Sven Laux – Mud Up, Mud Down

Deep House & Techno, House, IDM, TechHouse, Techno & Detroit // By: simiolioliocloseAuthor: simioliolio Email: simon@netlabelism.com
More Authors Posts (40) // 08/03/2013 // No Comments

This chirpy little number is about as tight as glitchy microhouse can possibly get.

Mud Up, a sweating leather bag of broken paper clips, leaking from the bottom. Squelchy and mischievous. Clicky and clattering, yet soft and bouncy. From a distance, I would guess that it was Akufen, especially the barely audible vocal cuts, enveloped right down to barely a microscopic transient. Intricate, quirky, and intense, with the hihats clambering all over each other, fighting for groove supremacy.

Mud Down, a little darker, perhaps a seething duffle bag of drawing pins. The groove on this track is immense. Skitting and swaying like a cornered fox. It is the sound that 39 atoms make when you get a mic close enough. I like the subtly evolving textures, and the kick drum is so sick. Well, all of the sounds in this release are beautifully clear and edgy. I love the very occasional arrival of the bit crushed snare.

Mud Down (The Coffee Boy ft. Vocal Matador Remix), starts weakly, but finds its feet very well. The offbeat hihat compliments  Sven’s two original tracks; the 808/909 type hihat (and the claps) stick out as a little generic when compared to the original, which incorporates such a finely tuned individuality. Only for a minute or two, as the track builds very wonderfully indeed, and before long had my head moving, quite violently in fact. The crowd samples are crazy; I can’t wait to play this in a club…

Mud Down (Tone Def’s Mud Down and Out Mix), back to the space-glitches, starting with a metronomic hihat. Initially the bass part which arrives is not to my liking; at first, the pentatonic / ‘blues scale’ seems a little out of place as a remix for a track which dives so far into the sonic world and leaves average musicality behind. Perhaps this was the idea, forming some sort of balance. However, the drop in the middle came with a moment of clarity. There is something rather admirable about that weak bassline, which I only noticed when it had gone. As it comes charging back in (very expertly I might add), I was shocked at how much I missed it.

Microhouse? Is it even a genre?! It still perplexes me how this music can possibly fit into music society. Too minimal for a successful club night. Too mind-numbing for an evening listen. Too subtle for casual headphone listening. Too hectic to relax to. Yet there is something quite fantastic about it. Would you agree?

Sven Laux – Mud Up

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Stefano Rocchi – Spanish Madness

Acid, Deep House & Techno, TechHouse, Techno & Detroit // By: simiolioliocloseAuthor: simioliolio Email: simon@netlabelism.com
More Authors Posts (40) // 22/10/2012 // No Comments

‘Tech House’ is a term that I have never been that fond of. At what point does ‘House’ become ‘Tech House’ ? When the purpose of the tune is to dazzle a listener with detail, rather than supply a decent soundtrack to a club experience? In any case, the netlabel Ephedrina released a great ‘Tech House’ release a few months ago, and I just couldn’t let this one slip under the radar.

“STEFANO ROCCHI is back from his personal SpanishTrip and this is what he has heard, what he has felt and what he wants to tell you in the second Episode on Ephedrina Netlabel.”

A fairly confusing blurb, but you get the picture. It seems this release is the result of a traveling experience by the artist Stefano Rocchi, and it is his second release on this eclectic label. Information about this artist is limited to say the least. If the same Stefano Rocchi has this Soundcloud account, then I know that a) he has a fairly bushy beard, and b) is modestly not uploading any material! [edit: turns out the real Stefano Rocchi uses this soundcloud]

This release is a great blend of originality and diversity. A lot of it reminds of me Orbital; mellow and squelchy, with a lot of light-hearted analogue elements. However the tint this artist adds to an already-well-established and now-somewhat-dated sound kept my ears pricked up. It is simple, repetitive, and a little mind-numbing, but if you like that sort of thing, this is right up your street.

‘Nascimiento’ has a surprisingly tetchy introduction, when the regular thumping expected from a house album doesn’t quite get off the ground until just the right time, amidst a joyous bassline. ‘Hidden Key’ is by far my favourite, with velvety vocal chops and and a quirky simplicity. A plunge back to the acid techno era with the aptly named ‘Acid Arena’. Not so sure about ‘Mi Erasmus’, a little too confusing for my liking, and ‘Why say you’ was bizarre and gave me bad dreams.

In places it is a little dry, and with so much soul being thrust into music with seamless technical ability these days, it is hard not to identify this as a turn-off. And if it has been done before, this is not going to revolutionize electronic music culture or be regarded as a valuable contribution to the music scene. However, that doesn’t matter too much. Stefano has made a great album. It is crisp and clear, conforms to the toe-tapping and technique-fueled nature of the genre, and has him well lined up for spreading his ambitions and taking his sound as far as he is willing to. Perhaps a journey further afield than Spain is required by this artist (see quote above), before we get to hear a more crazy side to this artist!

Stefano Rocchi – Hidden Key

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Sr.Click – Soft [inoquo009]

Techno & Detroit // By: simiolioliocloseAuthor: simioliolio Email: simon@netlabelism.com
More Authors Posts (40) // 25/11/2011 // 3 Comments

If you haven’t already seen it, check out this lovely video made by Resident Advisor about Techno in Berlin: “Real Scenes: Berlin”

I must admit I never really understood techno until I saw this video. Most dance music venues in the UK have a large focus on having a drunken social experience, rather than a deep connection with the music. Dig deep enough and you will find a great night with great music and audience to match, but most places don’t seem to provide a facility for having a true soul-to-music experience.

It was a real shame to see classic Berliners frustrated by the club music culture that has been thrust upon Berlin, with reckless foreigners diluting what was once a serious musical movement. Unfortunately this was inevitable. As the world gets smaller, it was only so long until the pure techno music was infected with an outside entity.

Techno purists will eventually have to lock up their record boxes, cherish the past, and move on. The more music made, the more music develops (and there certainly is a huge amount of music being made out there at the moment!). Thousands of people make their own interpretation of techno, but it is rare for producers to push the boundaries whilst still retaining the qualities possessed by traditional techno. Sr.Click caught my attention for this very reason.

‘Sr. Click decided to get out his mother’s uterus [on a] a warm summer month of 1979.’ – Last.fm

Sr.Click is a minimal/techno producer from Barcelona. He has an enormous back catalogue of netlabel releases, mostly with the label ‘inoQuo’, of which he is a co-founder. Out of 26 artists under their belt, Sr.Click has the most releases on inoQuo, with a total of 17.

The EP ‘Soft’ was released in 2005. When I first heard it, I was very impressed by the mixture of the lose-yourself techno feel, and flared technical brilliance. Track 1 ‘Insomnie’ breaks up the classic four-to-the-floor, whilst still maintaining a deep and vast atmosphere. I find myself  gripped by the pad on every second beat, so simple yet soothing and inviting on my ears. The breakdown at 5:34 is executed magnificently, a wind down which doesn’t break the well-established tension, and flows expertly and effortlessly back to the expected groove. It is a delightfully surreal listen, and one of the best minimal tunes out there.

If ‘Insomnie’ is a “Hello”, then track 2 ‘Soft’ is a “I will stab you”. The dark vocal manipulation works extremely well, and subtle techniques are used to keep the track full of an evil energy. This darkness is steered into a more-relaxed curiosity with the next track ‘Internal’. Simplicity here is the greatest virtue. The track has a lot of depth, space, and clarity, which is a winning combo.

‘Pyramid-all’ initially sounds like the sprouting of digital trees, and leads into a real thumper. The lead-in to the main section at 1:58 is majestic, and as the track gets under-way, I am lost once again (in a good way!). Next up, ‘Diseases’ takes an ill-turn from the euphoria created from the previous track, with smatterings of reverb and delay, battling with the cycling pad and bubbling bassline. Reverse cuts slice the tune up, and are particularly effective here. ‘Hi Baby’ finishes up with a slightly-squidgy bassline, abstract vocal cuts and a great pad chord progression. A crunchy explosion brings the release to a well rounded finish.

This EP is great, and is important to me for the reasons explained at the beginning of this review. It possesses the heads-down and serious approach to traditional techno, which has been loved and is still loved by techno purists all over the world. It is possible to get completely lost in this music, and it would work particularly well at a techno party where party-goers are taking the music seriously. At the same time, it shows how techno can evolve and develop, whilst still retaining a connection to its roots. There are some wild, yet subtle moments on this EP, which if listened to carefully will take you by surprise. But if you let yourself go, these moments will only dwell (and thrive) in your subconsciousness.

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Sr.Click has evolved a range of styles, so a review of his later work is in the pipeline!