Moodymann is an outspoken and confrontational bad-ass, a press-averse Motor City militant who’s definitely not afraid to piss people off. He’s also a brilliant producer of often-transcendent music—are there any songs in the house universe more spine-tingling than “I Can’t Kick This Feeling When It Hits“?—and a magnetic, discerning and, at times, downright fun selector, mixing up soul classics, roller-skate bumpers, bluesy and dusty house, and various deep Detroit-isms with apparent glee. In other words, the artist is a man of many, er, moods—and over the 75 minutes of his mix for !K7′s first DJ-Kicks release of 2016, we’re treated to both somber and starry-eyed versions of the the man born Kenny Dixon, Jr. While the set might not be quite as dramatic as one might expect from such a mercurial kind of guy, it does zero in on the brain’s pleasure centers from myriad angles, hitting the mark with a veteran’s skilled accuracy.
The set commences with the shimmering, string-drenched soul of Yaw’s “Where Will You Be,” its doomed-love lyrics gliding effortlessly over angelic guitar strums. The slow jams continue, with varying degrees of forceful weight weaving in and out of the mix: Cody Chesnutt‘s organ-and-horn–led “Serve This Royalty,” a song that’s equal parts confidence and doubt, segues to Dopehead‘s Detroit street-life ode “Guttah Guttah,” a meaty hip-hop number featuring a sample from a particularly luscious version of “Let’s Stay Together.” Later, the beautifully busted R&B of Flying Lotus‘s “Tea Leaf Dancers” glides into the blunted lushness of “Les Nuits” from Nightmares on Wax—a cut that still raises goosebumps after all these years—followed by the cosmic-soul ethereality embedded within the Platinum Pied Pipers‘ version of Rich Medina‘s “Can’t Hold Back.”
And so it goes for the first half of the mix, with nary a four-to-the-floor kick to be found—and the mix is all the better for Moodymann’s patient build. When the 120-bpm oomph finally does appear, after the spell cast by the rhythmic interplay that’s come before, it’s almost a bit of a shock. But it’s a good kind of shock. Things get kicking with Rodney Hunter‘s boogie-blessed remix of Fort Knox Five‘s “Uptown Kicks”; Daniel Bortz‘s lightly Afro-Latin–tinged “Cuz You’re The One” follows, with jazz-funk disco from the ’70s-era Nigerian combo Tirogo, Rhodes piano-led bliss courtesy of Kings of Tomorrow, and blissful electro-boogie from Marcellus Pittmann among the tracks following in quick succession. The final two cuts could almost be construed as a mission statement from Moodymann, with Lady Alma‘s “It’s House Music” (“house music’s gonna make you groove” might look like a trite lyric on the screen, but from her lips, it’s pure gold) and, finally, Daniela La Luz‘s heartbreaking jewel of a track, “Did You Ever,” ending the party with something of an emotional roller coaster. It would be wrong to describe Moodymann’s DJ-Kicks set as a feel-good mix—it’s much more than that, brimming with the highs and lows that real life can offer—but it is a joy to listen to, and that in itself is plenty.
Next week, Norweigan techno imprint PLOINK will celebrate its 20-year anniversary with the release of the first in a trilogy of techno releases that shine a light on the brand’s core members.
The first, dropping on February 22, will feature Olso’s Prins Thomas, Urhaug (a.k.a.Tobii), Nordenstam, Christian Tilt, and fresh Bergen artist Hutmacher. PLOINK’s 20 years in existence began as a club night, and in the years since the party has brought some of the techno world’s royalty to Norway, including Detroit luminaries Jeff Mills and Derrick May. Helmed by Thomas Urv and Miss Motley, two Bergen promoters, producers, and DJs, the night eventually morphed into a label, as Urv explains:
“We started out as a techno club concept in rock/art/student venues in April 1996 following years of promoting parties in warehouses, old factories, as well as outside in the woods, mountains and fjord-islands around Bergen. Since then, PLOINK has presented a long list of international artists to club nights around Norway to share the stage with upcoming local talent. In spring 2014, we evolved into a label and have released nine EPs to date—all with Norwegian techno producers. Our main goal, apart from having fun, is to push Norwegian techno talent abroad.”
Ahead of the official release, and to give you a taste of what’s to come, PLOINK has offered up a full stream of Prins Thomas’ edit of Tromsø legend Mental Overdrive‘s “Hellbent.” You can stream the��dusty and atmospheric cut in the player above, with the EP available for preorder here.
Following his noteworthy contribution to the Farewell 50Weapons compilation and his III EP on his own Fizic imprint in 2015, Cosmin TRG (a.k.a. Cosmin Nicolae) has announced a forthcoming 12″ titled “Oblic/ Serpenti” that is slated for release in late March.
His fourth release on his entirely personal label, Nicolae claims that this edition to his series “further explores the dense textures present on last year’s III EP, but largely dispenses with the ennui in favor of a different discourse.”
You can check out more from Cosmin TRG by visiting his SoundCloud page here.
Zurich-based DJ-producer duo Adriatique have announced the release of their new EP. Scheduled for March release via Cityfox, Soul Valley is a double-sided release that perfectly displays the kind of detail-orientated, evocative house that Adriatique have become associated with.
Tracklisting: A. Soul Valley B. Understnd
Ahead of the its March release, the Soul Valley EP can be streamed in full below.
You don’t need to do much talking when you have Matmos on the phone. Chuck a few words their way and between the pair of Drew Daniel and Martin ‘MC’ Schmidt they will debate and discuss, laugh and lark for a good few minutes. They often disappear down a rabbit hole to muse on erudite tech talk, Jewish stand-up in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day, or their “bipolar relationship to music,” but eventually tail off and come back to the question. It’s as endearing as it is fascinating, as funny as it is informative, and is no real surprise given that they have now been both a couple and a band for 23 years.
“When you are this deep into something you don’t know what is yourself, and what is the other person,” offers Martin, the smart-looking taller of the two with glasses and short cropped hair. “We are a band and a couple at the same time. There is no separation, even if I loooong for a more professional working relationship,” he jokes, the first of many.
Given that we speak a day or two after the sudden passing of David Bowie, it seemed like a good place to start. Drew—who sports longer, scruffier hair and a bearded surfer look— is particularly reflective on the matter and has written “a big long rant about it” for The Talkhouse. As well as Matmos having sampled bits of Bowie over the years, he explains their debt to him runs much deeper and that he himself has been a fan since he was 17. Though not directly a lover of Bowie’s music back then—he was more into punk and hardcore—he appreciates that without Bowie’s precedent, the Bauhaus he loves wouldn’t exist.
“He was basically a model for how to have a long career,” muses Drew, who is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at John Hopkins University by day. “He kept changing. The depth he showed later in life, not just playing his hits—that’s fucking awesome. He made the point that being an artist is something you do for life, not just a thing you have on your way to employment. Punk is to not stop doing it when you are 28 and ugly.”
It’s a lesson Daniel and Schmidt, both well past 28, have clearly taken great heed of during their long and storied careers. They are, of course, famed for being wildly inventive both in the studio and on the stage. In their time they have made albums based around parapsychological experiments (2013’s The Marriage of True Minds), have spent 97 hours in session at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and distilled the recordings into 2006’s Work, Work, Work, and have also recorded the sonic details of various surgical procedures—the snips, clicks, snaps, and squelches—then stitched them together into some really rather melodic techno for 2001’s A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure.
Revealing that they take it in turns to come up with the concept for each of their albums, most recently it was Martin’s go. Seven years Drew’s senior, he is, “like the Mrs.—I do all the laundry and cooking as Drew is a professor so is actually busy. I spend most of my time masturbating on the Internet and cooking and cleaning.” It is these long and lonely days around their Baltimore apartment that led Martin to look closer at the washing machine they own. It sits in the laundry room next to the studio and is, he figured, all but an instrument in itself. Given that the pair has a long history of working with just one object to make music, they agreed that this particular challenge they would, “take to level two. We said, ‘let’s not just make one song, but an entire album from it.’ Once the challenge was on the table, we couldn’t step back from it.”
Martin continues. “I spend a lot of intimate time with the washing machine,” he laughs. “I began to realize that an album would write itself because, you know, it has rhythms and cycles.” When asked how he received the proposal, Drew admits he initially thought it was a joke. “It borders of self-parody of Matmos. It’s like what someone would joke about us making—an album with a washing machine.”
After mulling it over, it seemed the much more interesting option than the other one on the table at the time, which was to record and release the 25-minute pieces of improvisation they have been performing live for the last decade. “But boy, is that not exciting,” says Drew in an exaggerated drawl. And so it was decided. Recording of the washing machine began right away.
That in itself presented something of a challenge. In order to get a robust physical recording, the pair had to experiment with mike placement, often using three at once at different distances in order to get a proper stereo field. Contact mics were also added to get rich bass, and when all the channels were later added up they had a real sense of proximity and presence, placing the washing machine in a very real space rather than just ending up with a bunch of abstract sounds. It was a long process, but one quite different from previous albums where the duo, originally from San Francisco, had only limited access to the rarefied stuff they were recording.
At this point, Drew’s chatter turns back to Bowie. “I read a long fucking time ago about a technique where he used a system where there were mikes standing off from his mouth at different distances. They tracked them all separately so they could dynamically mix the closeness and farness of his voice. I was thinking about that—it extends into musique concrète, too— on this project, so we had one mike in the drum [it ’s a top loading washer so can be run with the lid open], one on the top, then there was a wave transducer stuck to the thing so you have an almost impossible cubist recording of this object.”
The resulting album takes its name from the washer used, the Whirlpool Ultimate Care II, and, naturally, last the exact same length as a full wash cycle. It takes you in and out of the machine musically, and ranges from rhythmically subtle and suggestive to trapped in heavyweight, chugging, cyclical grooves. There is an effortless fluidity to the thing, as well as all manner of textured surfaces, screams and squeals. Melodies even make an appearance and add some real world beauty and emotion to the mechanical moods and grooves all around.
On paper, this might sound like a wacky experiment in noise—but the resulting album, released on Thrill Jockey, is in fact enjoyable and coherent, sensual and remarkably accessible. And that was always the aim, to make something that stands the test of musicality.
“I have delighted over the decades in the reaction to how we describe our projects and then play them to people and they say ‘Oh, that isn’t as bad as I thought; it isn’t horrible unlistenable garbage.”
“We aren’t grim experimental musicians who are presenting the results of an experiment no matter what,” says Martin. “I want people to be able to tap their foot to it. I have delighted over the decades in the reaction to how we describe our projects and then play them to people and they say ‘Oh, that isn’t as bad as I thought; it isn’t horrible unlistenable garbage.” That perspective, and the innate sense of humor Daniel and Schmidt share, is key to this album working as a musical experience rather than a document of what is possible with recording equipment and digital software.
“I’m sort of throwing down a gauntlet,” says Martin. “We’re Matmos, and yes, it’s a silly idea, but when you listen to the LP it cuts the other way. Is it all silly, is it a stupid joke? It’s also, hopefully—I mean, it’s weird to complement yourself and I don’t want to suck my own dick too much here—but hopefully this album is sad, beautiful, funny, not funny.”
When asked what is music, where are the limits and how often they consider such things, the pair state that they in fact think of their own music as pop, and that they hope almost anybody should be able to listen to it and get something out of it. Essentially, all their crazy projects over the years have one thing in common; they show people that there is music in every day life. “We get e-mails from people saying that all the time. We sort of offer a step ladder to a vantage point to hear the world differently. That is a good thing we have done for some people.”
In their own worlds, Daniel and Schmidt also listen to plenty of ‘normal music’ and cite everything from glossy R&B to Young Thug and Jermemih, which “I hear and enjoy the same as anyone,” says Drew. “The phrasing, the intelligence and the choruses that make it compelling.” As well as that, though, they go off on tangents about field-recording artists like Chris Watson, avant-garde composers like Alvin Lucier, and about the “forceful amplification of the world” these artists are aiming for. They themselves prefer to have their hands involved in the music-making process, somehow, and thus are quite different from those who work purely with raw found sounds.
It is fair to say Matmos are subversive. They look to show you the beauty in something ugly, the simplicity in something complicated. They like to step outside their comfort zone and take you outside of yours, which is not something that can be said of many artists. “Even supposedly harsh and dark textures, if you know you will only be in a dark apocalyptic wasteland for 40 minutes, fundamentally that’s conservative,” rants Drew. “Artists allow you to stay in that sensibility and never challenge you, so even work that thinks it’s edgy is not. It’s reliable. We don’t want to be reliable, and that’s what I loved about Throbbing Gristle. They make harsh noise then put out a pop ditty. They didn’t want you to be able to pigeonhole them, but that comes at a great cost—you never get really big.”
Bowie, of course, was the exception to the rule, and Matmos are not far behind. Currently working on an expanded version of the opera they have done in New York and Olso, they have also talked about touring this latest album with a working washing machine up on stage with them. Always challenging themselves and never less than fascinating in what they attempt, the only thing they are sure of right now is that it is Drew’s turn to conceptualize the next album—and that beyond that, “making plans is dangerous.”
Danish production duo Kenton Slash Demon (a.k.a. Silas Moldenhawer and Jonas Kenton) will release its TT/Dok 12″ on March 11 via Australian label Future Classic.
Originally started as a side project to the indie-electro group When Saints Go Machine—of which Moldenhawer and Kenton make up one half—Kenton Slash Demon has gone on to release a slew of critically acclaimed releases. This will be the duo’s second release on Future Classic, following its widely received Harpe/Syko 12″ which was released this past September.
You can stream the forthcoming EP’s closing track “Dok” in the player below. Be sure to check out more from Kenton Slash Demon by visiting its SoundCloud page here.
Following his wildly successful Intermissions EP on Ghostly International, Shigeto‘s track “Pulse” has recently received a breathtaking visual accompaniment. The impressive and fluid animated video comes from visual artist Matthias Brown (a.k.a TraceLoops).
With the release of this video, Ghostly International has proclaimed it to be the first piece in a forthcoming series titled GhostlyInterstitial. While details regarding the new series remain scarce, it is safe to assume that it will involve more striking and unique animations for various tracks from Ghostly’s deep (and growing) catalog.
Watch a studio performance between Shigeto and Ghostly resident artist Michael Cina here.
You can learn more about TraceLoops by visiting his website here.
DeWalta and Mike Shannon have announced plans to release a collaborative album, entitled Residual, on the Indigo Raw imprint.
Scheduled for March 11 release, the eight-track LP comes split into two vinyl releases and a third, comprehensive digital drop. Residual appears first as a playful introduction to the lay of the land, complete with a modular monster aptly named “Jugular Dub” that could belong to no one else but these two. The second instalment brings us the old-school track begging for a big room, “Miss Wrench,” followed by a deconstructed jam session on the moon and rounded out by the sonar-bleeping “Duality.”
But three’s a charm, and the final, digital release features the “Slicks,” and a dark, slow-mover titles “Right Under Your Tongue.” It would seem, once again, these two Berlin-based artists have outdone themselves.
In advance of the LP’s March 11 release, snippets of “Jugular Dub” can be streamed below.
Austria has been swelling with left-field and experimental producers as of late, and labels like Ventil Records are taking things a bit further with their third album release titled Split. The new LP is the combined efforts of producers Asfast and Peter Kutin, both of whom have a connecting theme in their productions and seem to resonate off of each other well with this new collaboration.
The record starts off with three haunting tracks from 24 year old producer Vienna-based producer Asfast, who meticulously created his signature sounds by carving out tracks with high precision and front-loaded prominence, creating a balance of minimalism coupled together with maximum drone. All three tracks from Asfast are steely in nature but also candid and straight forward. Following are three tracks by Kutin, whose music has been described as ‘undeniably effective’. The second half of the record definitely takes a surprising turn when Kutin is at the controls. Together, Asfast and Kutin have created a powerful, clever and unique release that will throw you off balance as much as it will embrace you. Kutin sets off a dark and brutal pathway during the middle of his half of the record, while also offering a stripped back richness of sharply-moving synth sounds and shamanic percussion.
Purchase of the vinyl includes unlimited streaming of Split via the Bandcamp app, and includes high-quality downloads in multiple digital formats. The record was cut by Rashad Becker over at Dubplates and the tracks were mastered for vinyl by Martin Siewert. The artwork for the album was created by Eiko Gröschl and Benjamin Tomasi.
To find out more about Ventil Records next release, check them out on Bandcamp. To listen to the Split LP by Asfast & Peter Kutin, click on the media players below.
Known for his constant evolution in the studio and comprehensive performance style, Detroit Techno Militia’s own Shawn Rudiman has never stopped honing his craft as a live techno producer. During the later part of January, Shawn Rudiman hit the road for two tour dates that were accompanied by extended DJ sets from Smart Bar resident and God Particle label owner, Sassmouth. The two Mid-West producers shared the stage in Chicago as part of a B2B session with Jeff Derringer at Oktave, and they performed in Los Angeles as part of a headlining show for the long-running warehouse techno party series Dirty Epic. Both of these events were met with incredible reviews, with Shawn being praised on his versatility with his machines and Sassmouth’s flexibility on the turntables. The recording of Rudiman’s live performance from the Los Angeles event was quickly secured and is now being graciously offered up for download. This two-hour mix showcases Rudiman in full form, shifting from machine to machine while fully focused on creating on-the-fly arrangements while also meticulously mastering his sounds throughout.
To find out more about Shawn Rudiman and Sassmouth, click here. You can grab a free download of Shawn Rudiman performing live at Dirty Epic in Los Angeles by clicking on the WeTransfer button below.
