Kit Clayton & Sutekh: I Left My Heart In San Francisco, Volume One
Adjunct

Sutekh: Elephant and Obelisk
Orac

Having issued material on labels like Cytrax, Context, Force Inc, and ~scape, partners-in-crime Joshua Kit Clayton and Sutekh (Seth Horvitz) show'em how it's done on this fine 12-inch vinyl EP for the always-solid Adjunct imprint. Clayton's opener “Loroco” works a lumbering ditch-digging pulse and grimy synth sputter into a Molotov tribal-funk cocktail, after which Jorge Savoretti and Luca Mari wrestle their remix to the ground before letting it off its leash to terrorize citizenry with a snippety house swing. Some manner of disorientation sets in halfway through, as hand-claps point in multiple directions while the beats struggle to regain their bearings, but the tune soon rights itself and heads off determinedly towards its destination. On the flip side, Mr. Horvitz grandly steps out with the swizzling Latin-funk and mechano electro-quirk of “Make It With the Bow,” followed by Dilo who soaks the tune in a creamy funk-house synth bath that's got club classic written all over it.

Horvitz also steps out with a solo EP for Orac that goes by the rather inexplicable title Elephant and Obelisk. His Sutekh material is often high-strung and “Unstern” matches the template with a jittery groove that seems to get ever more squirrelly with each passing moment. Move aside when gobbling synth bombs balloon and explode, strafing the crime scene with acid fire. Like Stockhausen infiltrating IRCAM, “Unstern” then gets a brief, sputtering reprise as an electronics-only space walk. On the B side, Horvitz gets his acid-funk freak on with the bass-burbling strutter “Zuur” before broken beats take “Ubu Rex” for a stutter-funk spin that, with a slight arm-wrestle or two, could become dubstep. Though the release is a mere sixteen minutes in duration, there's still enough here to showcase Horvitz's inimitable talent for tech-house invention.

December 2007