Articles
2009 Top 10s and 20s
King Midas Sound
Starke
Albums
36
Aardvarck
Matias Aguayo
Anaphoria
Anduin
Arbol + Fibla
Aufgang
Beneva vs. Clark Nova
Black to Comm
Bvdub
Cornstar
Dinky
Enola
Fieldhead
FOURM / Shinkei / Turra
Billy Gomberg
The Green Kingdom
Chihei Hatakeyama
Ian Hawgood
Marek Hemmann
Khate
King Midas Sound
Marcel Knopf
Robot Koch
Lambent
Shinobu Nemoto
Olekranon
Laurent Perrier
Piano Magic
Porzellan
Pylône
Ryonkt
Shadyzane
Slow
Small Color
Solomun
The Sound of Lucrecia
Stray Ghost
The Use of Ashes
Sylvie Walder
Compilations / Mixes
Sebo K
Will Saul
Tama Sumo
VOLTT Amsterdam Vol. 1
EPs
Blindhæð
Roberto Bosco
Franco Cangelli
Dieb
dub KULT
Abe Duque/Blake Baxter
Gemmy
Christopher Hobbs
Duncan Ó Ceallaigh
Christopher Roberts
The Sight Below
Two Fourteen
Van Der Papen
Andy Vaz
Vetrix
Eddie Zarook
DVD
Optofonica
Marek Hemmann:
In Between
Freude Am Tanzen
Marek Hemmann brings some mighty powerful swing to his debut full-length for Jena-based Freude Am Tanzen. The sometime partner of Matthias Kaden pairs found sounds and samples with buoyant beats, synths, guitars, vocal accents, and sax in ten buoyant tech-house tracks that occasionally nod in the directions of deep house, trance, and dub.
Opener “Alias” rolls out an enticing bass bump, dubbed-out horn accents, and a springy 4/4 pulse to get the party moving, after which a galloping groove and dizzying bass line give the lighter-than-air “Kaleido” a jaunty kick, along with declamatory trumpets and ululating vocal fragments that dress it up with exotic colour. Such tracks, decent though they may be, seem like mere teasers when In Between's standouts appear. The major one is “Compass,” a ravishing slice of euphoric techno-trance that's fueled by a gorgeous chord progression, radiant synth flurishes, and a jacking pulse so powerful it could launch a shuttle into space all by itself. Coming in at a close second is “Gemini,” which unleashes a breakneck house swing for nine light-speed minutes and peppers the groove with tenor sax licks that are tasty as they are funky. More exotic atmosphere is added in “Yvette” by way of rapid kalmiba-like melodies and backwards phasing treatments but, like much else on the release, the tune's ultimately more about the snap and kick it gets from its rhythmic thrust. Rather than bringing the album to a limp close, “Down” ends it on a high with a luscious construction that merges sparkling synthetic melancholia with a neon-lit tribal-house groove. Throughout the hour-long disc, Hemmann displays a definite talent for elevating his tracks above mere club workouts. While a passable enough exercise in trance-house shimmer, “Swarm,” for example, fails to generate much heat until, just when you're about to relegate it a second (or third) tier, a simple yet transporting theme surfaces halfway through to save it. As satisfying as it is, it too can't help but pale when heard in the company of “Compass” and “Gemini.”December 2009