8R Pick.
9. This week’s most popular tune from our Downloads section came from mysterious UK producer TÂCHES, whose house-inclined “Malindi” is colored by a dark undercurrent and a gallery of glassy synths.
10. Berlin’s Perera Elsewhere will soon be issuing a deluxe version of her Everlast LP for Friends of Friends; ahead of its release, the label elected to give away one of the album’s exclusive cuts, a Prefuse 73 remix of “Drunk Man,” in our Downloads section.
An expanded version of the The Lowdown is also available via a weekly email newsletter. Those interested in an even more in-depth round-up of XLR8R content, including a complete listing of all the free downloads we’ve offered in the past seven days, should sign up by entering their email address below.
David Douglas is no stranger to XLR8R, having been featured in our pages for an arrary of singles and EPs. Now, he’s back to announce his upcoming Moon Observations LP by sharing lively album cut “Selene.” The production harnesses organic woodwinds and softly uttered phrases alongside a bounding bassline, as Douglas meticulously creates a scenic landscape of brightly gleaming sonic textures with a myraid of ingeredients. Composed as an “ode to all moon observers in time,” the Moon Observations LP is set to drop via Appelscal’s Atomnation label on May 22; its artwork and tracklist are included after the jump.
1 Far Side Of The Moon 2 Higher 3 Selene 4 Sweet Moonflower feat. Petter Carlsen 5 Chenab River 6 Piano And Flute 7 California Poppy 8 Romanticism 9 White Heat Blood feat. Blaudzun 10 Je Ne Sais Pas 11 Moon Observations
This summer, West Coast producer Vin Sol will release a new EP via the Soo Wavey imprint, which he co-runs alongside fellow California talent Matrixmann. Called Western Ways, the four-track effort is split into a “Raw” and “Deep” side, with the former featuring the “floor-burning jam” “Cookies” and an additional cut which is said to find “Matrixxman offering a dash of his patented techno feel.” The latter side is said to feature some “classic moody Chicago vibes ” and ” dreamy, ethereal analog chords” for the EP’s closing productions.
Vin Sol’s Western Ways EP will officially drop on June 16, but before then, lead track “Cookies” can be streamed in full below, where the forthcoming effort’s tracklist has also been included.
01 Cookies 02 Spoiled Exile 03 Pyramids 04 Meltdown
San Francisco’s Honey Soundsystem crew has been keeping very busy in 2014. Just this week, the collective—who we profiled back in January as part of Bubblin’ Up Week—issued its new Spring Mix, while crew member Jackie House teamed up with fellow SF producer Dr. Sleep on “Predatory Landscape,” a Patrick Cowley-sampling tune that was offered up as a free giveaway in our Downloads section. As if that wasn’t enough, this week’s episode of Beats in Space featured a special “Chinese Disco Mix” from Bezier (a.k.a. Robot Hustle a.k.a. Robert Yang). As it turns out, compiling the mix was no easy task. The entire process is described in detail here, but Yang actually traveled to Asia multiple times in search of vintage Chinese funk, soul, jazz, and Italo, even enlisting his mom and aunt to help in the effort. After making productive stops in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, he found enough records to assemble a mix that he’s titled Native Lover. Highlighting what Yang calls “music and songs about freedom and love from the Asian tigers: Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan 1977-1984,” the mix can be heard in its entirety below.
Hailing from Okayama, Japan, fledgling producer Keita Sano is set to release his techno-imbued People Are Changing EP via Brooklyn’s Mister Saturday Night label later this month, and has shared previews of its three rugged tracks ahead of time. Having discovered the label through vinyl bins at a local record store, Sano sent in a collection of tracks which would go on to become the young artist’s first release for Mister Saturday Night. He creates a range of sounds on his upcoming release, utilizing powerful, rough textures on the first two compositions and a submerged collection of ambient sonics on the EP’s closing track. Keita Sano’s People Are Changing EP is set to drop on April 28, but can be previewed before then below.
For whatever myriad of reasons, artists sometimes can’t or don’t want to reveal their true identities on certain releases. This is often done by simply leaving zero clues (except maybe the music itself) in the related aliases, titles, artwork, and press releases for their record. (For example: Junior Boys producer Matt Didemus did this for his early work as DIVA.) Other times, it’s all but spelled out for fans that their favorite DJ/producer is being coyly anonymous, such as the forthcoming EP for FaltyDL’s Blueberry label from an acid-obsessed veteran calling himself Luke Warm.
Spin reports that the artist behind the four-track Instant Vibe is going “incognito” for his latest release, but just the slightest amount of digging reveals that the EP’s lead cut, “Daydreamin’,” has long been credited to Luke Vibert, who just this week released a brand-new album called Ridmik. As Luke Warm, he’ll drop his new EP digitally on April 14, with vinyl arriving on April 21; before then, all four of the nostalgic cuts on Instant Vibe can be heard below.
