From The Archive is a selection of dance related articles and reviews from the archives of Stylus Magazine.

Frank Martiniq - Little Fluffy Crowds (Boxer Recordings, 2005)

Todd Burns: Frank Martiniq hardly has an identifiable “sound,” as you can tell from the above descriptions, but his compositions are united by one thing: a consistent quality, no matter the spin that Martiniq is putting on it. While you’ll probably never actively go out and seek Little Fluffy Crowds, if it somehow ends up finding you, you won’t be disappointed.

Losoul - Getting Even (Playhouse, 2004)

Ron Schepper: Peter Kremeier understands that a random gathering of dance tracks does not an album make, and so gives weighty consideration to Getting Even’s sequencing and its contrasts to ensure it’s heard as a listening experience beyond all else.

Shuttle 358 - Chessa (12k Records, 2004)

Michael Heumann: Chessa continues to deliver emotion-laden atmospherics. The eleven songs here are replete with the same spinning sine waves, sputtering bleeps and clicks, and (especially) lilting synthesizer melodies that effectively comprise the “Shuttle358″ sound.

Mokira - Album (Type, 2004)

Francis Henville:
+++++++++++long pasted water tones, clouds ++++++++++
+++++++four colors of air++++++++repressed anger++____
________nostalgia++++++++=======irrelevance, the sound
of muffled crying from next door (+) (+) (+) ++++++++++++
+++++++short moving tones++++++something sung_______
+++++++++++++++++++++it was once a guitar**********
+then the evening+++++++++ and the longer night+++++++

This time: The Disco-tech of… series from France’s Yellow Productions; home and launching pad for Kid Loco, Dimitri From Paris, and Bob Sinclair.

The Disco-tech of…Julien Jabre (2003)
Still the only CD with Julien’s name on it, it is also the most diverse entry in the series so far, ranging from jazzy fusion, to disco and deep house, with little emphasis on the “tech.” To be honest, Jabre dangerously flirts with samba-ish cocktail jazz and velvety vocal house throughout, but through excellent mixing and sequencing, he does manage to hold interest way longer than, say, Thievery Corporation. Besides bookending the mix with a snippet of Philippe Sarde’s tumultuous score to “Les Choses De La Vie,” and including the extended version of Carl Craig’s epochal “Domina,” there’s little to interrupt the lush keyboards, round edges, and accomplished arrangements of each track here. And while it’s surprising to hear anonymity coming from tracks by such heavyweights as Herbie Hancock and Marvin Gaye, it’s good to see a mix that gives the smoother, classier side of jazz, disco, and house music a more respectable (if completely un-hip) name.

The Disco-tech of…DJ Cosmo (2003)
Veteran NYC/London resident Collen Murphy (aka DJ Cosmo) isn’t as well-known as Jabre or Robotnick, so here’s a short resume: she runs the label Bitches Brew, is a member of that forgotten Playhouse supergroup Light Fantastic, and is one of the few people allowed to fill in for David Mancuso during one of his famous loft parties. Right. Murphy’s mix is probably the one in the series that fits conceptions of what one would think “disco-tech” would sound like. Chicken Lips, Metro Area, Robotnick, Gino Soccio, and other synth-heavy artists fill out the tracklisting, including a slaying instrumental version of Rafael Cameron’s Salsoul hit “Boogie’s Gonna Get Ya” that is practically worth the price of admittance. There’s also a couple of great detours: namely the Isaac Hayes-baiting funk of Los Chicharbons and the old-school disco rapping by Fertile Ground. The only problem I have with this mix is that it feels more like a collection of good/excellent tracks that stand up by themselves, rather than a solid blended mix. Pickiness aside, Murphy holds her own against Jabre and Robotnick.

The Disco-tech of…Alexander Robotnick (2004)
Definitely the most popular in the series, Mr. Robotnick’s mix lays down the links between electro-clash, new wave, and italo disco while still being defiantly populist. It’s likely that since Maurizio Dami never DJed throughout the 80s, he hasn’t worn out all of the obvious genre touchstones and headed towards white-label obscurity. So, you get such familiar new wave staples like “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “Wordy Rappinghood,” and “Enola Gay” rubbing up against nu-school tracks from Miss Kitten, Bangkok Impact, and Dopplereffekt (with a half-dozen italo classics splitting the hipster difference.) It may not have as much value to dance music nerds, but it does show a neat musical continuity over the past three decades: all the canonical tracks of each era have a similar idea of what defined radiant, romantic, and melodic dance music.

[Michael F. Gill]

This Environ vet does little to change his sound on this, his Ghostly debut. It wouldn’t be such a heinous crime if this was his finest work, but “Berlin Sunrise (Die Nacht),” only comes to mean stuff in a mid-song breakdown worthy of the Neptunes, in which everything drops out except the glistening synth, the Italo tempo drums, and a yearning string line. When things get normal again, just pick the needle up and go back or wait for it all to come together in the finale. “Berlin Sunrise (Die Daemmerung)” is a less effective, more compact beast that pumps up everything at the expense of length and subtlety. On the flipside, the highlight is “Das ist Kein Techno!,” which is decidedly not techno! What it is is top-notch acid house.

Ghostly International / GI-34
[Todd Burns]

Went to Germany last week and while what follows will mostly be Kompakt-related gushing, at the Hardwax store they were playing this little gem of a 7” on the stereo and even my friend who doesn’t like techno at all had to admit that it was something special. What it comes down as is tribal techno of an abstract bent. African and Caribbean drum sounds make up the base, while hazy off-kilter synths weave in and out of the two tracks. Strong stuff to scare off the uninitiated or, in the case of my friend, draw them in.

Mathematics / Mathematics 006
[Todd Burns]

Built from ‘larger than thou’ handclaps and a rollicking bassline, Toro’s a-side “Phantom Drive” continues My Best Friend’s jaw-dropping trek through the genre-orgy of italo-electo-disco-house. Toro, consisting of Jorge Gebauhr and Riley Reinhold (Triple R), also lay down “Ohio 69,” which trades the hand-claps of “Phantom Drive” for drum machines as well as the fat bassline for off-kilter clangs of a melody. Always driving between expansive and visceral, “Phantom Drive” is simultaneously hypnotizing and provoking throughout.

My Best Friend / MBF 12010
[Nate De Young]

Heib’s latest cures listeners of any doubts that Kompakt was going off the avant deep-end with this furiously hammering 12” that could be just as well suited for the Extra sub-label. “Stripped” is an much-needed ode to Daft Punk’s “Rollin’ & Scratchin’,” “Phonix” keeps the dance party alive in the same manner, distorting a different sound to chilling effect, while the title track is much the same, sans an overdriven element that threatens to destroy the stereo field. Maybe Heib is getting soft too.

Kompakt / KOM 111
[Todd Burns]

The 12” that did have me, and others, going BEST 12” EVAR last year was DJ Koze’s Speicher contribution, “Brutalga Square.” This one…not so much. Call it the Villalobos virus: Koze seems too enamoured of his own production skills to ever really get into anything approaching a groove here. The opening track sees fit to take its leisurely time in bringing off a rather exciting melodic counterpoint, but it’s too little and too late to get me much interested. “Kushelrock,” though, is prime Pop Ambient 2006 material being a curiously muted Slowdive B-side from the Souvlaki sessions.

Kompakt / KOM 110
[Todd Burns]

Luciano started the Cadenza label last year, adding a number of 12” to the spate of full-length releases he unleashed on other labels. I kept that sentence rather boring because I don’t want to betray how absolutely stunning I think nearly every single release has been. But, then again, I’m a self-avowed sucker for 12-minute latin-tinged micro-house tracks that meld dubby bass and bulbous synths.

Cadenza / CADENZA 02
[Todd Burns]

Taking cues from the naïve charm of Ada’s off-kilter sampled sounds, Metope attempts to slide his own awkward notes to these two punishing tech-house monsters. While “Libertango” works better, mining a grinding out a living amid a few synthetic rays of hope, “Parallel To You” uses the same melodic presets to a much calmer effect, lulling you to sleep over its length. An unaccomplished 12”, this one’s more for the middle of the set, rather than peaks or valleys.

Areal / Areal027
[Todd Burns]