Delight fits snugly with Kranky's studious expansion into electronica with releases by Pan American and Loscil. All three artists create a subaquatic immersiveness that makes you yearn for the womb--or that flotation tank Bill Hurt used in Altered States. Now more than ever, this kind of music serves a crucial function. Oddly, Dickow expresses surprise that the renowned Chicago label deigned to release Delight.
"I've been a [Kranky] fan since their first release," he replies via e-mail, "but I thought my music [inhabited] some weird corner of IDM or dance music or electronica. It makes sense to me now; I think they see me as performatively having some classic sorts of elements like '70s [Kraut-rock legends] Cluster or Conrad Schnitzler (classic as in a guy with a table full of synthesizers and boxes), but then all modern-sounding like Pole or something."
Does Strategy want his music to make people feel deep emotions or to provoke smiles and move body parts? Both? Neither?
"Both. I find it harder and harder to distinguish between the 'dance' vs. 'ambient' dichotomy as my various songs take on characteristics of both. I think my dance music has a lot of textural motion that appeals to non-dancing people. On the other hand, the 'ambient' material is constructed with a strong dance-type pulse at the core, so even if it's obscured, I like to think that people might feel that rhythm at some less obvious, more subconscious level. Provoking smiles is really crucial."
Does Drumsolo's Delight portend Strategy's future musical direction?
"I am trying to make a music that is neither all-body nor all-head, but perfectly in between. The next Strategy release is a 12-inch for Orac that is some kind of heavy 4/4 dub disco. The next Strategy CD is called Future Rock. I wanted to have an 'ambient' music that had the propulsion of rockin' dance tracks, soul, dub, rap, etc., so it's kind of like this washy cloud music where buried in the core is various fast rhythm music--some kind of guitar riff, or an electro break, or some other foreign element, and a strong dubbed-out soul component throughout. (Eventually I'd like to stop using a computer for music and do an all synth/hardware/sampler-based record like Strut, but based on what I've learned through working with the computer. Computers are awful for music.)
"But for now the texture and approach of Drumsolo's is my M.O. I really want to see how much of a fire I can light under that style before it ceases to have ambient characteristics. Drumsolo's is a bit elegiac and moody, as I was sad when I wrote it. Future Rock embodies a little more of the bustle of the urban neighborhood I moved to this winter. This is like some dirty street-ambient shit--like hearing the Wild Style soundtrack through pillows and a fuzzy lens!"
Strategy plays with Nordic Soul and Aaron B on Mon May 10 at the Mirabeau Room, 529 Queen Anne Ave N, 217-0654, 9 pm-2 am, 21+, $5.
