Reel by Real – Surkit Chamber – The Melding
Having re-issued the classic Surkit last year, I initially thought this double pack on Don Williams’ a.r.t.less imprint was some old unearthed work from Marty Bonds but instead we have his first new material under the Reel By Real monikor since that original 12inch 20 years ago. Coming in a lush package featuring art work by Abdul Haqq, it was nice to see a return from a back-in-the-day Detroit artist arrive with little or no fanfare, which nearly undermines the brilliance of this album.
Starting with the wonderful breakbeat techno of I Won’t follow the following 3 tracks keep the mood sparse and deep with the atmospheric techno of Look At Me being the stand out. Bonds starts looking more towards the dancefloor for most of the remainder of the album, melding odd vocals (these may divide some people), jagged funk and the type of percussion work that too many deep techno producers now seem to ignore, preferring to soak their tracks in dramatic synths, thinking this alone will qualify their music. On “Fate”, Bonds is at his most affecting in this regard but it displays much more depth than countless other tracks of it’s style.
He slips up a bit on Stow Away, with its shuffling rhythms being a bit lackluster especially compared with the stomp of the following Buckshot. The album closes with WRX, bringing the album full circle with more breakbeat techno that sounds like it’s been transported directly from the 90s. While, for some, this may seem like a criticism – do we need anymore techno in that vein? – the album over all avoids being a mere throw back. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but much of the music on here is head and shoulders above a lot of techno I’ve heard this year and while some of the sounds used may be more than familiar to a lot of listeners Bonds uses them in such an effective manner that the likes of Fate and Look At Me are as essential as anything else that has come out in 2011.
The Ukranian producer has been busy the last few months offering 3 releases on his new Shevchenko label with this being the 2nd. The A-side takes it’s lead from a Reggie Dokes styled piano line wherein Vakula gives it a more techy-edge than the more organic sounds one would associate with Dokes recent material. Vityk once again displays a euphoric, slightly psychedelic approach to house music with the track expanding and opening up into a multi-layered composition that leaves much of todays deep house in it’s wake.
Rural Dances on the flip features more rasping percussion and he again layers the track with quirky twists before giving way to a heaving acid line that matches the accompanying heavy drums really nicely. This disappears not long after it arrives to give way again to deeper pads and more tripped out sonority. I’m not taking to mixing records much these days at home, so I’m all for more music like this that wants me to leave it alone instead of reaching for another record.
For those living under a huge rock The Labryinth is a much lauded techno festival that takes place up the hills in Japan every year, a party that has reached near mythical status amongst revellers and the world wide techno community. The idea of this double pack is to transport the atmosphere, musically, of the party on to vinyl. In that aspect it works perfectly, as after listening to this – many many times – I want to make the trip more than ever. It opens with the dense, thrilling Rites De Passage – Naeba Variant by Peter Van Hoesen which slowly but surely opens up in to a monster of a techno track. Hypnotic and mesmerising, even at plus 9 minutes it never becomes boring. Functional techno, this is not.
While I’ve never been a huge fan of Donato Dozzy’s productions – certainly not compared with his djing – he rises to the challenge here with the awesome minimal techno of Giusy. The Labryinth’s most famous son, Dozzy produces a cold yet gripping track that is a fitting accompaniment to his legendary sets from the party. Mike Parker delivers the only damp squib of the release with Kaze No Oto, which is a slightly forgettable production which may make sense in the right context but unlike the rest of the release it doesn’t stand out quite enough on it’s own. While the other tracks never suffer from their length – if anything these tracks are asked to be left alone for their duration – this tends to meander a little bit.
Gerard Hanson has been focusing much more on his ERP alias in the last few years, so it’s good to see him finally returning to his Convextion guise with the double pack’s amazing closer, Oil On Metal. That old techno chestnut of soundtracking a dsytopian future has found a new paean with this enveloping and engrossing soundscape. A Blade Runner-esque existence has rarely sounded so appealing. Between this and the Reel To Real album most of 2011’s techno sounds limp-wristed and disposable in comparison.
1 Comment
‘Fate’ from this release is an absolute beauty.