Label: MDZ Format: 12″
“Charme 75″, taken from Oh.‘s Upper Disker album, finds the gang in Housey mode, chuckling their abundant collection of analogue synths along to a slippery Funk-based track which does the dancefloor thing in spades. Warmth is the key here, and the knowledge that this is the result of live interaction between people and not just machines adds further to the pleasures of the basic groove as swatches of electronics pulse and build dreamy spires.
Chilled out is the phrase best used to sum up this track, and for some reason the snapped-up synths call the very early sound of Eat Static to mind, but without the UFO references. “Charming” is the Gebruder Treichmann‘s remix, bringing up the beats to Tech-House levels and rhythms; there’s more abstraction, and a harder edge which makes for a more straightforwardly stepping dancey feel to the proceedings.
“Gama” has a more urgent feel, with a bassline which slips back and forth with some of the developments which have resulted in the latest incarnation of garage acting as reference points rather than genre categorisations. Again, the Funk is in the ticking air, with some serious head-down concentration evident in the complex manoeuvres and luxurious near-chickawacka synth sprinklings. Raumagent Alpha‘s mix soon spirals matters into Trance directions, with the snares and/or hihats making metronomic interlocks around which the synths gurgle and pulse while guitar licks emphasise the groove. As for the flanged/Vocoded vocal snippets, they just help bring that Köln feeling flooding in, putting the E firmly back in electronica.
-Freq1C-
