Crosstown Rebels

Premiere: Serge Devant – “The Way You Move”

Darren Ressler Leave a Comment

Serge Devant - The Way You Move

Big Apple DJ/producer Serge Devant continues to evolve his sound with each new release. After collaborating with Damiano on the sprawling deep-house vocal cut “Fearing Love” featuring Camille Safiya issued on Jamie Jones and Lee Foss’ new label Emerald City, Devant makes his debut appearance on Crosstown Rebels‘ off-shoot label Rebellion.

His latest EP was inspired by a recent trip to Thailand. During the trek Devant captured field recordings of everything from a gong meditation to sounds of a rainy night in the jungle, with those sonics adding a captivating layer to his sound.

Devant’s musical epiphany can be heard on “The Way You Move,” a sinewy cut featuring meticulously crafted percussion, which we’re extremely pleased to world premiere. The track’s meditative vocal fosters a hypnotic vibe on the bare-bones minimal track.

Here’s hoping travel continues to inspire Devant’s work.

Serge Devant’s “The Way You Move”/”Intentions” EP is released June 21 on Rebellion.

Premiere: Take A First Listen to DAVI’s “The Gates Of Babylon”

Darren Ressler Leave a Comment

DAVI The Gates of Babylon premiere

Rising Los Angeles-based house star David “DAVI” Khanjian has been coming on strong in the past few years, recording tracks for quality labels like Anjunadeep, Outside the Box Music, Treibstoff, Nine Records, Stripped Music Recordings and Bits & Pieces as well as DJing in India, Ecuador, Canada, Argentina, New Caledonia and Europe. With his profile at its highest, Khanjian continues to spread his musical wings across techno, house and progressive.

We’re thrilled to premiere DAVI’s “The Gates Of Babylon,” a sexy Middle East flavored instrumental out December 15 on Crosstown Rebels’ sub label Rebellion, which slithers over a deep, warm groove. Embark on the monumental journey below.

Album Review: Mathew Jonson / ‘Her Blurry Pictures’ (Crosstown Rebels)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

Mathew Jonson Her Blurry Pictures

★★★★☆

Mathew Jonson is in deep thought. Sinewy house and electro strands weaved with quick fingers like a hacker running rampant on a computer keyboard, his high zoom digital lens progresses into the languid deep, catching itself on its way to slumber while something inside fidgets all night long. The Canadian spins relatively close to his chest as a real advocate of letting the music do all the talking. His sentinel stance slickly makes sounds tick over and applies pressure with seemingly little exertion, next to no friction but plenty of lubrication; the funky efficiency of “Touch the Sky” champions how to avoid overextension but still carrying forward the stamina of a marathon runner. Very Crosstown Rebels, in fact.

Then, mixing trance chords and blunt breakbeats on “Lightweight Champion” makes a logical step when it should be incompatible; Jonson recalibrates the timekeeper persona of precision dynamics and starts swiping like a grizzly trying to claw at a bug. On the other hand, the excellent techno-acid spasm “Body in Motion” is the trigger to becoming the aggressor — still wiry, but now revving its feet back like a bull — and will please those hoping he’d hop out from the DJ booth and get amongst the throng below. Closing with the title track’s ambient swirl makes an even less seamless path from A to B as Jonson quietly evolves within the space of just eight tracks.

File under: Cobblestone Jazz, Modern Deep Left Quartet, Midnight Operator

Compilation Review: ‘Get Lost 5, mixed by Acid Pauli’ (Crosstown Rebels)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★★★☆

His house music spun by candlelight with a faint and quirky glow, Acid Pauli is playing for a select band of trusted followers — a few more than a back to mine, but not by much, with everything cosily cocooned in a cave-turned-club. Crucially not fading into the pallid or the muted, augmented by a sense of the noble (Kadebostan), the sultry (Raz Ohara) and the not-of-this-world (the Speak n Spell guesting on Normal Brain’s “M-U-S-I-C”), Martin Gretschmann is resident DJ to a secret society and faraway place that takes two discs, two and a half hours and a secret middle compartment to get to. Oddballs from Nicolas Jaar and the slightly creepy Jan Turkenburg, where Pauli flies closer to the sun, make nice with Move D’s lounge groove and Pauli’s own “Farewell Fred” offering sounds coming in from the cold.

Disc two carries on with the stylish, tribally-attuned modesty, broadening the mix’s weight with Pauli & Nannue Tipitier trying to swell its band of followers who have hung on his every beat so far. It does edge towards regular deep house dalliances in the dark, with the greater shimmies of Kabale Und Liebe and Tempo Di Roma discovering an ass-to-shake ratio. Intercepted by the steel drums of Taron Trekka and the reassurances of Calico Horse, Francesca Lombardo and The Band That Never Met, the candles begin to flicker this way and that, but never go out.

File under: NU, dOP, Console