Oslo-based space-disco producer Joachim Dyrdahl has made a name for himself as Diskjokke with releases on Prins Thomas’ Full Pupp label as well as Get Physical sub-label Kindish. A classically trained violinist and math whiz, Dyrdahl’s approach to beat-making is best described as holistic, incorporating influences that range from country music to early Italo. Dyrdahl’s second full-length on Smalltown Supersound, En Fin Tid, shows off his dynamism, with ambient moments and white noise as present as the slick disco bass and synth arpeggiations his sound is known for. Below, Dyrdahl gives us a few tips on how to achieve the best reverb and delay, two sonic effects that are indispensable to his cosmic productions.
Record and bounce processed sounds with reverb Set up the sound you want to use—let’s say a cymbal hit—in a separate track. Add a fantastic reverb to this track, and bounce it as a solo sound with a long reverb time and the dry/wet ratio of your choice. Then import the bounced sound into your project and use it as you wish. Reverse it, chop it, and pitch-shift the parts differently. Use just the reverb and not the signal itself (works better with sounds that have no tail in itself, like a reversed snare or tom), add effects to it, or use it as a substitute for the original track and save tons of CPU capacity.
Play with your dry/wet ratio Say you want to add a percussion loop to a track, but it stands out too much or does not sound quite the same as the rest, and you’ve given up on EQing it to fit. Slowly fade the loop in all wet so that all you really hear is some sort of rumble, similar to a party next door. Then when this sound is loud enough to get attention, you completely remove the reverb on the first beat of the bar and the party has moved into your room. Another good way to bring out elements of the track is to slowly (say, over 16 bars) go from dry to wet and then cut or fade the signal.
“1987”
Alter volume and panning This tip is based on having really, really long delay time on a single sound (like a single conga hit). You could also use a more complex signal, but that quickly gets messy. In Cubase, you open the automation track below the actual track and start fiddling. You can play the signal in itself with volume low and then increase the volume of the track as the tune plays along. This enables you to let the sound of the delay go on forever with even a cheap delay device. Then duplicate the track, move the signal in the new track a bit, pan the original track to the left and the new track to the right. By automating the volume up and down, these two delays (or more, if you like) will work together and create a cool effect.
Change your feedback and delay time By automating/altering these two parameters in your delay box at the same time, you will make the original signal come alive in a very distinct way. I prefer to use this effect on synth lead sounds and vocals, like in my remix of Ost & Kjex’s “Boston Food Strangler,” which then gets more character. Try turning feedback to the max while decreasing the delay time or the opposite. You should consider adding a compressor to the track, as the result could be surprisingly loud and weird here.
Add real reverb If you have access to a place with good natural reverb, you should bring your gear there, record whatever needs reverb, and put that into your production to add uniqueness. In the stairs that lead to my studio we have fantastic “hall” reverb, so I use that space to record percussion, like claps, shaker, and tambourine. I first record the dry sound in my studio, then I go out into the stairs where I put one microphone near the source and one further up the stairs. Here I record on two tracks, and this gives me the opportunity to mix the three recorded sounds in the project in the same way that you use the dry/wet knob on your studio reverb. This method can be expanded with more microphones, and the recordings will make a great foundation for using all the techniques and tips above.
You wouldn’t think there’s a price to be paid for releasing a widely loved, breakout album, but it’s true. Anyone and everyone wants to (and will) remix its songs for far too long after its release, to the point of nausea-inducing repetition that’s enough to almost make you dislike the original music. It’s certainly happened to the UK’s The xx, who’ve suffered through their fair share of remix clunkers, but we’re happy to let this new take on the band’s “Crystalized” tune slide by without too much chagrin. The funky disco-house producer behind the remix, fellow Brit Jamie Jones, hooked up The xx’s trademark boy/girl vocal duet with a thick dance groove and bouncing bassline that nicely suit the pair’s mellow cooing. Jones’ minimal production mirrors the aesthetic of the original “Crystalized,” and ends up overshadowing all of the other interpretations of the song we’ve heard over the past year.
Last month, Belgian space-disco outfit Aeroplaneannounced that one of its two members would be going his separate way, leaving the project a solo affair. It was unexpected since Aeroplane’s debut full-length album, We Can’t Fly, had just been slated for release on Wall of Sound, but now that the dust has settled a bit, remaining member Vito De Luca shared more in an interview about why the break-up happened, what we can expect from his forthcoming album, and a particularly awesome story about him throwing up on Air’s equipment at the Sonar festival. Over on Juno Plus, De Luca explained what set the stage for the split, saying, “Well, I wrote all the songs on the album and I played all the instruments… so I’m the studio guy. Steph was taking care of a lot of other things—important things—but it came to the [point where] I was alone in the studio and I realised, this is not ‘our’ band as it’s supposed to be.” You can read the whole interview and check out clips from Aeroplane’s upcoming full-length record here. (via Resident Advisor)
If this track wasn’t labeled as a remix, we would’ve immediately assumed that we were being treated to a brand-new original from our favorite spun-out drag trio, Salem (pictured above). But even though we do know this is a supposed ‘reworking’ of “Hologram” by These New Puritans, we can’t seem to find anything connecting that original track to this new one. It’s sort of like the band said, “Hey Salem, we love your work! Would you guys be into remixing one of our songs?” and Salem agreed but forgot to do it by the deadline, so instead just gave them an unreleased song they’d been sitting on and called it a remix. Don’t get us wrong, though; we’re not complaining. Salem’s ‘remix’ of “Hologram” finds all of the outfit’s hallmarks intact: synthetic vocal melodies, ominous synth tones, crunk beats, and that irreplaceable, pitched-down slur. Keep it coming, guys.
Barcelona’s Balearic-flavored dance-pop outfit (and former XLR8Rcover stars) Delorean is now a month and a half from the release of its wonderful Subiza album, and have has been busy touring the world sharing the good word (and tunes) with all who will listen. Now, the quartet is ready to do it all over again, and this time they’ll have their latest single in tow. The Real Love EP is available now on limited 12″ and digital download through Delorean’s label, True Panther, and features remixes of the track from The Field, Deadboy, Arp, and others, along with a radio edit of the original song. You can check out the single’s artwork, stream its seven tracks, and peruse Delorean’s upcoming tour dates with Lemonade below.
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Sun Aug 29 – Jelly NYC Thu Sept 2 – Casbah – San Diego, CA — with Cold Cave & Abe Vigoda Sat, Sept 4 – FYF Fest – Los Angeles, CA Sun, Sept 5 – Bumbershoot – Seattle, WA Fri Nov 5 – Hailey’s – Denton, TX * Mon Nov 8 – Rhythm Room – Phoenix, AZ * Wed Nov 10 – GAMH – San Francisco, CA * Sat Nov 13 – Biltmore Cabaret – Vancouver, BC * Tue Nov 16 – 7th St. Entry – Minneapolis, MN * Wed Nov 17 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL * Thu Nov 18 – Mod Club – Toronto, ON * Fri Nov 19 – Le Belmont – Montreal, QC * Sat Nov 20 – Middle East Downstairs – Cambridge, MA * Mon Nov 22 – First Unitarian Church – Philadelphia, PA * Tue Nov 23 – Rock and Roll Hotel – Washington, DC *
Off the recently released Brownswood Electr*c compilation, “Blad” is an old-school-sounding piece of soulful beat work from the UK’s Letherette. The producers utilize what appears to be no more than two—maybe three—sample sources to flesh out the slow-grooving funk of their exclusive track for Electr*c, as each guitar strum, bass pluck, horn stab, drum hit, and vocal utterance chopped up and sequenced into “Blad” sounds as cohesive and complimentary as if it had all been performed live in one room, and not on an MPC. Letherette’s impeccably crafted tune is just a small taste of the eclectic mix of beat-heavy music to be heard on the excellent compilation from Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label.
A couple months after its inaugural podcast from UK DJ/producer Melé, Mixpak FM dropped its second DJ mix of the series, this time from Washington, DC’s Nadastrom. The duo of Dave Nada and Matt Nordstrom hooked up an excellent playlist filled with Nada’s burgeoning moombahton style, bits of cumbia flavor, some dancehall riddims, and a little house and electro whatnot peppered in for good measure. You can stream or download Mixpak FM 002: Nadastromhere, and check out the track list below.
DJ Negro – “Andres Landero vs The Roockie” Munchi – “Vamo A Darle Slow” (Toma Essa Porra VIP) Congorock ft. Mr Lexx – “Babylon” (Nadastrom’s Ugly Edit) Classixx Ft Jeppe – “I’ll Get You” (Steve1der Rudebwoy Remix) Dre Skull ft. Vybz Kartel – “Yuh Love” (Nadastrom’s Bookshelf Blend) T-Pain ft. Lil Wayne – “I Can’t Believe It” (Emynd Bookshelf Blend) Delorean – “Stay Close” (Dave Nada Moombahton Remix) Vybz Kartel FT Popcaan – “Clarks” (Kenny Meez & Gregg Nyce Mash Up) B.O.B ft. Bruno Mars – “Nothing On You” (Kenny Meez & Gregg Nyce Mash Up) Old Money – “Buena Mah Muva” (Starks & Nacey Remix) Sabo – “Club Cultura” Doc Adam – “Tried By Sex Sax” (Moombahton Edit) Graffiti 6 – “Annie You Reset! Me” (A-Mac Moombahton Edit) DJ Apt One vs Josh Wink – “Higher State of Moombahton” Sabo – “Jesus Moombahton” Dave Nada – “Oye Mami” Dave Nada- “Drop Buddy Gyal” Sonido Rampage – “Boy” Sonido Rampage Y Nader – “If You Leave” Munchi – “La Tipa” Munchi – “I Love C.D.L.C.” Skinny Friedman – “Block Rockin” LA Riots – “Bombah” (Dave Nada Boombahton Remix) Rampage & Nader – “Gave You Love” (Starks & Nacey V6 Remix) Sam Tiba – “Barbie Weed” Mele – “Bombay” (Nadastrom Remix) King Tubby – “Rude Boy Dub” Mad Professor – “Kunta Kinte Dub” Rhythm & Sound ft. Love Joy – “Best Friend” Jahdan Blakkamoore – “The General” Bird Peterson – “Zutopong” (Nadastrom Dub)
For only one day in September, the We Like Music Festival will take over parts of downtown Detroit for an explosive celebration of forward-thinking music and art. The unusually brief music festival just announced the lineup of artists and performers that will push their wares from within one of two venues. During the day at The Old Miami, DJs and producers James T. Cotton, Kyle Hall (pictured above), Leo 123, Kevin Reynolds, Deadlines, nospectacle (XLR8R contributor Walter Wasacz), and A.M. Architect will be handling the soundsystem duties, and Jimmy Edgar, Eliot Lipp, and Kraddy (formerly of The Glitch Mob) will be the night’s performers at The Magic Stick. The We Like Music Festival kicks off September 18 at 2 p.m.
This remix of “Sun,” from Danish house producers Kenton Slash Demon, comes from Alan Abrahams (a.k.a. Portable a.k.a. Bodycode), who transforms the bouncing original production into a soulful techno track more than twice its initial length. Portable’s entrancingly epic composition and its accompanying forefather, are both part of the Sun EP, which is the first installment of Kenton Slash Demon’s trilogy of releases entitled The Schwarzschild Solution. The first release drops July 26 via Tartelet, with the subsequent EPs, Matter and Daemon, following in the months ahead. If the quality of original tunes an remixers follow suit with this offering, we’re sure to have a solid set of tracks on our hands when the Danish duo’s triptych is finished next January.
When Robert Hood came of age in Detroit, radical change was in the air. People, ideas, and product were on the move. The 1960s and ’70s were marked by political and cultural swings, growing black empowerment, and abandonment by second- and third-generation ethnic whites on one hand; urban guerrilla creativity busting out across the racial spectrum on the other.
The auto industry lorded over the economic landscape, blotting out whatever there was of the mid-north sun, which came instead as music played, sung, and produced by Motown: the great equalizer.
“Everyone listened to it on the radio, which didn’t segregate between black or white, rich or poor,” says Hood, who was born in 1965, around the time that AM stations like Windsor’s CKLW (Detroit’s Canadian neighbor to the South) and Dearborn’s WKNR were playing everything: The Miracles and The Marvelettes, Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger, The Beatles and The Stones. “It was just music, man. Good music, that we were exposed to day and night. But it was Motown that was the sound of the inner city for me.”
Later he got his inspiration from stations WGPR and WJLB—where crypto-on-air personality Charles Johnson (a.k.a. The Electrifying Mojo) recombined pop rhythms from all over the world, mixing them with Detroit soul fire to mold the raw foundation for techno.
“I can’t tell you enough times, and I know this story has been told before, but Detroit radio is what influenced all of us to do our own thing,” Hood says. “We might not have known what we were doing exactly, but Mojo helped expose us to new worlds. He was like our teacher, telling us ‘there are no boundaries.'”
And pure, raw techno with no boundaries is what Robert Hood is all about. Dubbing his own reductive groove community “the minimal nation” a solid 20 years ago, his story is one of the most enduring in over a quarter century of electronic music history. He was one third of the original Underground Resistance with Mike Banks and Jeff Mills (tip: check 1991’s fierce X-101 LP), then broke off to nurture his own independent career as producer and DJ. He moved to New York, started his own M-Plant label, recorded and released tracks on Mills’ Axis and Berlin’s Tresor imprints, and then cruised into a new century where the next generation of minimal was waiting for him. But his heart and soul remained in old Detroit. Still does, in fact.
Underground Resistance – “Sonic Destroyer”
From the early-to-late 1970s, Hood heard jazz, blues, new wave, glam rock, synth-pop, disco, embryonic rap, and hip-hop in interstellar overdrive—just by tuning his radio dial. His favorite Detroit artists were Marvin Gaye and The Temptations, but it was another mammoth track of the era that grabbed his ear and never let go: Isaac Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft.”
“From the first time I heard it, I was just overwhelmed by the way the sounds were introduced. The strings, the horns, drums, and funky guitar riff,” he says. “Then his voice rolls in and off you go. Man! To me, that was the start of thinking in terms of ‘minimal.’ Just taking basic elements and making a track work by using less, not more.”
Though based in Alabama since 2004, Hood still describes himself as a “black kid from Detroit,” who grew up on the city’s sprawling Northwest side populated with auto workers, machinists, dye makers, handymen, city workers, merchants, playground ballers—not to mention a bunch of kids fooling around with electronic music-making hardware.
Once a residential destination for working-class families, Hood’s neighborhood as a teenager was an urban bedroom community with good shopping options and public schools holding their own. Tour the area on foot now and you see a Detroit that appears suspended in that era. Single-family brick houses built as early as the 1920s through the 1940s still line the long blocks. But some of the homes are gone, with the industrial shops and commercial strips laid to waste. One of America’s great avenues, Grand River, dissects Northwest Detroit as it links downtown with suburbia. Some of it in intact, other parts charred and being readied for federally subsidized demolition.
It is along this diagonal spoke that fellow electronic dance pioneers Kelli Hand, Mike Huckaby, and Anthony “Shake” Shakir lived (Hand, Huckaby, Shakir, and Hood all attended nearby Cooley High School), close enough to walk or ride a bike to Cliff Thomas’ influential Buy-Rite Records. The shop on 7 Mile Road did on the ground what radio did for local air space: filled it with imports by Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, and Heaven 17; US indie 12s by The B-52’s, Prince, and Devo; emerging deep Detroit sides by Cybotron and Model 500, Rhythim is Rhythim and Inner City.
Add to that the spaced-out rock-soul hybrids of George Clinton’s P-Funk dynasty and acid-house mayhem by way of Chicago, and there you have it: the blueprint for the shapeshifting of things to come.
“Detroit was a hip place, very culturally avant garde,” he says. “It was a rough place, but musically sophisticated. I think that kind of pressure that came from both sides helped make it unique. We had the radio, we had the records. We felt something different going on around us and we seized on it.”
Hood says he began experimenting with his “theory of reducing dance music to an essence” after he puzzled over what first-generation Detroit techno artists like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Eddie Fowlkes were producing.
“I couldn’t make it out, to be honest with you,” Hood says. “It was a new, exciting sound, but it had a vibe you had to catch up to, like it came out of the future or from another galaxy. I tried to break it down so I could bring out the most important element: the African drum.”
It might be a slightly revisionist view to suggest that Detroit techno was the soundtrack for post-industrial decline and social breakdown of the world’s most prolific factory town. Transportation to another place via danceable electronic waveforms threatens to become cliché the more the myth circulates around the globe. But hearing Hood talk about it adds a bold truth to the mythology.
“As I was growing up, the city started to empty out, the present was a place where you just had to try to survive,” he says. “The Reagan era was the height of the crack era in Detroit. The ’80s were a destructive period, time stood still except for the violence, the city stopped functioning. If you wanted to get out of that, you had to dig down and find something in the subconscious, something deeper and more beautiful. That’s how we first started traveling—in our own minds.”
Set free by repetitive beats, fleshed out with militant rhetoric from the UR camp—not so militant as it turned out, more about rebuilding community life and discipline amid rising poverty, decay, and desolation in the city—Hood challenged the future by staying lean and mean in his music. Go into his catalog that has remained consistently roots- and soul-oriented after well over 100 original tracks, remixes, mixtapes and mixed CDs, podcasts, and bootlegged live sessions, and you will detect a steady hand at the controls.
Hood’s genius is stretching a single, brilliant idea over two decades of productive work. Put on a classic M-Plant track from Minimal Nation (originally issued in 1994, re-released last year) like “Museum” or “One Touch” and contrast it with new material on this summer’s apocalyptic Omega, and you’ll find its structure and texture eerily alike.
But thematically, a shift is apparent. The work is based on 1971 science-fiction cult film The Omega Man, which stars Charlton Heston as a scientist who survives a global plague after biological warfare kills off most the planet’s human population. Those that survive have become mutants who want to kill the scientist, who represents a failed age of technology gone amok. There are biblical allusions strewn throughout the film, which includes a symbolic crucifixion at its climax.
Hood says he’s alway been enamored with the film, and how it presents both sides of a grim scenario for humanity. He can just as easily put himself in the position of the scientist/hero as he can the “villains” who seek a more “pure and spiritual” existence, however misguided.
“I saw the movie when I was a kid, and later I related to the main character because he was alone in the world—and producing techno can be an interior, lonely life,” he says. “But now, I see it in much deeper spiritual terms. Like this is part of a prophecy we’re seeing realized almost every day.”
How so?
“There is such universal pain in the world, destruction, and chaos that I fear we’re reaching the end of our time on this planet,” he says. “I wanted to make an album that reflected an evolution of how I’ve come to see things like that spiritually. This isn’t like a sudden revelation, but something I’ve been thinking about and acting on as an artist since the late 1990s.”
Hood lives close to the Gulf of Mexico and says he was profoundly disturbed by the April oil spill that history may record as one of the worst man-made ecological disasters ever. He is saddened by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current quality of modern life in this country. “We’re so disconnected in how we communicate, by using computers and the internet, we don’t know anybody, really, anymore,” he says. “It’s changed us all. I wanted Omega to reflect a serious tone, not just something made for people to dance to in the club.”
“Alpha”
But dance to it in the club, they will, largely due to Hood’s time-tested and infectious cut-and-run style. After its somber, dare say, dark ambient beginnings with “The Plague (Cleansing Maneuvers),” Hood reaches for his African drum and seduces body and soul on the crushing “Towns That Disappeared Completely,” which recalls UR as much as it does the aqua-electro acid of fellow Detroiters Drexciya. The next track, “Alpha,” is almost entirely constructed from drums and bass vibrations before a simple one-note synthetic symphony rises out of the rumbling low end and hangs out on top for a beautiful finish.
“The Workers of Iniquity” is funk reduced to fat, loopy patterns, and “Are You God?” quickens the pulse by layering drums over more drums, slashing and stabbing with synth lines that actually come close to the wicked rhythm-guitar lead on “Shaft.” The deeper you go, the darker it gets. “The Family Watches” approaches schizoid-paranoid territory. Strange sounds dance around a tight, rolling bass drum, which ultimately gives way to even stranger, almost alien melodies. Pay heed to the killer drum outro. “The Wheels of Escape” also seems possessed of alien-sounding bleeps, which drive the tune forward on the back of multiple percussion.
The final piece, “Omega (End Times),” sounds scarier than it really is, more like a cautionary tale told at 180 BPMs, with thunderclaps, and a bridge made up of a chorus of melodic synths that creates anticipation for the final instrumental surge—a frantic, manic release, before a soothing fade to black.
Hood says Omega is also indirectly a response to the minimal techno scene that broke wide open in the mid-’00s, largely in Europe, leaving bits of sonic residue on the Detroit sound. The bigger influence is on the party experience itself, which turned away from quality to quantity in the form of marathon events seemingly without end.
“What’s missing in all that is the meaning and substance of the music itself,” he says. “Anyone can turn on a laptop now and make a track and call it ‘minimal.’ But to me, that music became overly complicated, which is not what it’s supposed to be about. I’m glad people are enjoying the party, but it’s more than just that. It’s a stripped-down narrative about the soul, from the soul. It’s communication from a higher power.”
