Music Institute 20th Anniversary 12″ Pt. 1 – NDATL

 There are those clubs that loom in the imagination of music devotees and depending on where your allegiances lie they may differ drastically. But for anyone claiming the slightest interest in techno’s history they should recognize the seminal Detroit club from 1988 to 1990 that was the Music Institute. For those that never attended, the stories handed down by word of mouth seem like mythical legends. Where those times as good as what our minds hope them to be? With DJ sets coming from residents D Wynn, Kevin Saunderson, Chez Damier, Alton Miller every weekend; Derrick May testing out fresh tracks straight from his two-track Vestax recorder; Juan Atkins dropping in for guest spots; Detroit techno and house being shared at basically its infancy, I should think so.  (There is a great little  write-up of MI by Alan Oldham on Kai Alce’s blog here.)

From that time came great music,  tried and tested classics, most of which has been shared with the world and is known. Or at least that was what was thought. Luckily , Kai Alce has unearthed tracks that were shelved, gathering dust in closets, on reel-to-reel tape for all these years and brought them into the light. Part 1 in what is planned to be a 3 part series of 12″s features tracks that extend through some readily apparent origins and some not so recognizable. The most obvious is the A1 track by Derrick May that sounds like it came out of the “Sinister” production era; syncopated 909 drum programming with a rolling DX bassline,  and a discharge of dramatic rough hewn strings reminiscent of a nascent “Strings of Life” melody. A2 with its more spare and straightforward approach to techno falls somewhere between Octave One’s trackier efforts and say Mills’s “Late Night.” The B-side draws focus in on the house side of what most likely would have been played on the Saturday night by residents Chez and Alton. B1 is a soulful house outing featuring understated but expressive female vocals over a funky 303 bassline with ad-libbed piano work . This song stands out in terms of providing a real hook and song structure, and then changing up with a strong jazz flow 2/3 of the way in as the piano melody gets fleshed out and the lyrics turn into a scat. The last track retains the housey leanings but instead keeps the vocals limited to just a looped sample and places the target firmly on the groove. The first half features a lilting organ line before changing gears and bringing in a massive funk bassline ensconced in a dirty keyboard sample. It’s a track that would not be out of place on an early KDJ release but I have a feeling this is the work of Alton Miller. Any takers? 

Keep your eyes out for Part 2. Who knows what it will bring but more goodies from the vault. One thing is for sure, they are never to be repressed so get your hands on a copy.

Black Secret Technology

“Alita’s Dream” comes from Guy Called Gerald’s Black Secret Technology album and is one of many songs from it that 14 years later finally speaks to me. Coming off a bit like a drum & bass version of his 808 State track “Pacific 202″ it has a grittier feel and harshness in the drums but is balanced with glistening chords, snippets of digital sax and a touch of rasta speech. Elsewhere from the album I’ve found that the female vocals are not the distraction I once thought they were and actually add a signficant depth to the tracks. On “Energy” he takes something that on paper (ambient diva jungle?) sounds atrocious and distills the base elements and manages to coalesce them into something mesmerizing. There’s plenty more on tracks like “Cyberjazz” and “The Reno” and of course the future soul of “Finley’s Rainbow.”

IMPS – Remixed

Plucked from the IMPS ‘08 album Bring Out The Imps on Mule Electronic, the recent spurt of remix EPs (titled bluntly enough as Remixed Volume  1, 2 and 3) work like a triptych honoring the capricious jazz informed original work and in some cases improving on the ideas explored. Volume 1 offered up snappy techno from Minilogue themselves and an ambient skronk fest from Jan Jelinek . Volume 2, got busy with the always interesting Isolee working a quirky bassline and melodic flourishes on “Unkle Limps” while Strategy looped the horn and a funky keyboard lick from “Get A Grip” turning it into a mid-tempo dubby house freakout. Turning attention to the last (or most timely) in the series, Volume 3, continues to up the ante with remix offerings from Move D and Thomas Fehlmann, a pairing that equates to a monster truck rally of German electronic luminaries. Neither stray too far off the basic genre assignment of the  track but manage to steer their remix into territory that outshines the originals.

Move D takes the cleverly titled “Almost Live But Definitely Plugged” and grounds the kick drum on solid deep house soil, a bass that pulses with an italo flair and  handclaps that sound like they came in straight off the campfire. A tightly curled standup bassline drives through the remainder of the the track before unfurling all manner of jazzy keyboard flourishes, hovering warm Rhodes tonal chords, and  continual vocal intonations of a few key words like “best” and “yeah.” Then about halfway-through percussion overload hits as the cymbals and drum sticks get a subtle but through workout. It all adds up to a rather fine example of how to fuse deep house with jazz elements while avoiding the cliched characteristics of each genre’s inherent traits. 

Thomas Fehlmann’s remix of “Heaven and Bagpipes” takes the original’s Byzantine dub meets Spaghetti-western theme and doesn’t do much different to it, but what is done is absolutely magnificent. Opening with glowing pads, birds, other found sound,  and then eastern percussion it feels like the only item missing is a monologue from Sir Richard Attenborough to give it that Orb stamp. And there is certainly a thread tying it back to Fehlmann’s rotational footing in the ambient house group but it’s obvious what he’s always brought to the table in that collaboration as it sits firmly on display here: a percussive ebb and flow to the rhythm that pulls you in while challenging you to find the current’s true direction; dubby bass and rhythm guitar emerge spontaneously while Middle Eastern touches of the original get woven into the track’s edges. It ends where you might expect it, with a fade out to the opening’s luminous warmth, a signal to nightfall. A fitting end to this excellent series of remixes.

Genre-fication

 

I remember a time when genres meant almost nothing, back in ‘92-’93 when I really started to mine the ‘dance’ page (yes, I do mean that in terms of singularity in most cases) of British music mags like NME, Melody Maker, Select, etc for releases to try and find. There was a monthly visit to the mall’s conglomerate book store-the only place in mid-Missouri to occasionally bother stocking music periodicals-in the hopes of picking up a new issue of something that clued me in. I scoured the racks of mainstream record stores desperate to find some crumbs of this new sound (to me).  Reviews weren’t limited to singular genre stratification but were all-inclusive toward coverage of most anything that either contained a beat or produced primarily on electronic gear. I can still remember reading and re-reading a small section of reviews stretching from 69’s “Lite Music” to something like Pete Namlook’s prolific ambient emissions on the Fax label. The newsprint faded and wrinkled after multiple re-readings, the words unfurling descriptions of futuristic music that had burgeoning stylistic namesakes accompanying them but seemed to fit altogether no matter what affiliation they could be linked to. It was a road marker but hardly a final destination point.

Then as the ‘dance’ journalism morphed into whole glossy mags with page after page of reviews dedicated to singular genres, 12″ reviews were compartmentalized to a granular level. At first it seemed logical as publications like Jockey Slut, Magic Feet and Muzik gained legitimacy by placing educated writers and/or DJs with passion for the music into place, managing the genre specific columns, highlighting top picks, and dismissing disappointing misses as it were. For a time I remember anticipating new issues to peruse at the newstands here in Seattle, attempting to add to the ever expanding record wish-list that is imprinted in any music fanatic’s brain. As if any one critic’s descriptions and opinions could serve as a guiding light, it did occasionally seem to serve as a guide post for directing and shaping tastes, if only for a time. Eventually, the magazines began to drill down genre parameters to a granular level that created silos for releases to inhabit and also narrowly defined what was to be covered.  

Fast forward to now and when you look at what Beatport, Juno and the like have attempted to do with their genre categorizing I wonder if we haven’t gone backwards. The genre assignments are so broad in some cases that what gets lumped together has almost no resemblance to the release/artist that its rubbing elbows with. Chymera as best chill out artist? The recent Intrusion “Tswana Dub” under the techno heading? Move D considered minimal? Deadmau5’s “1981″ is labelled as deep house but it’s a million miles away from Larry Heard. Los Hermanos is doing progressive house now? I’m not saying artists need to be confined to the style(s) that their oriigns dictate or that we should do away with labelling altogether but is there a better way to assign?

Maybe it’s too subjective a process to ever hope to get right from all perspectives. And maybe there’s far too much music and not enough time for an outlet to be able to fully ascertain what goes where. It’s possible that we all hear something held within each song that others cannot, our own experiences and knowledge of what came before influencing how we interpret what we are hearing. I know that whenever I am downloading new track for the first time I assign new genres as appropriate to my ears, and sometimes I find that I need to go back and re-classify. I just know that I can only rely on what my own history and understanding of music tells me.

Hello world!

I just decided to enter the world of blogging. Looking forward to writing about music that may not be getting as much attention or just plain digging up old records that are still meaningful to me. Keep your eye out for upcoming posts in the near future.