Compilation Review: ‘Aquasky presents Bring The Ruckus’ (Passenger)

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★★★☆☆

Bass — a twin stroke turbo of skidding past your ears and shuffling your vital organs. Booty-hunting ragga — brought in to hype the party until the cops shut it down. And dusty dub — sent bouncing into a saw-toothed spotlight. Even if you think it’s a 19-track statement featuring a lot of familiar sounds, faces and samples — as big a rush as Bring the Ruckus provides, there’s no denying some same old stories — it seems to be filling a nice gap between EDM and bro-step through its big dipper of BPMs. See The Autobots & Dead Audio joining forces to get hands raised, and MadRush’s “Get Ya Vs Up” creating an elbow-skinning sea of two-fingered salutes.

Hectic yet schooling some of dubstep’s in-yer-face projectiles when the likes of RadioKillaz add the rave string to the bow, breaks shouldn’t start marketing itself as some intermediary third wheel. EDM’s sap and smiley simplistics aren’t up for discussion either. Rennie Pilgrem’s fireball “One By One” heads a pack constantly breaking the back of wack parties and revelling as the energy drink-mainlining renegade, with 601’s “Strobelight” looking for the nearest china shop to clatter into. Aquasky remind everyone of breaks’ energy levels that are never found dropping to show it won’t get left behind in the bass trends race. That title repels what others throw at it, creating some fearsome bottom end monsters as retaliation.

File under: Far Too Loud, Black & Blunt, Breakfastaz

Compilation Review: ‘The Masters Series – François K’ (Renaissance)

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★★★★☆

Must…not…use…the…phrase…musical journey… However, both discs start with hall-of-famer François K asking you whether you are dancing comfortably with the offer of poolside house and funky grins, before progressing into barbarian techno seeing the spinner turn from easygoing accommodator to sinew-snapping overlord. Kevorkian is chancing his arm to be honest; his ears have obviously never left the streets, yet you’d hazard a guess that not everyone who starts with him stays to the end.

Seeing the sun dip until eyeballing its fiery fury quickly dissolves the homely introductions, Daniel Avery & Factory Floor herald disc one’s change in pressure with eerily wound synth lines and acid rebounds. The party is both over and just warming up, heading steadily deeper and darker despite the upbeat resistance of Detroit Swindle, and Kevorkian holding his nerve in the furnace’s ensuing heat with Marcus Worgull & Peter Padeike’s “Salam.” Scuba starts to blister the dance floor with drawn out domination, and to follow this with Locked Groove’s Balearic soother “Dream Within a Dream” is like an ice lolly to a sore throat. A Made Up Sound and Blawan then replace the tranquilizer with raging hot chillies.

Assured assertion and funky, tropical seasoning has the good times flowing through Michel de Hey & Flashmob. Sunshine streaks from disc two’s every corner until again, François’ predatory hunting and digital deconstruction starts to storm the place, letting rumbling techno shot-callers Stephen Brown and Gary Beck shear you with their hi-hats.

File under: Technasia, Nautiluss, Alden Tyrell

Album Review: Mr. C / ‘Smell the Coffee’ (Superfreq)

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★★★★☆

Wake up and get a whiff of this legendary house personality’s beans, sniffing at decadence but wanting you to breathe in and summon architects of the 303 and 808. Mr. C being one of that very ilk himself, a sustained UK representer getting punchy on the drums while sinewy nip and tuck rhythms loop until they’ve braided your brain and given the tunes their robustness.

Bringing a little Ebenezer Goode to the otherwise stoic acid stroll “The Future” after “Open Up” dances and prances to classic glam house, “War Games” is precisely the kind of squelching, shifty jacker that would have once been presumed the work of another entity. “Can’t Get Enough” lets red light sleaze sneak into its cow-belled lair of wickedness as C welcomes you with pointed tail and pitchfork, then takes you to your leader as self-help instructional “Synchronicity” exits the darkness.

Only the fullness of sound and a lack of vinyl crackle/needle fluff separate these from being ’88 rediscoveries. You don’t think it has set out to be a retrospective LP, but the reverence is excellent, going on to cover the Moroder-ish “The Hunt” and battlestar electro pair “Step It Up” and “Interaction” (which go some way to explaining that pretty naff sleeve). Something for the dance floor to really absorb and take stock of when all it can see is passing cellular glow and the flash of a CDJ.

File under: Evil Eddie Richards, Dave Clarke, Richard Sen

Album Review: DJ Koze / ‘Amygdala’ (Pampa)

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★★★★☆

Koze through the looking glass is a reading of bedtime stories for cosmic disco romantics. A follower of its own path and bringing an enchantment honored by the album cover’s mediaeval superhero impersonation, its light-fingered grip holds firm throughout. Heavy is the path less travelled, winding up like clockwork until the springs go loco when it does, with sighing vocals indicative of the reassurances Koze consistently offers.

Deep house settlers keep things simple, working a little heartening charm that lets you reach your own woozy highs and joys, whether by long unbroken background synth lines (“Royal Asscher Cut”), the impeccably preened (“Ich Schreib’ Dir Ein Buch”) or just by knowing that Koze will take his time until you’re soul-deep in the beats, with a plinking set of chimes here or a Beams-worthy appearance by Matthew Dear there.

“Magical Boy” notifies that spring has sprung, complete with the sound of bounding bunnies and a cast of quirks. “Das Wort” holds a flashlight to the face of Dirk von Lowtzow, but becomes a cuddly folk-in-toytown detour, part of another facet that Koze might spring something new at any moment despite gambolling down a pretty preordained yellow brick road. “Homesick” is more a neo-soul format with a Susanne Vega-style lead, and “Marilyn Whirlwind” jumps out at you with a rare lack of sensitivity but plenty more funk and electricity compared to the headswims Koze coaches.

File under: Swahimi, Apparat, Noze