New Releases: October 2022
Psychedelic Aerobics Muzak, Grime, Deutsch Bruk & Further Adventures in Tech House Soul
Ton Lebbink - Wat Doe Je Met Me? [Rubber]
Outsider House
To aid in the appreciation of this record and fully understand what an Unrepentant Weirdo (the most powerful character class in Life) the late Ton Lebbink was, please absorb this record’s press release from the Rubber Bandcamp:
By the late 1980’s Ton Lebbink was a well respected figure in Amsterdam’s alternative scene: he was the drummer for the Amsterdam post punk group Mecano, a true punk poet and worked as a bouncer at Amsterdam’s main music venue Paradiso. He released two solo albums, both in his unique narcotic style: laying absurd Dutch wordplay over stripped down frigid instrumentals.
As the decade came to an end, Ton – already well in his forties – moved away from the often destructive and dangerous nightlife. After a series of odd jobs Ton started as a fitness instructor at an Amsterdam gym called Splash. Meanwhile, the 90’s brought the latest musical craze to Amsterdam: House music began to flourish through clubs like RoXy, iT and Mazzo. With House being the ideal score for his fitness classes, the once well-known cult figure faded into anonymity at a 120 beats per minute. His musical endeavors were focusing more on finding the right beats for aerobics exercises with self-devised exercise – eventually leading Ton to bootleg some of them on cassette tapes himself.
In parallel to this radical shift, Ton did not stop making music. On the contrary, piles of demos showed high activity but in a direction no one was looking. Inspired by music to move to, Ton recorded hours of music that activated the body while staying true to his playful mindset. Discarding his voice as an instrument, the Roland W-30 sampler became his tool to communicate. Gathering vocal snippets from close friends, barflies and pets, a repertoire developed where witty repetitiveness could exist. Going through a vast collection of demos, pictures and many anecdotes, Rubber has been able to create an EP that gives insight into Ton’s overlooked 90’s era.
Three playful dance tracks by Ton Lebbink taking his complete own take on the Amsterdam House revolution of the 90's. Full of inventiveness: hip-shaking grooves, hypnotic beats and rousing vocals. Tracks to move to and tracks to groove to. Essential dancefloor workout tunes for you and me.
Ah yeah!
TLDR: Post-punk freak and night-life heavy washes out of Amsterdam’s club scene and reinvents himself as an aerobics instructor. He records very, very strange house music to soundtrack his aerobics classes.
Now, this aerobics muzak is trippy even by club standards. Imagine being a total normie walking into class, laying out your mat and sweating to the chant of ‘Wat Doe Je Met Me?’ (‘What Are You Doing To Me?’ (!!!!)) or the uncut sample at the break of ‘Denke Nie Gedacht Zu Haben’ which translates to:
“Don't ever think that you have thought, because (the) thinking of thoughts is thoughtless thinking. If you think you are thinking, you only think you are thinking and you have never really thought.”
Unparalleled respect to Ton for showing us the true meaning of high weirdness and probably inducing some mind-bending fitness experiences in the process. To quote Akira Kurosawa: “In a mad world, only the mad are sane” – a sentiment close to my heart.
Nab the wax or digitals from the Rubber Bandcamp.
Sputnik One - Supa Natural [N-Face]
Grime / UK Breaks
It bangs. There’s not much else to say, mainly because I don’t have the minerals to comment intelligently on grime. Though a little research reveals Sputnik One to be a Dubliner with a broad range of UK-leaning outings going back to 2018. He’s covered Livity Sound-esque techno, 160 experimentia and pounding bass music rollers over the course of six very impressive and seemingly slept-on releases. The little effort I (almost didn’t) put into exploring his back catalog has turned up many a percy. Supa Natural has manlike Sputty piloting the ship squarely into more traditional UK genre space. The eponymous track is straight-from-the-drop grime with MC Emby on top. File this one under '‘Techno-Friendly UK Bass’, a concept I wrote about in last month’s review of the new Two Shell EP. I could go for a more DJ-friendly intro / outro arrangement, but does grime do that? Idk, I’m from Ohio.
‘Grafters’ on the flip is a nice addition. Its millennial breaks / ukg style is more familiar territory for the writer. The chipmunk vocals throw me, but the rest is solid enough to bring vintage Goldspot Productions and DJ Abstract to mind.
Sputnik is still very fresh on my radar. Nonetheless it’s great to see a producer tackle a new vibe. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Sputnik commands an even wider selection of sounds on his HÖR set (with Emby assuming MC duties halfway in). Cop the wax or digis from the N-Face Bandcamp. Digis come with an exclusive breakbeat remix of ‘Supa Natural’.
Slope - From a Distance EP [Collect Records]
Broken Beat / Electro
Cab Drivers are one of those rare German imports like Kraftwerk or Maurizio whose music has found a place in Midwest house / techno canon despite how little their sound shares with Detroit and Chicago. There’s a very cute story told by one of the Drivers in their RA Exchange about visiting Chicago in the mid-90s and being blown away hearing one of their tunes at a rave in the city they so revered. Our regional affinity for Daniel Paul and Jens Augustowsky’s work as Cab Drivers and their imprint, Cabinet Records, continues to this day. I remember someone dropping a fairly understated, latter-day Drivers tune to rabid screams of “Cab Drivers!!!” in Pittsburgh circa 2018.
CD and Cabinet Records have been a part of my musical education from the jump. I plucked a few of the early Cabinet 12”s on my first ever dig in Detroit and since then have hunted down a good chunk of the rest as well as their nuttier, pre-Drivers cuts. So the fact that Daniel Paul’s and frequent Cabinet Records contributor, Honesty, aka Hans Schaaf’s Slope project has slipped under my radar until this reissue has been a pleasant surprise. Slope’s prolific output spans Mille Plateaux hyper-minimalism, melodic electro, broken beat and downtempo excursions that bring to mind fellow Deutsch hip-hop beat scientists Computerjockeys. From a Distance collects four sought-after tracks from the duo’s jazzy bruk period. It’s a total departure from the stripped, lock-groove minimalism of the Cabinet catalog. Here every sonic moment is filled. Whether its a noodly synth riff, floating minor chord pad, ever-shifting jazz rhythms or a florid bassline – and its frequently all of these at once – no space is left unoccupied.
Everything but the A1 (tainted by a quiet pressing and mixing board noise anyway) hits just right. ‘Filter&’ is straight up golden age bruk with its wah’d rhodes licks, skittery hats and in-the-pocket three-note bassline.
‘First’ is a prime example of a very specific vibe I’ve been feeling lately; deep, melodic electro odysseys that take you many places throughout their length but don’t up the ante or energy level in any way. The experience is like floating in a very calm but very interesting audio womb. Weightless and entranced, the track pulls you out into its waters, sweeps you around for a tour of the local flora and fauna and gently deposits you back on land as the needle runs out.
‘Mosquitospray’ rounds out the plate with its triumphant, uptempo hi-tek soul. Lovely chords combine with drums so intricate I can’t tell what’s programmed, sampled or played by a session drummer. It’s something like Four Tet and Mad Mike beckoned back on stage to let rip an encore and send everyone home knowing they got more than their monies’ worth.
Spandrel - Geolectrics [TerraFirm]
Tech House
Joe Delon elaborated on many of the frustrations that plague the contemporary label-owner in a ‘stack post recently. Long manufacturing turn-around times plus a backlog of sometimes 4-5 projects in the queue can result in several years between the production of a record and its release. While a project patiently does its time in the Production Bardo, tastes, trends and the state of free-market economics can all radically change. The world of 2019 in which Shyam and I conceived this record and the world of 2022 into which it was birthed are very different. Covid, inflation, recession and major changes in vinyl production aside, Geolectrics has come onto a scene in a much different, though undiminished, way than I imagined it would.
What sounded like driving, entrancing, peak-time tunes now strike me as restrained and meditative in the higher energy / faster tempo times of 2022. This seems to be playing out on the dancefloor as well with DJs deploying tracks in the opening stages of their sets or at the afters. Unforeseen changes in landscape notwithstanding, Geolectrics has lost none of the finesse, charm and utility that had me hype three years ago. Shyam’s entirely personal blend of driving, heads-down tech house sets itself apart from the pack via subtly shifting arrangements of smoked-out synth-savantistry, masterful FX-work and complex layered rhythms. The stabs, swirls, glitches etc. that Shyam summons out of sampled and FX’d synths are unmatched in the game and form the foundation of his signature sound. These audio novelties have their roots in the groundbreaking stabs and bizzarro samples of Chez & Trent. Just ask Shyam how the iconic KMS 049 stab was made and he’ll give you the specs.
This combination of technical know-how and constant exploration for new sounds is the defining aspect of Shyam’s production prowess that makes him the Tech House Magellan, discovering and elaborating new developments within the bounds of an often-stale genre. My only gripe about this record is that it’s soon to be bodied by Shyam’s forthcoming double EP out soon on his new label. I guess I’ll content myself by considering Geolectrics as the prelude to the Age of Spandrel.
Cop the wax from your fav shop or the digis from the is / was Bandcamp