Featuring DJ’s such as Carl Craig,
Steve Bug, Luciano and Villalobos, secretsundaze has fast built
a reputation as one of the most prominent nights in European clubland,
bringing together house and techno heads in a stylish and hedonistic
environment. Following the release of the well received ‘secretsundaze
volume 1’ mixed by residents and founders, Giles Smith and
James Priestley, secretsundaze has recruited the talents of Tobi
Neumann, a well respected DJ in the modern underground house and
techno scene, to compile and mix an eclectic and constantly twisting
journey into the heart of the electronic underground.
A long standing association with Sven Vath’s
‘Coccon’ empire and remixes and production work for
the likes of Miss Kitten and Villalobos showcase Neumann’s
pedigree but this is further exemplified by his unique track selection.
Launching off with the humid sun-scorched sounds of Osunlade’s
‘My Reflection’, Neumann starts off on a lite Daedelus-esque
front, providing listeners with something subtle to slowly get
them into the groove before Sacha Dive’s deep and repetitively
pounding bassline signals the real start of the party. From there
on in, the deep-tech house groove settles in and takes over. Electroid
lasers shoot off fragmented sonics into oblivion, reverberating
bass squelches with a confident stride, glitchy motifs flourish
in a deep smog and we’re only at Move D’s ‘Quit
Quitting’. After Vera & Frerico Molinari’s ‘It
Ain’t Music’, a track that takes the euphoric spine
of the former track and twists it into a captivating brand of
gradually thriving tribal minimalism, Neumann opts to pull out
of the deep haze he’s created (or perhaps gives clubbers
a chance to refill drinks or pop pills) by dropping the breezy
90’s style vocal house of Filsonik’s ‘Here to
Stay’. This is a rather depressing blip as other mixologist’s
such as Digweed, Jamie Jones or Hawtin would have opted to take
the set even deeper. That being said, Mr Raoul K’s ‘Le
Cercle Peul’ explodes with a dark, otherworldly aesthetic
as frenetic tribal percussives clatter amongst kaleidoscopic melodies
to create a sound somewhere in between that of Loco Dice and Tolga
Fidan. The pace continues to grow unabated from Minilogue’s
percussion heavy, quasar toting showdown ‘Jamaica’,
all the way to Nathan Hawk’s stuffy, outer-space excursion
which sees warping bass nodes and tribal beats fuse graphically
under fidgety melodics.
After the heavily techno-tized brooding
aqua dub of Rhythm & Sound’s ‘Ruff Way’,
Neumann makes pulse’s rise by spinning Billy Dalessandro’s
‘Nitrogen Bass’, a warm and organic track that takes
a spritely concoction of tight bass spurts and interlocking beats
and progresses the sound towards a euphoric micro-tech utopia.
This track signifies a oneness between listener and DJ- a much
sought after period of time within the dancefloor dynamic where
every living entity in range becomes putty in the hands of the
mutating soundscape. The close of the album showcases a range
of diverse cuts ranging from Stimmig, H.O.S.H & Solomun’s
tripped out sci-fi soul skirmish to Sensitiva’s chunky and
clinical Berlin tech-house stomp and Guillaume’s jazzy yet
stomping melancholic groove.
Neumann’s mixing is near perfect,
as is his arrangement of tracks (apart from the minor blip in
the middle) and with this release Neumann has created a magical
journey through a diverse set of wax, expertly fusing together
the clinical European tech sound with the groove-based U.S house
dynamic. This release has the depth and quality to make itself
a prominent release amongst today’s glut of electronic mix
cd’s and acts to serve as an excellent advert for the clubbing
phenomenon known as secretsundaze. (KS)
For fans of: Villalobos, Slam, Loco Dice
|
Write
about this album 