db: Troon
Background Records

Though the sleeve reads 'minimal music,' Troon sounds deep, dense, and aquatic. Adding to past 12-inch releases on Berlin's Sub Static and Karloff labels, Vienna's db (Daniel Bemberger) returns with a slightly more up-tempo set of future house on this sequel to last year's full-length debut Peron. Though all are subtly different, the three db tracks and Andy Vaz remix fuse delectable textural detail with the deep rhythms of traditional house music. In the smooth and buoyant title piece, intricate skeins of distorted groans and clapping clicks scurry over a bouncy, loping pulse while whirrs, smears, and clicks in the slightly more aggressive “Trauma Boy” relentlessly chatter over a gently pounding groove. “City of Dreams” gets two treatments, db layering an interweave of surges, smears, and distracted voice musings atop a rollicking pulse and Vaz adding a Portable-styled hint of Africa to his funky, dance-focused treatment. Based on the samplings here, perhaps 'minimal' alludes less to the density of db's sound and more to its nuance. Regardless, Troon is a splendid supplement to Background Records' classy catalogue.

May 2005