Dj Overdose: Bizarro World, Aardvarck: 1990

Jeroen Warmenhoven is someone who could never be accused of overkill when it comes to his recorded output so it nearly comes as a bit of a surprise to have 2 Dj Overdose releases appear in the same month. I already covered the killer 12″ on Lunar Disko and no sooner had the needle been lifted off that record than I had the Bizarro World long player cued up and ready to go. Appearing for the first time on the ever prolific Creme Organization label it’s also a bit of a surprise that they haven’t worked together before. The labels output and idiosyncratic style is a perfect match for Overdose’s collage of old school electro, synth heavy jams and soundtrack-esque work outs.

The throbbing “Aan De Overkant” leads perfectly into the brilliant title track, a stomping mesh of clanging electro beats, vocoders and eerie keys, perfectly encapsulating what Overdose does in one cut. It should be noted that this is pretty much the pattern for the rest of the album. Yes, it’s one of those electronic long-players that does the old beat-track-followed-by-ambient-interlude progression (or lack there of) but while that sometimes feels like an artist trying to pad out a standard 12 inch into a long player here it actually makes things a bit overcrowded at 15 tracks.

So it ends up being sort of like 2 releases combined together. The shorter cuts come off at times like they are taken from an old Italian Giallo soundtrack with a heavy Goblin influence coming through on the likes of “Bloed Aan De Muur”. It would also seem that Warmenhoven is aware of this with the closing song titled “Film Freak” which is the one instance in the album where he most noticeably combines the soundtrack stuff with his usual electro fare, if at a vastly reduced bpm.

Inbetween all that is some of the most badass electro you’re going to hear anywhere these days. Be it the ghetto influenced “Stay On My Feet” and “Leipzig”, the anthemic 4/4 march of “Suck Chain” or the lighter touch of “Don’t Stop” I can’t imagine an electro fan not finding much to love about this. He keeps the lose swing of old school electro on his 808 without falling into copycat mode, merging it with darker melodies that gives the album it’s overall character. It’s eclectic without coming off as overly scattershot  or incoherent, a problem many face with the long player format. Coming into his second decade of output one can’t bemoan his sometimes lack of productivity when everything he drops is pretty much vital to any electro connoisseur’s collection.

Another highly prolific Dutch label is the omnipresent behemoth that is Rush Hour. It’s output caters for far and wide making it nearly impossible to keep track of at times. Yet it turns out that i’ve been quite avidly following it’s latest sub label, No ‘Label’ quite closely over the last  9 months, without even properly realising it. That might seem like an odd statement but there is no dots joining each of the releases  and it was only with the release of the latest Aardvarck, 1990, (the killer Nubian was also on No ‘Label’, and his return is the first sign of any coherency on the imprint) that I paid heed to what part of the Rush Hour machine it was a cog in. So when I went to catalogue it yesterday on discogs (I can’t link it as it’s not up there yet) I suddenly realised that, hey wait a sec, I’ve bought the last 5 releases on this label. I suppose I’d just marked them down as Rush Hour in general, and maybe it’s just a total coincidence that they were all on  No ‘Label’, but regardless it’s on a great run. The amazing Black Deer 12″ I recently reviewed was on it, the lush electro of Stellar Om Source was awesome while the playful lowest of the lo-fi techno of Heatsick got a shout out from me in my end of year review for 2012. And now Aardvarck is back with arguably the strongest release so far.

“1990” takes it’s cues from early rave; the diva vocals, euphoric pads and simple key refrain are all present but when run through the Aardvarck filter are brought right up to date. It kicks off with a thundering half time kick drum then breaks off to the pads on their own before a cage rattling breakbeat arrives in around a 3rd of the way in. Add in one of those typically gnarly Aardvarck basslines on top of everything else and the result is a track that simply bowled me over. His off kilter funk meshed with such direct musical cues result in an intoxicating  performance – it’s first full play resulted in a rewind thrice over.  In a just world this would (will?) be a huge hit.

How the flipside, “Ok.O” will go down is another story altogether. It’s punchy, near punk type drums carry along a machine gun bassline and whistles and little else. The result is a cut that has a somewhat  d’n’b feel to it, yet it’s tied to a 4/4 rhythm. It’s pretty good fun yet I imagine it may well be ignored in favour of the a-side.