Koljah: LeckerKuchen EP
Sushitech

Miss Fitz: She Has No Legs
Sushitech Purple

New EPs by Koljah and Miss Fitz (Maayan Nidam aka Crackwhore) offer a good introduction to Sushitech's warped and wiry futurama. Following a virgin deflowering on Phil-E (“My Room / I.l.m.b.i.b.”), Berliner Koljah joins Sushitech for four subtly jacking hits of psychotropic minimalism. Prodded by a hypnotic bass loop, opener “LeckerKuchen” works its clockwork magic like a precision-tooled machine. Having set the rubbery funk groove firmly in motion, Koljah opens the door to growling commands (“Get away from me!”) and assorted clatter and click before extending the invitation to the equally metronomic yet slightly more swinging “Metro.” On the flip side, Mitek's Mikael Stavostrand injects “LeckerKuchen” with a roiling house speedball, then hands the reins to “Flitzpiepe” for a pounding exeunt filled with popcorn percolations, guttural moans, and high-pitched squeals.

On the third Sushitech Purple release (though the Purple sub-label purportedly focuses more strongly on house and electronica, the lines separating the mother and child labels typically blur), DJ and Berlin producer Miss Fitz opens She Has No Legs with a smattering of digital noise and stutter (“If You Can Read This You're Standing Too Close”) before getting into serious sonar bleeps and skips in the glitchy “Lona Moth.” Nidam keeps Miss Fitz tracks like “Lick The Tick” minimal but busy, with mercurial clanks and whirrs in constant motion. The B side finds Ryan Crosson (Minus, Trapez) expertly stoking the cut to a syncopated broil and Ultrakurt's Spasm (David Glück) dropping by to animate “Lona Moth” with spindly locomotion in his 'Spasm's Zombie Cicadas' mix.

August 2006