Since I have been using the reborn ISM mostly for record reviews, the number of posts I make has dried up as the number of dance records I buy has plummeted. This blog is useless to me if I’m never using it, so I decided for 2023 that I would post at least once a week but on a variety of topics. I have some op-ed style pieces in the works, I want to do some more Record Store Memories posts, and I’m gonna discuss some of my other interests a bit (like film and literature and whatever else) as well. I’m also gonna do some more posts about older music and non dance music with deeper dives on specific records or artists.
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So for the first weekly post of 2023 I want to discuss the great album Soundtrack [313] by Detroit Escalator Co. As you might be aware, I’m generally pretty bored by the insane amounts of reissues that fill every record store these days. I tend to be more interested in issuing of old music that never came out in the first place, but every now and then there will be a reissue of something I’ve wanted forever and couldn’t obtain. This is one of those albums. I’ve been hoping to run into a decently priced original copy for sale in the US for over 20 years now, and it just never happened. Thankfully Musique Pour La Danse has come to my rescue.
The early releases by DEC flawlessly transport the loopy synthetic melodies of Detroit techno to the mostly beatless world of ambient, creating a vividly expressive and soulful concoction that so few are able to replicate though many have tried. This album’s field recordings of mid 90s Detroit really adds to that atmosphere, capturing the vibe of the city that permeates the short book “Reality Slap” written by DEC’s Neil Ollivierra at the same time. (A pdf of it is here: Neil Olliverra – Reality Slap ) This story is clearly at least semi-autobiographical, and really demonstrates the way Detroit of that era functioned for the artists in the city much the same way the early 80s did for the rise of hip-hop. Underground cultures mixed with cheap rents to allow creative individuals to thrive while creating art from well outside the mainstream, a mixture not likely to occur again in any major American cities during our lifetimes, thanks to the last couple decades of gentrification.
Despite the changes that have occurred inside the Detroit city limits since the 90s, the music still reflects the reality of many areas. Similar to how Drexciya’s funky melodic electro which makes even more sense when you’re in Detroit, if you close your eyes while listening you can almost see the notes as steam belching out of tubes along desolate stretches of Woodward Ave. while you cruise downtown at night. The atmosphere and emotions present in these tracks lend an organic feeling to jams that are pretty much 100% synthetic in composition. This is not an uncommon approach in Detroit techno, but it’s rarely done as well as it is here.
This very welcome reissue gives this album the treatment it deserves, with great sound quality and some added tracks from the era along with some writing by Neil and photos of some of the people he was associating with in that era. It’s easy to look at them and picture their faces on the characters in Reality Slap. The only downside for me is that the reissue drops the original cover artwork which I think works better with the music. But that’s nitpicking. This is an excellent presentation of one of my favorite electronic albums.
If you’re not familiar with DEC, it’s worth checking out the entire catalog. Black Buildings is almost as amazing as Soundtrack [313] but forged from a very different sound palette. At this point I imagine we are not gonna see new music from Neil, but his brother Tony Ollivierra aka Ibex was still pretty active until very recently. His music is also worth taking a dive into, maybe I’ll do so myself here sometime.