An incredibly deep, rich, and dark record, All Versus All takes DJ Scud and I-Sound‘s current fascination with dubstep and grime and refracts it through their musical history. The extreme electronics of Scud’s Ambush and I-Sound‘s Full Watts label appear here, as do hints of Scud’s sonic collage work with Hrvatski and I-Sound’s sweeter side with To Rococo Rot, but the end result is uniquely their own. Alive with sounds-either animal, musical, or mechanical-tracks like the slinky “Enticer,” the siren-calling “Himmel,” and the unstoppably robotic “Technology” could serve as the soundtrack to a Gene Wolfe novel. Headier than their last release, October, and worth every single sonic second.
Tolcha Gestalt
Bubbling up through the cracks in the Berlin sidewalk and drifting out of hot dance clubs into misty parks early in the morning, the multi-instrumentalist four-piece Tolcha fuses dub, hip-hop, and a bit of grime, heavily done up with equal parts dome-scratchin’ thought and body-moving sexiness. Led by DJ Shir Khan, they grabbed attention with the solid “Fokus” single on their Meta Polyp label. Now they’ve collected their collaborations into Gestalt, which contains Rhythm & Sound-esque dub pieces (“Bild Zeit”), Kitty-Yo head-nodders (“Tomchak” and “Fokus”), and some just plain good, crunchy, bassy dance music (album standout “Crushed Ice”). Vocal collabs sweeten the deal, with turns by Berlin everywhere-man RQM (The Tape/Al Haca), Ras T-Weed of Rocker’s HiFi, Sasha Perera (the playful voice of Jahcoozi), Rider Shafique (Pressure Drop), and the very funny Maxx from The Goats. Forget what you knew about Viennese nu-dub and move to the Tolcha beat.
Various Artist Tom Moulton: A Tom Moulton Mix
From his time in the ’60s as a promo man for King Records and a 45 buyer for the Seeburg jukebox company, engineer Tom Moulton knew early on what made a track a hit. It’s said that, in the ’70s, he literally invented the 12″ single, understanding that every last minute of every funk, soul, and disco song was worth dragging out for a prolonged boogie. Collected here are disco hits (Andrea True Connection’s classic “More More More”) and Motown funk jams (Eddie Kendrick’s “Keep on Truckin‘”) but at extended, glorious lengths (the latter is over 11 minutes long). Grace Jones’ extra-slinky cover of Edith Piaf‘s “La Vie En Rose” is simply beautiful.
Crowdpleaser & St. Plomb 2006
Building on a slew of successful solo singles and remixes since the late ’90s, Geneva’s Crowdpleaser (Gregor Schönborn) & St. Plomb (Vincent Kolb) bring a considerable amount of depth and well-honed style to their debut full-length together. Dubby, Basic Channel-infused textures pervade “New Times Roman” while touches of Errorsmith‘s swervy funk show up on “Today” as the two producers smear their influences all over the page but do so with aplomb. Perhaps the record’s best track, though, is “Cash on Time,” a poppy slab of vocal techno funk with Kate Wax on vox. She’s not the only special guest-folks like Paris the Black Fu and Kalabrese also make appearances, but you’d be hard-pressed to pick out their contributions from this crowd. Despite Wax providing 2006’s only vocal offering, the 11 tracks float by effortlessly, traversing era and genre like the best of Kompakt’s style-surveying comps.
Various Artist Cheb I Sabbah: La Ghriba-La Kahena Remixed
La Kahena Remixed is a perfect entry point for global-beat fence sitters with the impression that world-electronic music is merely ethno-trance masquerading as club pressure. Cheb I Sabbah has perfected his Arabic, North African, and South Asian blend over three artist albums, one remix album, and several DJ mixes, in addition to this Algerian’s three decades of discotheque experience (he spins at San Francisco’s longest running underground dance night, 1002 Nights). La Kahena takes a striking collection of heavy bhangra, hip-hop, and dub tracks and speeds them through alleys, bazaars, favelas, and shantytowns before winding up at the local hot spot clutching a cold Tango (the preferred Algerian beer). Remixers Bassnectar, Sandeep Kumar, Makyo, Ex-Centric, and Bill Laswell bring their best efforts to each track.
Osunlade Aquarian Moon
Only a sensitive soul such as multifaceted producer Osunlade would title a song “The Day We Met For Coffee.” This song, like many on his second proper artist album, combines a variety of chilled instrumentation (vibes, acoustic guitar, string arrangements, and ethnic percussion) with steady house and downbeat grooves for an introspective and colorful listen. Aquarian Moon recalls the expanses of global fusion jazz musicians Airto Moreira, Deodato, and Andy Narell-free thinkers who some say degraded trad jazz’s proper arrangements with hippie-dippy noodling. The disc (written as an ode to the Greek island Santorini) sounds more like the work of the latter producer, with outstanding headphone jams (“Oia In Winter”) butting up against future jazz club goodness (“SokinSikartep”).
Couch Figur 5
Munich instrumentalists Couch provide a cool update to classic, moody, dream-rock groups like Bailter Space or Chapterhouse. Couch’s dense, melancholic sound also echoes that of Ulrich Schnauss (had he been born in Chapel Hill adoring a Strat rather than in Berlin with a laptop) and fits in well with Morr’s indie-pop love affair with electronic music. Couch’s fine songs amble like a West Coast-bound Amtrak train gliding through the Plains states as grassland and grain silo landscapes shudder by. Yes, some chin-stroking is inevitable when listening to Figur 5, but the evolving layers of melody also allow for eyes-closed rocking out-not a bad pastime if you ask me.
Ziggy Kinder Akrobatik
Kinder, a frizzy-haired, Cologne-based minimal house and techno producer, had my ears on lock from his first 12″ singles on Ware. Where the work of fellow producers Matthew Dear and Richie Hawtin is fixated on the rhythmic repetitions central to the minimal genre, Kinder takes an abrupt left turn towards melody. Of course, plenty of metrical blips and soda-pop gurgles still pan across the listening threshold, but these micro-noises are only part of the audio palette. Kinder conjures some superb club-rocking numbers like “Augenblicksposer,” which unfolds like a purple orchid decorated with lovely reverberating tones. Then “Der Trick Mit Der Kick” arrives halfway in-any listeners not on the dancefloor for this one smoked way too much hash. Akrobatik has me doing flips.
Art Brut Bang Bang Rock and Roll
In this post-irony landscape, one would think that you could no longer get credit for deconstructing yourself. But judging from the inordinate amount of hype and ink spilled on Art Brut, that’s simply not the case. Stacked with jagged, self-conscious tracks filled with snark and quirk, Bang Bang Rock and Roll plays like a poor man‘s Pink Flag, with Wire’s angular rawk and sneering vocals but without their political insight. As party music goes, however, it’s a slam dunk for the retro set. From the story of “Formed a Band” to the nostalgic love noise of “Emily Kane” and onward to the spoken-word thrasher “Modern Art,” Art Brut is trying its hardest to not give a fuck while giving a fuck the entire time.
Ammoncontact With Voices
If it seems like Ammoncontact just came out with a release, that’s because they did. But Los Angeles DJs don’t sleep, which is another way of saying that Ammoncontact’s newest effort is filled with energy, and chilled-out groove to spare. Instrumental mind-trippers like the swaggering “For Ayler” or the atmospheric “Elevation” keep the momentum rolling, while rap cameos from Lil Sci (on “Like This” and the head-bobbing title track) hold the hip-hop resume game tight. Though With Voices sometimes misses, it‘s mostly wet with impact. And if you need a break, the soothing pipes of Mia Doi Todd on “Earth‘s Children” and the avant tinkerings of Daedelus on “Sleep Stasis” ought to give your ass, and spine, a well-deserved rest.
