[W.T. Records] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s tk)

William Burnett is an unlikely Williamsburg renaissance man, but with the litany of pies in which he has fingers it’s hard to argue. When he isn’t releasing albums under the nom de plume Grackle, collaborating with Eliot Lipp as Galaxy Toobin’ Gang or recording ghetto house as Smackulator, he’s also known to be DJing sick dance music eclecticism on the Short Bus Radio program. And now Burnett has managed to cram one more achievement onto his resume by starting W.T. Records. For the first release he hasn’t held back, roping in North Carolina based $tinkworx and Kinoeye (a new alias for Datahata) for an auspicious split 12″ debut. But according to Burnett these tracks were the whole inspiration for W.T. Records’s inception. After hearing them posted online he hung onto the MP3s and later noticed they were never released, prompting him to take matters into his own hands.

After releasing a steady output of releases on Downlow and Delsin some years back, $tinkworx’s shark infested artwork and deep techno funk sound has slowed recently, making this appearance all the more enticing. “MKB” opens with brooding piano lines and nods to old school house rhythm foundations, a place that $tinkworx’s previous efforts haven’t ventured all that often. With time a raw modulated bass line emerges grounding the track in what is slightly more familiar ground for him. While the piano is heavy handed at times, the overall feel brings a fresh outlook to house music without caving to its precepts.

The relatively unknown Datahata, similar to $tinkworx, showed his appreciation of Drexciyan electro and techno with his 2007 debut, “Itinerant Craft,” although his contribution here as Kinoeye sounds nothing like it. A pitch shifting synth creates warm angles that complement the shuffling deep house rhythm of “Mean Old World.” As it progresses a spoken sample proclaims, “It’s a mean old world/you gotta fight to stay in it/you gotta stay strong/you gotta scuffle/you gotta do your thing,” a pessimistic statement that comes off as an inspirational message to keep forging ahead. The clipped synth melody and underlying funk licks buried in the mix only add to the mood, giving it a rawer house feel that would leave you to believe it came from somewhere within the Detroit city limits. But what seems most noticeable about this release is that Deep South is pulling at some of its inherent influences and coming up with rewarding results by way of Brooklyn, NY. Send thanks William Burnett’s way.

[Kompakt] (buy CD) (buy mp3s)

Back in 2004, Ada’s Blondie was the go-to album to persuade your girlfriend or boyfriend that techno really was “okay.” Borrowing from pop-house veterans Everything But The Girl (via a cover of “Each and Everyone”) and indie-rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs (”Maps”), Michaela Dippel broke out of the Cologne techno ghetto to achieve crossover critical, if not commercial, success. That’s not to say that she left behind her Rhineland roots — every one of Ada’s solo releases has been on a hometown label; and with frequent remixes from the cream of the Kompakt label, it was inevitable that one day she would release on the venerable imprint. Her music is a perfect fit for Kompakt with it’s emphasis on somehow euphoric and melancholic melodies, pastel-coloured but chunky bass-lines and cute pop-culture references. It’s a move that should ensure her the wider audience she deserves, and, as the title intimates, Adaptations Mixtape #1 is intended as an introduction from a trusted friend, but it’s a shame it’s such a collection of warmed-over odds and ends.

That’s not to say this is by any means a bad release, and certainly has a number of excellent songs, but it is perhaps an indication of the increasing conservatism of Kompakt’s output. In particular, DJ Koze’s Jay-Z baiting remix of “Eve” was conspicuous by it’s absence on his remix collection Reincarnations, so it’s a pleasure to have that here. Similarly, “Living It Up” from 2006 is a fantastically lithesome floor-filler, and the Cologne old guard of Michael Mayer and Tobias Thomas turn “Maps” into the end-of-night singalong it should always have been. It’s difficult to talk about Ada’s music without mentioning the f-word, but her music really does have an inviting, feminine touch to it, a more than welcome quality in the dick-swinging contest that the current vogue for colder and harder techno can occasionally turn into. Her remix of Tracey Thorn’s “Grand Canyon” is a case in point, as affectionate and comforting as a cuddle and a cup of tea after a long night’s raving. “Forty Winks”, from last year, ranks amongst the best things Ada has ever done, and illustrates her considerable compositional talents perfectly, outdoing pretty much anything on the last couple of Pop Ambient compilations.

However, Ada’s sentimental sensibilities are occasionally cloying, as on the closing “Our Blindhouse (Each and Everyone)”. While neatly bookending the record with a further EBTG reference to match the opening Tracey Thorn remix, the re-version of the Cologne classic that made her name may prove too syrupy for many ears. Likewise, her retouching of Alex Smoke’s self-pitying “Never Want To See You Again”, whilst a valiant effort at polishing a turd, cannot save the execrable source material. Ultimately, Adaptations is as lop-sided and wildly variable in quality as all your favourite mixtapes, but let’s hope there’s not another volume in this series — fingers crossed for an album proper instead.

Based on some of the stuff you read these days, you might think it was settled and agreed that we chalk up “October Nightingale” as a misstep in Rajko Müller’s respected career. Myself, I think it’s among the year’s highlights. Surely, plunging into the depths of “A Nightingale” was one of my spring’s richest pleasures. All this is rather beside the point, though, as 2009’s second Isolée record is something else entirely. “Albacares” uses a dipping, mildly kitsch bass guitar groove as the repetitious axis around which Isolée’s vast network of effects, artifacts, and doodads orbit and collaborate. Another of his fusions of disco, post-punk; and can we still use the term micro-house? The magic is in the details, which include jingling bells, sci-fi hums, and a little lover’s rock guitar. It’s a powerhouse of gleaming sound design, the track’s disparate elements drifting about your ear space, creating a big-room feel even on modest headphones. Not quite like anything in Isolée’s catalog, it’s nevertheless clearly the work of the mind behind “Rest,” “I Can’t Sleep All Night,” and “Schrapnell” — something I probably wouldn’t have said about his last record.

“Les Andalouses” is less of a departure, almost a hypothetical We Are Monster bonus track (y’know, for the $60 Japanese pressing). With a little less swing and a little more filter, this is the sort of percolating bits-and-bobbins house that ingratiated Isolée’s work to most of us in the first place. Where his other tracks from ‘09 have stood out for all the ways they’re different, this one should assuage those who understandably wish Isolée never change. It’s a slight track, playing more as buzzing transition than hook-laden banger. Still, it’s definitely a pleasure to reminisce on the back-in-the-day with this old friend.

[Soul People Music] (buy CD)

As “deep house” overtook “minimal” these past couple years as dance music’s catch-phrase du jour, a certain formula has become apparent. Slow down the tempo, loop a bass line, throw some jazzy pads on top, and add an intermittent sample of an African-American male voice saying “yeah.” Though there are some great tracks fitting the stereotype, it is hard not to crave some greater inventiveness. Fortunately, Fred P, a.k.a. Black Jazz Consortium, brings precisely this to his production work, of which 11 remarkable examples are collected on Structure. Throughout this CD, rhythms are complex, instrumental elements shift and alter themselves, and tracks otherwise develop over their durations.

“Deep Love” introduces the compilation with a seemingly simple three-note bass line, ethereal chords, and a beat. But listen closely — the hi-hat never sits still, constantly adopting new patterns, while the timbres flow and mutate. The experimental spirit of this work can be disarming –in fact, the unorthodox timing of chord changes on “Teapot Science” sounds downright frustrating on first listen. But this kind of risk mostly pays off; a similar technique on “I Want That” transforms a Robert Hood-esque stomper into a melancholy, unsettling exercise in atmospherics, with one of the few vocals on the disc exhaling the titular phrase. Similarly, “The Title” transforms a dubby bass line and wordless vocals with the introduction of harmony halfway through. An “improvised” conga part in the first half and a insinuating keyboard melody in the second maximize the track’s complexity.

The non-repetitive aspects of Fred P’s work are effected in unusual, contemporary ways. The only “solo” on the disc, a keyboard on “Watching You Vogue,” is — to this listener anyway — more about atmosphere than melodic teleology, something like a blues guitarist adding punctuations to a riff or a vocal. A melody on “Living the Dream” seems to be locked in a race with the beat, falling behind, catching up, and taking the lead in a head-to-head showdown that commands attention. Even a DJ tool like “Tribal Dance,” a spare collection of percussive rhythm patterns and oceanic waves of synth-noise, invigorates in the unpredictable way its few elements combine and separate over seven minutes.

Whether or not Fred P used analog instruments to produce these tracks, the sounds are gritty and raw, imparting a visceral punch to the glacial, flowing nature of his harmonic approach. On “Levels,” a seemingly random noise track sneaks in and out of the contours of an insistent beat under a cloud of poignant strings. The most “traditional” moment, a piano melody on “Something Old,” is propelled into the present by its relentless bass line. “What’s Up With the Love” — LWE’s chart-topper last month — sounds both glitchy and smooth, with a gorgeous vocal inquiry. “New Horizon,” from his EP of the same name, alternates lead instruments as though members of this imaginary Consortium are stepping up for solos. And yet, there are few sounds on Structure that sound like “real” instruments, save a couple piano parts, hand claps and aforementioned vocals. This is music that does not concern itself with the artificial genre splits engendered by music industry trends, seeing the emotion in techno and the futurism in house in a way partisans of either often miss.

Just as hardware stores supply builders with lumber and nails, British duo Peace Division made a career of peddling reliable if largely unremarkable minimal house grooves to reinforce DJs’ sets. Their understated repertoire has hardly changed in the nearly 15 years spent releasing for Low Pressings, NRK Sound Division, Crosstown Rebels and Tsuba (among others), adjusting slightly with the times to meet DJs needs: Their turn of the century beats were often up-tempo, chunky and a bit tribal, only to reduce during the minimal years and plump up again as “deep” became the operative word. This year the pair decided to hang up the Peace Division moniker for good to pursue solo endeavors, with one last single, “Eh Oh Um,” as their curtain call. Yet in spite of their unshakable consistency, one might expect the duo to go out with a bang, or at least out of the ordinary. Don’t get your hopes up.

With characteristic nonchalance, Peace Division send “Eh Oh Um” on its way with only grainy percussion loops and a guy saying “yep.” Ambling along, it picks up a dull pang, one-off spatters of incidental sound and self-satisfied “mmm mmm mmm” mumbles, affording the track its only source of personality. And while various tweaks modulate the track’s fidelity and intensity, there’s little else worth mentioning — no builds, no hooks, and little to separate “Eh Oh Um” from hundreds of other minimal house with similarly modest ambitions. At least in this measure Christian Burkhardt succeeds, as his unctuous remix, rife with percussive flourishes, detaches the ho-hum vocal samples from beat grids for a more involved feel. The most signs of life are found in wide and rounded contours of the bass line, which lend a light bounce commonly found in Burkhardt’s tracks. That Peace Division opted to go out as they came in — making utilitarian tracks without much fuss — is perhaps tacit acknowledgment they didn’t have much else to say. Their concern was keeping DJs stocked, not climbing the charts (although “Eh Oh Um” inexplicably managed to do both in RA’s May charts, sitting at #3). But if history is written by the victors, practical platters like “Eh Oh Um” may well serve as the pages on which it’s inscribed.

[Art Of Dance] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3)

One of the spearheads of Detroit’s second wave of techno producers, Kenny Larkin has been responsible for some of the most spine tingling moments in the history of techno. It’s a fact that’s often overlooked, but his stunning discography leaves no doubt this is the case. With time spent repairing computers for the Air Force and an intended career in stand up comedy, Larkin’s entry into the Detroit scene was slightly delayed, though perhaps time spent examining the inner mechanics of machines helped with his productions. Before the release of this stone cold classic in 1997 he had already unleashed the brilliant Azimuth album, a string of singles, and under the Dark Comedy moniker the techno epic “War Of The Worlds.” With the issue of “Plankton,” backed with the equally mesmerizing “Clavia’s North” (on limited clear vinyl no less) Larkin’s reputation as a master craftsman of electronic communication reached a new high.

“Plankton” has a minimalist groove running through it; a bass line tinged with acidic menace filters throughout the track coupled with a kick that inhales and exhales a breathless reverb, while hi-hats skip and sway throughout the same filters as the low end. It’s the soft Nord tones Larkin introduces over rising sci-fi strings that transport it into another dimension. Listening to Detroit techno used to feel like you had infiltrated some kind of secret society, its producers played up to it with the imagery and sounds they created. Larkin for his part here makes you feel like you’re traveling somewhere deep inside the recesses of the psyche. “Clavia’s North” on the flip side is the more dreamy cousin to “Plankton,” though for all its searching, transcendent melodies it is underpinned by a brooding, almost malevolent bass. More apparent than with “Plankton” are the multitude of layers here, some tugging against each other, others complimenting, some so subtle they are barely noticeable. Both tracks are a natural progression from “War Of The Worlds,” encompassing a transcendentally epic feeling, projecting the listener way beyond the confines of dance music. Technology may have changed the sound quality of more modern tracks but the ideas contained within this late nineties release rank right up there at the top.

[Vakant] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)

They may not happen with the greatest frequency but one thing is assured upon tracking down a new Robag Wruhme release — you will be entertained. The veteran producer has a knack of injecting his tracks with a certain buoyancy and mirth that few others manage to conjure with each successive release. The latest on Vakant, “Abusus Adde,” finds Mr. Schablitzki in top maniacal form, with three cuts that not only prove to be weighty peak time contenders but also remind you dance music is meant to be fun.

“Hodgkin Mopp” straddles the line between glitch and deep seated melody in such a way it almost sounds like two separate tracks have been spliced together. The percussion is occasionally punctuated by a didgeridoo stab sounding very much like Bodol Elsel’s classic “Discount Baby” on Playhouse from 1999, though Wruhme fleshes out the sparse beginnings with much intricate trickery. The dreamy, melodic elements sound a world away from the mechanical snap and bounce of the drums, turning a track that is minimal at its core into a vastly different beast by its conclusion. “Ruptur Oing” fits most neatly within Vakant’s offbeat minimalist style; the dry percussion littered with found sounds like cans rattling, gears (perhaps a fishing line or bicycle) being wound and water pouring. With the absence of any real melody or direction, “Ruptur Oing” doesn’t have much presence as a stand alone track but within the context of a mix I can see it creating a great sense of space and movement.

“Fufo2″ is Wruhme at his playful, mentalist best, splicing, dicing and re-editing his own track into fractured bits and piecing it all back together again. With all of its sound squashing and bit crushing at times it recalls “Windowlicker;” but where Aphex Twin laid on thick slabs of pads and funk, Wruhme focuses on building his track into a deranged breakbeat monster best locked away in the basement. Any party in danger of taking itself too seriously should have “Fufo2″ cued up ready to drop and lay waste to the chin stroking massive.

[Aus Music] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)

Dubstep may have found a novel approach to its inherent darkness and sparseness in techno; might there be an alternate path, though, one in which dubstep finds less subterranean manifestations in the dapper grooves of house? Aus Music, the debonair and slightly experimental tech-house imprint founded by Will Saul and Fin Greenall, answered in the affirmative with its recent and astounding Appleblim & Komonazmuk rework of (Greenall-fronted) Sideshow’s “If Alone.” The label continues its genre-melding trek with two new EPs of exclusive tracks from All Night Long, Saul’s new mix celebrating Aus’s twentieth release. Though never quite reaching the sublime heights of “If Alone,” Saul has curated four generally strong sides of house music in flux.

Of the old-guard Aus-house comprising the first EP, only MyMy’s contribution, their first release in 2009 and possibly one of their finest moments yet, pushes the template forward. Imbued with restless synth syncopation and plaintive bass stabs, “Going Going Gone” glitches and rumbles before a late breakdown injects a soulful piano into the mix. The richness of influences — Luomo, Isolee, Martyn on the pianos, and even Aphex Twin — MyMy evokes exactly the sort of deep listen (and secret weapon) Saul must have had in mind for his mix. MyMy’s Lee Jones, whose “Aria” and “As You Like It” have brought Aus two of its biggest hits thus far, serves up another slice of his signature fun-house minimal with “Lab.” Like a lost Jamie Jones or Lee Burridge side (and one both will surely play out), “Lab” has deep bass bounce, a seriously stoned vocal sample, and some unidentifiable, filtered-to-perfection triplet percussion. It’s enjoyable but a mere trifle by Lee Jones’s standards. Despite an interesting and emotive melody, Freerange mainstay Shur-i-kan turns in merely average disco-house on the flip; likewise, Saul and Tam Cooper, an often unbeatable pairing for energy-shoring house tools (let 2007’s “Out There…” on Aus sister label Simple take you to school), don’t do their best work on “Heartwave.” The whole EP stays faithful to what you’d expect from Aus, but given the riskier, hungrier work found on EP 2, you leave these tracks feeling like the veterans haven’t quite risen to the challenge.

“All Night Long EP 2″ finds several of dubstep’s leading lights trying their hand at the style the first EP’s producers are best-known for. I’m not sure you could even call what Appleblim or Ramadanman are releasing these days “dubstep,” but “Sous Le Sable” finds both producers taking their biggest leaps yet. Appleblim’s recent remixes have embraced a four-to-the-floor push that lends his bass-heavy sensibilities a distinctive forward movement. Mixing that tripping rush with Ramadanman’s expert sound design and a pinch of Aus stateliness, “Sous Le Sable” could keep all kinds of dance floors afloat over the course of its ten minutes. Needless to say, it sounds like little else on the shelves right now in its tempo range. The aforementioned Martyn, quickly becoming the Seth Rogan of dance music, contributes a cut from his astoundingly prolific suburban Maryland studio. (He drops two cuts on the EP’s digital release, though “Electric Purring” doesn’t do anything musically or conceptually the rest of your Martyn collection isn’t already doing.) If it’s the least inspiring cut on here, it’s not because it isn’t pretty solid. Dense and sweaty like much of Great Lengths but a good deal slower, “For Lost Relatives” wiggles around Martyn’s fine piano playing without doing much more than running in circles. “Indelible,” the EP’s energetic highlight and closer from the mysterious Pearson Sound, draws heavily on the UK funky sound of Roska and Uncle Bakongo. But every so often, as storm clouds of marching snares and twitchy bass drums clear, a ray of Echospace reveals how far underwater this party actually is. Crossing genres, taking leaps and moving rooms, Aus Music seems to be planting all the right seeds for a supremely bountiful future-house harvest.

An aptly titled release for Glaswegian Alastair on his début for the always interesting Highpoint Lowlife label out of San Francisco. Inspiration for the EP apparently came after Jackson read William Gibson’s The Gernsback Continuum, a sci-fi short set in the 1930’s whose protagonist experiences fractured glimpses of an improbable, far off future. Suitably the sounds employed on the “Futurist EP” take this past-looking-forward approach to heart, some sounding as kitschy as UFO movies looked in the 1950’s.

“Jupiter Jazz” pays homage to World 2 World’s Detroit classic of the same name, though where the UR cut was a solid, 4/4, acid tinged onslaught, Gravious’ syncopated, inter-stellar dubstep funk fest comes much closer to the latter part of its name. With its melodies all chasing, complimenting and contrasting each other we are presented with a much more musical version of dubstep, one often overlooked in favor of trying to wring maximum pressure out of the bottom end. “Vultures” offers a completely different vision of the future, one more akin to a Planet Of The Apes eventuality or perhaps as seen through the eyes of Future Sound of London circa Papua New Guinea. Increasingly unstable shock waves of bass rumble by as a clutch of ethnic children chant dourly (perhaps giving a coded warning of the consequences to your internal organs if listening to this too loud), the half stepping rhythms eventually picking up pace and doing double time around the sluggish bottom end. The dark tones of “Vultures” may sound anomalous sandwiched between the two jazzy bookends of the EP, though it does break up the noodly sentiments considerably.

“World Of Tomorrow” revisits the retro-future vibe of “Jupiter Jazz,” though it’s less raved up at the Chalmun’s Cantina and more a serene, space-cruising exploration through the sonic nebulae. Like the EP opener, it is steeped in the sci-fi tones of Detroit and wouldn’t sound out of place in Innerzone Orchestra’s discography. The “Futurist EP” is an expertly executed concept release from one of Scotland’s finest dubstep producers; it will be interesting to see what Alastair Jackson has lined up on his reading pile next.