by Lawrence
(Mule Electronic)
When Peter Kersten dozes off, people listen. Kersten is the German
ambient-house producer who records as Lawrence, whose hypnotic 2002
self-titled debut is one of those records you can play anywhere,
anytime, in most any situation: It’s as right for a morning walk on the
beach as it is to make your house seem haunted at 3:00 a.m. The title
track of his new Jill EP pitter-pats along the same pathways,
but more clearly and with less dreamy mystery. Luckily, “Jill Reprise”
does the trick. It’s more of a dub, or a remix, than a reprise, cutting
the drums (but keeping the conga line) and letting the becalmed
keyboards blur around the edges just right, a lesson the more
propulsive “Hamtramck” benefits from. “Sunrise,” unsurprisingly, is a
bunch of synth swells.
by DJ Koze
(MP3)
Like Lawrence, DJ Koze (born Stefan Kozalla) is a singular ’00s
dance producer, though as his stellar new remix compilation
Reincarnations demonstrates, his uniqueness comes from doing so
many different things—not expertly, but with a kind of
willy-nilly enthusiasm that transmits to the listener. Take this track,
apparently a one-off that was leaked to a number of blogs the other
week (I got it from Little White Earbuds). It’s triphop: opiated
keyboards, fussed-over breakbeat, hide-and-seek bass line. For nearly
four minutes, you wonder where the surprise will kick in. Then at 3:53,
the beat returns as before, but the keyboards are now reminiscing about
half-remembered old Supertramp songs.
by Horsepower Productions
(Tempa 12-inch)
This fluctuating crew, an early UK garage outfit that helped pioneer
dubstep, were originally a trio. Now they are a duo consisting of
original member Benny Ill and newbie Jay King; they haven’t released a
record in five years, but both sides of this 12-inch sound like
Horsepower spent that time storing up ideas and are now getting
impatient about it. “Kingstep” lays a groggy wail of “murder dem!” (I
think) over seething Jamaican rhythms, digi-lasers, wayward strings,
and disembodied female moans; it’s the dub equivalent of a sea chantey.
“Damn It” is something else entirely, a boot-sized cocktail of Kingston
horns and Echoplex, muttered Rasta talk, dusty-cowboy harmonica, taut
funk-blues guitar, and effects pilfered equally from the lending
libraries of Carl Stalling and Lee Perry that never stop fizzing. This
is the kind of different-yet-complementary pairing that makes old guys
like me nostalgic for the two-sided single. 