Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: Marc Houle / ‘Undercover’ (Items & Things)

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★★★★☆

Marc Houle develops an appreciation of ’80s electro and house, paying homage with vampish tactics and stirring in his own ingredients, so as to retell the tale of ‘in the beginning there was Jack.’ Having shifted from long-term employers M_Nus, the Canadian connoisseur in club basics has tracks backtracking toward standard synthesized shock and awe. The title track is of a pointed cleanness staring right through you, and “Under the Neath” pushes electro-techno headfirst into the abyss, while the authentic excellence of “Juno 6660” reopens warehouses from twenty five years ago. Roule is also hypnotic before you can exclaim so, with a sense of the improvised to the swirling rhythms of “Very Bad.”

Under another selector’s tutelage Undercover, whose scope and execution is actually cautious to the point of being stifled, could have been a throwaway case of dance floor stealth. Plugging in, powering up and a lot of the time playing pilot rather than personality, Houle gamely adopts presets more than turning away from them, but maximizes with 45 minutes of the highly jackable. Through ping-pong rhythms and elevated beeping and squeaking (the childlike rummages through the tool and toy-box of “Bink”), it’s a true understanding of the man-machine alliance.
File under: Rosaire Argyle; Run Stop Restore; Click Box

Album Review: Alex Under / ‘La Máquina de Bolas’ (Soma)

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★★★☆☆

An ambient album that’s essentially a dreamy essay about how to control a loop in the middle of the pleasure-pain theory, you can take Alex Under as a sedative or someone to whiten your knuckles by. Ten- and 11-minute passages from the Spaniard mean there’s a lot of time for thoughts to enter your head. If you turn it on and leave it humming in the background, that’s fine — therapeutic washing machines and faraway steam trains are comparable in sound if your mind is set to counting sheep by slow stewing house. If you’re an insomniac who can’t stand playing shepherd, you’ll be drawn in by the scrabbling, rhythmic raindrops and subtle insertion of tension. The cycling, sometimes tribal kaleidoscope, becomes undercut with blood reds and monochrome slashes, before morphing out with charming and carefree burbles and flickers to have you teetering on the edge of the bed. Atmosphere creeps up and cloaks you from faint composition gaining strands of strength (“Bola 4” records the sounds of wandering dead souls) and patient programming, which sounds an obvious component to press home, but shouldn’t be overlooked.

La Máquina de Bolas translates as “pinball machine.” Under isn’t interested in high scores and hitting flippers into a blur, but nonetheless chops and screws the LCD displays and sets the ball shooting down the runway in slow mesmeric motion.
File under: Dolly La Parton, Friendly People, Thomas Fehlmann

Compilation Review: ‘Tectonic Plates Volume 3’ (Tectonic)

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★★★★☆

Bristol’s Tectonic label, the guardians of the dark arts, ancient secrets and sacred skills in dubstep and bass, set up a third upsurge of aftershocks formed by irresistible militia. After fire is opened by a tremendous opening salvo from venomous scheme team Kryptic Minds, Tunnidge and Pinch send in epically brooding Trojan horses, spearheading a collection armed with tenterhooks, tripwires, knife edges and hair triggers. While the force through restraint and meticulousness is admirable, putting the strange and beautiful into the dead of night, you’re thinking it can only be a matter of time before a deserter begins dissenting and blows the whole project open after such a blockbuster hush.

Goth Trad’s “Mach” puts feelers out and begins lock-picking on the rumbles of discontent with a flurry of feet, before the compilation teasingly scurries back into its bunker. Ginz’ synth-scape “Chrome” breaks the silence and drops serious weight, and Om Unit floods the sound barrier with something that can only be described as a serious, er… swooshiness, like the sound of a million window cleaners scraping in time. Illum Sphere, Kevin McPhee and Monky don’t so much break the mould as shapeshift, through deep 4×4 sounds and a jungle-twisting sneak attack from the latter, that still treat the Tectonic riddles as strictly confidential. Steeped in suspense, the third platter is nothing short of 100% quality.
File under: Author, 2562, Jack Sparrow

Album Review: Ed Davenport / ‘Counterchange’ (NRK)

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★★★★☆

Another UK to Germany transplant, Ed Davenport has a rock-solid base of deep sounds that he chisels into techno, dubstep and electronica. So while you’re getting a 12-track, after-dark vibe that’s all cut from the same stone, he can switch from light meandering patter (the paranormal title track that could fit into any dance category – another plus point regarding his adaptability) to using the same elements for something much heavier (techno butcher “One Last Look”). With a therefore natural handover between the two (“Djungel Alliance” is stinging Detroit/acid with a knowhow in staying afloat), Davenport has something approaching perfect album flow.

As everything is kept on an interdependent level, Davenport uses variables of intensity to create the perfect club scenario of switching between rooms but essentially staying in the same place. There is an argument, however, for saying his limited repertoire is at the mercy of how far he pitches up and down the beats per minute. “More Red Lights” and “A Bridge Mystic” are more predictable deep house movements, though entirely what the album is set up for, and “Somewhere” and “Sarum” do offer routes out through more unclassified dance. Therefore don’t doze off and think Counterchange is one ever decreasing circle, but a spidergram smartly developing from a singular idea.
File under: Szenario, Oliver Deutschmann, Wbeeza