christopher rau / benjamin brunn / various ~ twentyfour ways on smallville


lawrence’s connoisseur hamburg house label smallville here mines its dreamiest vein yet. sure, their sounds are always deep, but the four tracks on the twentyfour ways ep all skirt and skate around in grainy, dubby house undercurrents that deal in a certain harmonic quality which evokes surreal memories and happily hypnagogic states.

opening proceedings is c-beams who displays a clear affinity for detroit all throughout his beautifully reflective contribution ‘one.’ never ending horzontal chords, fulsome kick drums and chattery claps all roam around each other with a late arriving and gentle bassline really heightening the pensive atmosphere. when flourishing key lines and sci-fi vocals come in during the final third, your fateful mission into deep space gently pushes off… hugely evocative stuff. 

read the rest of christopher rau / benjamin (…)

published on July 25, 2011 10:27 am.
filed under: benjamin brunn, c-beams, christopher rau, deep house, review, smallville

various artists ~ ava. 001

this is an exciting release – it’s not only comprised of four great tracks, but it also announces the auspicious arrival of a brand new label from cologne, and a brand new production talent from the same electronic hotbed. damiano von erckert is that talent, and ava. is his label. read the imprint’s short bio and you instantly suspect it means business; listen to its first release and you know so.

the one solo contribution from von erckert is the highlight: ‘untitled emotion’ is a patient, unassuming record that builds through lo-humming bells and a churning mechanical groove. when the ‘bap’ is added to the kick’s ‘boom’, it’s firmed up into what could become tech house. but it doesn’t; it’s too bouncy for that. instead, it reveals itself to be a deep space jam once a digital blip bleeds into the mix, growing ever louder and rising like the sun of a new day. subtle synth tweaks, barely-there vocal patches and an ethereal veil flesh out the rawness into something far more powerful overall than its subtle parts would suggest. restrained and delightful, it out-shines murat tepeli’s more stagnant remix for the way it pushes so effortlessly forward.

‘symphonie of a brother’ sees von eckert team up with funkycan for a simmering, less introverted house workout that instead looks outward with its muted string samples and cutesy key lines. importantly, the instrumentation feels reel rather than affected, making for another refreshing addition to anyone’s record bag. pampa man christopher rau closes this first release with a skittish percussive number all antsy with the gasps of voices and claps but bathed in an inviting warmth. it’s a patchwork of sounds that add up to a tight, groovy number almost befitting of hessle audio or some other such kinetic stable.

watch out for an interview with label boss damiano tomorrow, as well as a podcast from him at the beginning of next week… clearly someone of a refined taste, it should make for excellent listening.

buy it

published on May 13, 2011 4:56 pm.
filed under: ava., christopher rau, damiano von erckert, house, review

christopher rau – how are you on pampa

here comes some more pampa lovin’ on teshno: despite its infancy, the label is fast marking itself out as a go-to label for off-kilter house music in much the same way as has the man behind the imprint, dj koze. for its seventh release, the odd-ball champ enlists fellow hamburger christopher rau – the man who wrote one of 2010’s most considered house oeuvres, asper clouds, on the ever excellent and deeper-than-deep smallville.  this time out, though (on at least two of the three tracks) rau seems to be intent on having some fun – he uncouples his bottom ends and lets synths interject wildly and run off at odd angles rather than button them all down in the forward rolling grooves as he did throughout the mature, studied and tethered compositions which made up the aforementioned full length… 
  
‘pervading animal’ opens things with a spring like freshness in place of the dour autumn vibes of asper… long tailed hit-hats, a content house bump and repeatedly rippling keys build and build until they all get stripped back, bunched up and rolled out onto an expansive sonic plain once again.  it’s pleasant, not-too-down-on-itself deep house, but rather pales in comparison to the other two offerings. 
the first, ‘how are you’ has much more focus on freewheeling, beat driven rhythms, where busy drums pad out quickened, throbbing patterns in place of the flatter, elongated grooves which went before: they are deep but direct and, as they punch along, provide a nice vertical contrast to the aqueous, horizontal spills of the harmonics which bleed into the mix up above.
‘cfr’ is the most unhinged of the lot given the dominant characteristic – a bold, slightly discordant and roughshod synth sound which gets haphazardly layered over a broken kick drum at random intervals. it twists and turns, tunes and de-tunes and generously splatters the track with unpredictable, freaky and after hour colour that comes straight from the most sleep-deprived parts of your brain as it snakes about like an unfixed hose pipe.  like all the tracks here, cohesion comes from the warm, finely grained bass pillows which envelop you from the bottom up and, like all the tracks here, it makes for lovely, basement attuned house music which is as good in ‘phones as it is booming outta ‘bins. 

published on March 14, 2011 11:10 pm.
filed under: christopher rau, deep house, pampa records, review