More on Omar-S

The recent Omar-S interview I did for RA kicked up a good bit of dirt all over the interwebs dance discussion areas. The comments on the interview itself are pretty widely varied, with plenty of the kind of moronic reaction you would expect from people who can’t stand to hear something that comes from outside their sphere of experience. Ronan Fitzgerald has a few inane comments on this phenomenon, coming to the conclusion that he prefers interviews in which the artist tries to blow as much smoke up the asses of the readers as possible. The way I approach all my interviews is that you can get more information about an artist just talking to them like it was a casual conversation than you can by trying to get inside their minds. In fact, I think that trying to get someone to philosophize on their thoughts and processes is a sure-fire way to get them to throw up as much bullshit as possible. I think a good interview really captures a person’s personality, and that is what I am trying to do. The positive comments I see from people lead me to believe that that is happening, though I think there is room for improvement. This interview in particular was odd since I wanted to cover mostly things that were going on NOW without re-covering the things we dealt with in my first interview with him.

The “critics” over at the I Love Music board sure had a fun time discussing things while I was temporarily banned. There seems to me more complaints that I didn’t ask emo questions, or that the responses given were somehow “engineered” by me. Hilarious, really. These reactions are why I think it is so important that other voices are heard. RA actually has a new interview up with DJ Sneak that is also markedly different from the norm. Their little sidebar also mentions cats I never would have thought we’d be seeing in print in ’09 like DJ Skull and Robert Armani. Hopefully this is part of a progression towards better coverage from a knowledgeable perspective on US house and techno music.

Moving on to the actual recent releases by Omar-S, I finally got a copy of the Fabric mix CD and I have to say that it is pretty fucking dope. Despite leaving out my personal favorite track of his “Just Ask the Lonely”, he nails most of the highlights of his catalog regardless of style. Slightly altered mixes of “U” (now with more vocals!) and a track of his that I slept on “Blade Runner” sound really dope, while all the new ones are tasty as well. “Cruising Conant” sounds like Mike Dunn in banging jack tracks mode, while “Polycopter” envisions some kind of alien craft lifting off. The most impressive part of the mix is how diverse the sounds and moods are despite all coming from the same producer. Sci-fi techno tracks rub elbows with deep garage vocals, all with a little Motown and Dan Bell thrown in for good measure. Some of the transitions are a little odd at first due to how disparate the moods are, but that is the price you pay for dealing with a producer who doesn’t put out cookie cutter tracks. Even though I already had all the tracks on here aside from the unreleased ones, the mixing and flow do justice to all the tracks and the new mixes make for an exciting listen. Mostly though, I just loving having these all together sounding nice and loud to bang in my ride while driving through the city, that’s what this mix is best suited for.

The same day I got the Fabric mix in the mail, I also got the other non-FXHE release by Alex: the “Blown Valvetrain” 12″ on Sound Signature. At the same time he is making moves towards a high profile with the Fabric mix, Omar-S brings his most underground sounding 12″ in years on a label that should see him move a ton more copies than any of his other releases. The tracks on here take me back to those early FXHE releases like “For Us All” and “Track #8”, but the new cuts are possibly even more lo-fi. My personal favorite is “Deep Valve Cover” which reminds me of a grimier Rob Hood circa Internal Empire. In fact, this whole release will definitely appeal to the techno heads out there moreso than the house heads. All the tracks are bass heavy, bleepy, and repetitive which make them perfect for long mixing. This definitely won’t reach the status of “Psychotic Photosynthesis”, but who cares? I pray for sick records like this, and they only come about every now and then.