BPMCLUB Q^Q

Label: Phonokol
Format: VHS/Rip
Country: Israel
Released: 1998
Genre: Electronic
Style: Goa Trance
Notes: Recorded from the Drugless Festival in Ganey Huga @ 1997.
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After years of cultivating a dedicated following with his productions, all of the pieces moved into alignment at the end of 2007 for Omar-S, culminating with the ecstatic plateaus of “Psychotic Photosynthesis.” Omar was exactly what a lot of people wanted, and he had every sympathetic ear right where he needed them: Here was the real thing, a J Dilla for house music, as rough, raw and muthafucking talented as his catalogue. So, with talent and hype having waxed and polished the frame, enter Fabric to hand the man a blank canvas. And what has Omar done? He’s grabbed it—with his chin up, one eyebrow raised, and maybe a cheeky middle finger hidden behind his back.
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Originally they wanted to call this 5 Years of Low End Contagion. They were right not to. Contagions don’t spread beneficially, or even neutrally: they pollute and toxify. They mutate only to keep eating. They pillage. But that’s not the remit here. Assuming Hyperdub leads from the head—and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise—then the ongoing mission is that of mutation without parasitism, an additive reshuffling of codes to create new behaviors and evolutionary lines within them. Hyperdub isn’t a record label, or a virus, so much as it’s a culture unto itself, and I suspect that at least some part of the appeal of digging through their progress to date is that it turns us all into anthropologists, tracing networks of links and gauging the distance we’ve traveled from the source.
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DJ Koze has forged a reputation as a dance music Renaissance darling. Besides his work as DJ Koze, Stefan Kozalla has kept himself busy under his electronica alias Adolf Noise and with wry funk posse International Pony. But even with 2005’s excellent Kosi Comes Around and a series of consistently inventive singles like “All the Time” and “I Want to Sleep”—RA’s number one track of last year—Kozalla’s perhaps most appreciated for his playful, oft superior takes on the music of other artists. Perhaps that’s because you never really know what you’re going to get from a DJ Koze remix—he’s as apt to turn out jumpy, full-sweat house as he is to leave his print in reflective home stereo fare. (more…)

How do you do justice to a double mix CD that takes in over one hundred tracks?Balance 14 is such a chef d’oeuvre that it seems silly to do anything other than cowardly chirp, “Go listen, the sonics speak for themselves.” On the opening track (six tracks altogether) an ethereal vocal asks, “Are you ready?” It’s the only explicit moment in two hours of subtlety which then click and whirr into life, before you can even ponder the question. Voorn describes this mix as painting with music. Which is bang on. Both CDs—the first emotive and deep; the other, well, the same, but steadier—lock your mind into compositional analysis, and into interpreting the shades and tonal spread on offer. As do any decent paintings. And that’s fun. So is dancing—and Balance 14 will make you do that too. 
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The mix CD is dead. And why shouldn’t it be? With certain haggard franchises now ambling complacently into double figures and podcasts and downloadable live sets offering near infinite possibilities, you can’t help but think that it’s only a matter of time before they’re completely obsolete. How can they compete with performances by every working DJ playing tracks fresh from the plant, selections unhampered by licensing restrictions and it all coming at the low, low cost of free?
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Anyone who was lucky enough to attend the Underground Quality Nacht at Tape last month probably noticed something slightly odd about the scene in the DJ booth: All six DJs—save the lone female jock—were wearing long-sleeved t-shirts. At most parties in Berlin (or anywhere for that matter), the DJs dress up about as much as everybody else. Not so at this one, a night that was commemorated Bar Mitzvah-style: with custom-made T-shirts listing the date and location of the event, complete with a cute little graphic. 

If the fanfare seemed a bit unusual for Berlin, it’s because the event itself was too. “We basically said, ‘How can we throw the best party of the century?’” Levon Vincent, one of the UQ artists, explained a few weeks before the event. “We won’t make any from that party, just hoping to break even and get some good word of mouth. I think it will be a really special night. Actually, I think it will be one of the better memories of my career when I look back 50 years later.” 
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Artists whose reputations are built on “defying genres” often tell the press that their secret is to simply ignore boundaries. Modeselektor, though, are among the few that actually have done so. The duo of Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary work with one of the widest palates that you’re likely to find, whether it be bottomed-out bass-heavy reggae, hip-hop and dubstep or altogether calmer climes. And that’s just in their original productions. 

The duo’s tastes behind the decks run in the same direction, and Body Language 8may be the finest example yet put together of this fact. The trendy bounce of Rustie’s “Zig-Zag” and his collaboration with Joker on “Play Doe” reside far apart from one another, and in between we get Missy Elliot and Busta Rhymes rubbing shoulders with Berghain resident Norman Nodge and Scuba’s dubstep sharing time with Animal Collective. In short, this mix may be a great way to introduce your friends to electronic music. 
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“My motivation is and has been a mixture of fun and communication,” reads Tama Sumo’s self-penned biography. For all the discussions regarding their stringent door staff and austere music policy, it’s easy to forget that spending a Sunday afternoon at Berlin’s Panorama Bar can be seriously entertaining. And while you could hardly describe resident DJ Sumo’s Panorama Bar 02 release as jovial, it’s tough to suppress a grin when envisaging the effect a mix such as this would have on its oscillating dance floor during one of those heady Sabbath sessions. 

Sumo’s disc follows on from fellow resident Cassy’s 2006 instalment, and by and large, the similarities end there. Whereas Cassy skulked in the dead of night, Sumo waits it out until the following morning; adjusting the blinds, allowing passages of light and shade. A further disparity reveals itself on the question of geography: A local cabal of Berlin producers formed the backbone of Cassy’s mix, while Sumo throws open the borders to all comers—hardly a conscious decision on either DJ’s part, but an interesting footnote on house’s more recent globalisation trend, nonetheless. 
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Creating a niche for oneself as a remixer is something of a double-edged sword. No matter how gifted a producer may be at reinterpreting and recontexualising a piece of music, it’s hard to believe that any artist would willingly become known as the person whose best ideas are literally the sum of someone else’s parts. For the best—and most successful—remixers, idiosyncracy is the key; recent remix collections of DJ Koze and Carl Craig attest to that. Pepe Bradock’s Confiote de Bits collection will likely receive less attention than Koze’s and Craig’s releases, presumably in part because he rarely allows for interviews or other forms of self-promotion, but it deserves to be considered in the same regard.
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