Give Me Something to Listen To

44100hz presents a review of new musical releases:

Swayzak have joined the magic of numbers. The English duo, consisting of David "Brun" Brown and James Taylor, celebrated their tenth anniversary in the music industry at the end of summer and presented their fifth studio album. Divide ten years of work by five released records, and you get two very hardworking guys who to this day still make music critics and ubiquitous aesthetes marvel. "Some Other Country" – that's the name of Swayzak's new work.
Actually the group came together back in 1993, but the first release under the Swayzak brand came out in 1997. Snowboarding In Argentina, the first LP, released in March 1998, was named album of the year by the American magazine Mixer. But real fame was brought to the duo by the album "Dirty Dancing" in 2002; after that record the group's status soared to the heavens: they began to be invited to the biggest music festivals; magazines from MixMag to Rolling Stone tried to get an interview with them; respected record companies offered collaborations. After "Dirty Dancing" Swayzak put out a good deal more material: their archive holds 34 records, 5 full-length albums and 7 compilations.

The new work characterizes Swayzak as firm followers of their original idea. Their sound is recognizable from the very first track – deep, spacious and precise, a little foggy like the streets of London, but at the same time clear like a frosted light bulb. It's still the same "intelligent electronica"; the guys don't betray the familiar 4/4 rhythmic metre, but fill it with new content. Stylistically you could classify it as deep-dub-minimal-techno-house, though who needs these hackneyed terms. Perhaps the album sounds a touch lighter compared to their earlier works, but in exchange it gains a certain atmospheric quality. Beautiful gliding passages, cymbals placed with jeweller's precision, soft bass, the sweetish vocals of Richard Davis. In everything you sense a certain aesthetic refinement, characteristic of a true English intellectual. The work turned out mature and complete; the Swayzak seal of quality keeps working.

Tracklist:
01. Quiet Life
02. So Cheap
03. No Sad Goodbyes
04. Distress And Calling
05. Smile And Receive
06. Claktronic
07. Silent Luv
08. Pukka Bumbles
09. By The Rub Of Love
10. They Return

Themed video: Swayzak "I dance alone" (2002, !K7)

Samim has quite deservedly earned a reputation as one of the most outstanding producers of recent years, working at the junction of styles like house and techno. The Berlin label Get Physical presents his first LP, "Flow," which features hits like "Heater" and "The Lick."
A Swede with Iranian roots, Samim first drew the attention of dance music lovers under the alias Samim & Michal (together with Michael Ho). Releases on labels like Kindisch, Freizeitglauben and Tuning Spork made the duo recognizable. In 2004 Samim fell seriously ill and stepped away from music, but soon returned to the studio, moved to Berlin, where he worked with FuckPony; their jointly released record "Children of Love" aroused considerable interest among fans of electronic music. Samim also released his singles under the name Bearback on such respected labels as Circus Company and Moon Harbour. His talent in the field of remixes was also highly rated – representatives of the recording houses Fourtwenty, Dirtybird, Highgrade and Crosstown Rebels reworked their tracks with his help more than once.

The new album unites all the experience he has gained over his years in the music industry. Actively experimenting and applying various techniques, Samim achieves his signature sound, built on lightness, humour and a special, eclectic approach. Already the first track, "Intro," envelops the listener with soft passages, a quiet, syncopated kick drum accompanied by beautiful female vocals. It's pleasant to listen to music like this in the morning, lounging on a sofa in a cosy cafe.
The second track, "SpringBreak," in the production of which Samim's old colleague Michael Ho and the crooner Big Bully took part, already has a quite palpable beat; here everything falls into place, and those places are on the dancefloor.
In "BlackDeath" you can distinctly hear a "hello" to German minimal, only this is more minimal funk than minimal techno, with African drums, trumpets and a lazily rolling melody.
In general, the influence of these tom-toms runs through the whole album, lending warmth to the sound; they enliven this straight technocratic music.
The album's main hit, "Heater," tore apart all of Ibiza's dancefloors this summer. An ascetic, lonely, hard beat at first, then radically transforming, accompanied by laughter and hooting, gaining momentum toward the middle so as to burst into a rollicking drunken melody played on an accordion. Uncompromising fun!
"Ukaka" – the track matches its name: bouncy, fast and light, it's a call to movement, and not only on the dancefloor. In the car, the office, at home, anywhere at all!
"Setup one" is some kind of Brazilian carnival: piano, violin, a mass of other live instruments form a melody that seethes and shimmers; music like this should accompany a real tropical celebration, and this melody is aided by all sorts of claps and acid sounds from the Roland 303 synthesizer, making this track a real DJ's weapon.
Techno – this word should come first in describing "Zleep." Straight, hard, forceful. Not a single superfluous sound; for some reason the name of the Spanish minimal-scene wizard Alex Under comes to mind – there's something of his music in this track, whether it's the bubbling and hooting or the scattered rhythmic pattern.
"Forced Feedback" is an anxious composition. It begins fairly peacefully, but as it develops it loses its herbivorous features and by the middle starts to boom with a tyrannosaur's roar. You should listen to something like this at night in a dense forest – thrills guaranteed.
The last composition reveals Samim's talent as a producer ready to look far beyond techno and house music. "The Lick" is an attempt to break out of the four-four metre, and quite a successful attempt.

Summing up a little, one can say that with the album "Flow" Samim managed to do perhaps the most important thing in the club industry, namely – to make people move. This disc's main use is the dancefloor. Fun, groovy, inventive.

Tracklist:
01. Intro
02. Springbreak
03. Blackdeath
04. Heater
05. Ukaka
06. Setupone
07. Zleep
08. Forcefeedback
09. The Lick

Themed video: the hit from the album Flow, "Heater"

On 17 September the debut album of the well-known German deep-house musician Henrik Schwarz came into the world. Over the last few years Henrik has managed to make his mark collaborating with the duo Âme, with Dixon's label Innervisions; his serious jazz roots showed through in works with artists like Jazzanova, Gilles Peterson; the musician released a compilation in the DJ-Kicks series on the !K7 label, and here too comes out his first long-player – Live.
Henrik Schwarz gained universal recognition precisely as a deep-house musician, but his outlook and vision of music go far beyond the straight beat. A kind of epigraph to the album is the track by the cult jazz outfit Sun Ra, which sets the general vector toward a New Orleans sound for the whole tracklist of the album. Here there are quite curious jazz sketches, a bit of dub, a bit of funk, a great deal of live instruments. All of it combines very well with the legacy of Detroit in the person of the "Belleville Three" and the classic Berlin sound. It's a kind of salon music of the future: the writhing trumpet of early Miles Davis, laid over a soft beat with inclusions of enveloping effects and seasoned with vocals. The album even features a remix of James Brown.
This disc is also great both for home and for the dancefloor, though dancing recklessly to it is unlikely to work out; you're more likely to sway lazily by the bar.

Tracklist:
01. Sun Ra - Lullaby for Realville
02. Kuniyuki - Earth Beats (Henrik Schwarz Rmx)
03. Mari Boine - Vuoi Vuoi (Henrik Schwarz Rmx)
04. Jesse Rose Alongside Henrik Schwarz - Stop, Look & Listen
05. Henrik Schwarz - Kalimba Dance
06. Henrik Schwarz, Ame & Dixon - Where We At
07. Kraak & Smaak - No Sun In The Sky (Henrik Schwarz Rmx)
08. Henrik Schwarz - Leave My Head Alone Brain
09. Boundzound - Louder (Henrik Schwarz Rmx)
10. Mandrill - Mang Meat
11. Henrik Schwarz - Jimis
12. Henrik Schwarz - Imagination Limitation (DJ - Kicks)
13. James Brown - Its a Man`s World (Henrik Schwarz Rmx)
14. Dark Globe feat. Boy George - Atoms (Henrik Schwarz Rmx)
15. Henrik Schwarz - Walk Music
16. Henrik Schwarz - Jazz Book # 2 (Music For Little Hands)

Themed video: a live performance by Henrik Schwarz in Berlin

Pan-Pot is an Argentine duo, consisting of Tassilo Ippenberger and Thomas Benedix, long and firmly settled in Berlin. The location was chosen by them not by chance – Berlin still remains the unofficial capital of minimal in all its manifestations. In October their debut album "Pan-O-Rama" comes out on Anja Schneider's label, Mobilee.
Up to now Pan-Pot have released five singles on Mobilee, and also did remixes for Misc., Dapayk Solo and Damian Schwartz.
"Pan-O-Rama" is a strange album; there are no beautiful tracks in it (the structure of the compositions is simple and laconic, painted in black), no virtuoso melodies – though there are no melodies at all, with the exception of the track Faces, recorded together with Vincenzo (an Italian producer releasing on the house label Dessous), no kind of organic life, the music is cold and severe, there's a lot of stuff missing in it, and that's more of a virtue than a flaw. This is real dark-minimal, it's harsh and brooks no compromise; from the tracks on this album they threw out everything they could, leaving only the most essential: a hard, forceful kick, fat bass, cymbals, and a couple of sounds torn out of context…
Here no one will pity you, no one will give you hope for tomorrow, no one will wipe your nose; this music is as inescapable, hard and constant as the beat of the human heart, and that beat doesn't need superfluous sounds, that's a bad sign.
Very monotonous sound, very lonely, very ascetic. It's unclear where the authors get such perverse cruelty; when you listen to the disc, you can't shake the feeling that some brutal experiments are being conducted on you, and, strangely enough, you like it!
On top of that, the telling track titles, like Apocalyptic Horseman, Ape Shall Never Kill Ape or Black Fusion. The record turned out dark and evil. Apparently, this is exactly how modern underground minimal ought to sound.

Tracklist:
01. Threesixty
02. Ape Shall Never Kill Ape
03. Dog`s Dinner
04. Black Fusion
05. Charly (Pan-Pot feat. Hugh Betcha)
06. Apocalyptic Horseman
07. Crnak
08. Hypnotized Shark
09. Moving Space
10. Faces (Pan-Pot feat. Vincenzo)

Themed video: Pan-Pot + Visuals "Good quality sound"