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Spotlight 1
Albums
Aquarelle
Barem
Biosphere
Chubby Wolf
Collard-Neven
Cuni & Durand
FareWell Poetry
Field Rotation
Fonogram
Keith Freund
Freiband
Buckminster Fuzeboard
Harley Gaber
Richard Ginns
Grauraum
Hilton/Phillips
Jenny Hval
Jasper TX
Kenneth Kirschner
The Last Hurrah!!
Letna
The Lickets
Melorman
Penalune
Mat Playford
Radiosonde
Salt Lake Electric Ens.
Will Samson
Janek Schaefer
Phillip Schroeder
Silkie
Sølyst
Swimming
Nicholas Szczepanik
Talvihorros
Kanazu Tomoyuki
Luigi Turra
Watson & Davidson
y0t0
You
Compilations / Mixes
Bleak Wilderness Of Sleep
Lee Curtiss
Deep Medi Volume 3
Goldie
Goldmann & Johannsen
Heidi
Mindfield
Priestley & Smith
SM4 Compilation
EPs
Agoria
Bop Singlayer
Botany
Duprass
Margaret Dygas
Fennesz
Golden Gardens
I Am A Vowel
Mobthrow
Dana Ruh
Dana Ruh:
Kickboxing EP
Buzzin' Fly
The Buzzin' Fly production line has been operating with regulated precision and machine-like efficiency the past little while, given the recent releases by Abyss and Vahagn, and the label's next EP is already here courtesy of Dana Ruh and her Kickboxing set. Though she contributed a remix to Vahagn's Relapse, Kickboxing is the first formal release on Buzzin' Fly from a producer whose work has already appeared on Ostgut Ton, Barraca Music, and her own Brouqade label. If anything, the release might be seen as more mini-album than EP, with four tracks weighing in at a generous thirty-five minutes.
The EP's title track is clearly the release's go-to cut or at least the one that most powerfully showcases her music's many sides. It's a veritable nine-minute parade of soulful vocal musings and rolling grooves that Ruh belts out with ample doses of energy and conviction. After the track's storming pulse is locked in place, she serves up claps, percussive touches, drop-outs, and a late-night refrain (“Don't get so uptight”) that collectively bolster the track's deep underground kick and hypnotic potency. Like the title track, “What I'm Telling You” spends its first minutes laying a rock-solid foundation before sprinkling its shotgun claps and percolating percussion with flavourful vocal accents, though so subtly the effect verges on subliminal. Just as their cut-to-the-chase titles suggest, “This” and “That” reflect the EP's more minimal leanings in their stripped-down, unfussy approach. The former trots out a mechanoid house groove whose squiggly strut is constantly dogged by rising surges of acid, while the latter, egged on by a motif rather reminiscent of the one powering Samim's “Heater,” digs into its scalpel-sharp, bass-throbbing pulse with serious, unwavering purpose. Think of Ruh's release as more quality material from Ben Watt's ever-reliable Buzzin' Fly imprint.
September 2011