Damiano von Erckert - Love Based Music.

Label: ava.

Does a piece of art have to be original to be good? The answer to this question will differ from person to person, but there certainly seems to be a push for innovation in the world of music journalism, sometimes coming at the cost of quality. If a new album pushes sonic boundaries but doesn’t quite work as a whole, it’s deemed an intriguing attempt by a producer who could go far. On the other hand, if a musician doesn’t break the mould but releases a brilliant collection of tracks, he runs the risk of ‘playing it safe’. It’s a thorny issue, particularly in our age, where a renewed love of hardware and analog sounds means that many contemporary releases don’t sound all that different from material being released twenty years ago.

The music of Damiano von Erckert, who runs the stellar ava imprint in Cologne (profiled last week in our new comment section), notably flirts with nostalgia, particularly in the direction of a more soulful musical age, and therefore is a worthwhile consideration in the debate. On his debut solo album, Love Based Music, the producer could not justifiably be said to be making anything radically new, instead crafting a pitch-perfect selection of house tracks, shot through with funk and soul. Yet the songs that make up Love Based Music are not only throwback. They are not ‘only’ anything. These are rewarding, expertly executed dance tracks which show a producer with an enviable grasp over genre and mood, resulting in one of the year’s most enjoyable, coherent albums to date.

Despite its September release date, this is a summer album in its truest sense, mining the tropes of not only house, funk and soul but also disco and hip hop. These genres are not opportunistically appropriated – within each style von Erckert strikes upon an unrivalled authenticity, bringing the dustiness of live recordings and a striking musicality to the fore. Opener All Good serves as a beautiful opener to von Erckert’s musical landscape, a deep journey which brings emotive strings and harmonising choral samples to life over a weathered drum loop. Given the recent trend for this kind of filter-disco, it sounds strikingly modern (von Erckert has also pulled off this kind of trick before), yet even when he goes for the nostalgic jugular he is successful: the lush funk of No Good Times sounds like a lost 70s number, all Latin percussion and sweet guitar licks. Meanwhile von Erckert’s most pointed attempt at disco results in his best song to date, the irresistible Hollywood, where the stunning vocals of Stones Throw’s Georgia Anne Muldrow make for a track which is upbeat in the purest sense, with none of the sickening connotations so often accompanied by the term.

There’s not an inch of fat on this record; whatever style Damiano goes for he achieves with style and substance. So the filtered glory of Housem, previously heard on a solo EP, still sounds as lush and propulsive as it did on first listen, while the warbling analog sounds of French Porsche strings detuned melodies into a heady, intoxicating trip. Later von Erckert reprises the hip hop stylings of this year’s superb Mr. Pink, What Have You Been Smoking? LP on the slick sketches Sweet and Kind and Reelluv, the latter a sultry burner which features the skilled touch of previous collaborator Tito Wun.

The record’s biggest surprise comes with 10-minute centrepiece Adhab Ya Msafiri, where textured percussion and Middle Eastern intonations are set against cool chords reminiscent of Nicolas Jaar. The track slowly takes off, building over the faint rustle of hi-hats to a loping groove, where smooth keys trade places with a taut synth riff, in an atmospheric journey you won’t want to end. The brilliant coup of Motor City Drum Ensemble as a remixer adds a real sense of danger to the original, based on detuned synth notes which penetrate a lush field of noir house sounds.

Each track on Love Based Music deserves to have its praises sung, coalescing into a superb whole where von Erckert nails every sound he approaches with unparalleled soul and dexterity. It may not push the house scene in brave new directions, but if there was ever a case for quality over innovation, this is it: Love Based Music is a house masterclass which will surely be listened to years from now, which is a great deal more than can be said for a great deal of the dance world’s experimental stillborns.

8.5/10
Read this review in context at Inverted Audio.

ON: ava

Hello, and welcome to a new regular column of White Noise. In On, I’ll take a more personal approach, sharing particular sounds or discussing key issues in the scene at the moment. The series could focus on specific artists or labels, or explore and draw links within the scene as a whole.

For the inaugural edition, I’d like to shine a spotlight on the Cologne-based ava imprint, a label run by rising star Damiano Von Erckert. While the label evidently excels because of its music, I have to admit that I was first attracted to the label due to its aesthetic. A vein of nostalgia runs through each of ava’s releases, drawing influence from the sounds, sights, music and films of the 70s, 80s and 90s. These references are especially evident in the label’s record covers: photos and titles borrowed from films (Reservoir Dogs, say, or Fight Club). It’s clear that for Von Erckert, ava is a labour of love, each record handmade and issued as a limited release (the cover of his debut collaborative album even featured real feathers on the cover).

Tito Wun - The Way U Do It

The music itself is a refreshing blend of styles which, despite its obvious nostalgia for music past, manages to sound distinctly modern - one could never mistake ava’s output for lazy throwback. Many of the releases start with a core house template but incorporate elements of soul, funk, jazz and hip hop, threaded together with warmth and an eye for killer grooves. Motor City Drum Ensemble would be an obvious touchstone; but the ava stable are more adventurous, straying further from the standard house template.

So who are ava’s key players? The first call has to be von Erckert himself, whose particularly impressive releases have marked some of the label’s finest moments to date. After receiving rejections from a series of labels for his promos, von Erckert decided to set up ava and offered its first solo release in the form of 2011’s I Think We Agree, The Past Is Over. The EP's highlight came in the form of Housem, a glorious slice of filter-disco shot through with swooning diva samples and an irresistible 4/4 groove (for those who missed the vinyl, a remastered version will be available as a WEB on his forthcoming album). Von Erckert most prominently stepped out with this year’s mini-LP Mr. Pink, What Have You Been Smokin’, a collaboration with local beatsmith Tito Wun. The release is a delight from start to finish, taking the form of a woozy lover’s mixtape which blends soul, hip hop and house sounds with a surprising level of cohesion. The album also showed von Erckert's versatility as he nimbly stepped from the emotive strains of Leave Uuu to the upbeat funk workout of The Dude Loop, a track fortified by a tough house backbone. Nor should collaborator Tito Wun’s offerings be ignored, the superb The Way U Do It showing an equally talented producer who could recontextualise dusty funk samples with an unerring hit rate.

Damiano von Erckert & Funkycan - Symphonie of a Brother

Besides von Erckert,  a couple of producers have stood out proud on ava’s roster. Funkycan’s excellently-titled EP, We Were Raised To Believe That Someday We Were All Gonna Have Great Beards, showed a dynamic producer with a specialty in deeper material. Nowhere was this clearer than on the stunning CGN – GZT, a deceptively simple number in which the core loop was all that was needed, a sunken groove layered with deep, melancholy melodics which don’t get old no matter how many times you hit repeat (I can speak as something of an authority on this point.) Attention should also be paid to the superb von Erckert / Funkycan collaboration Symphonie of a Brother, the highlight of ava’s first release, a blisteringly soulful groove laden with soaring strings and a striking vocal sample championing the pen over the sword:

I said, “Arm me, send me on a mission. I’m ready to kill whitey right now’…This brother opens his desk, and he pulls out – he reaches real low, and I say back to my boy ‘he’s gonna give me a big gun, you see how far down he’s reaching in the desk’ – and he pulls out a stack of books. And I said, ‘excuse me brother, you said you were gonna arm me. And he says, ‘excuse me young brother, I just did’.

Murat Tepeli - Forever (Prosumer's Hold Me Touch Me Remix)

The other artist so far granted a solo release on ava is Murat Tepeli, perhaps best known for his collaborative work with Panorama Bar's Prosumer. On the Fee Fi Foe Funk For Me EP, Tepeli unleashed a pair of raw house grooves, tougher than anything on ava to date but still settling neatly into the label’s style. FFFFUNK and Forever recall Tepeli’s best solo releases to date (which are, by my estimation, Work It and Workinstrugglin), yet the release’s undoubted highlight was Prosumer’s ‘Hold Me Touch Me’ remix of Forever, a dangerous slice of late-nite house where a venomous piano stab reigns supreme.

ava has been going from strength to strength since its inception, but a particularly strong showing in 2013 should help catapult the label into the limelight it deserves. Particular attention should be paid to von Erckert’s first album-proper, LOVE BASED MUSIC, scheduled for release in September. For my money it’s the label’s best release to date, combining all of the label’s interests in an unstoppable package (with more disco flavours than ever before courtesy of some great live singers).

In a musical landscape overcrowded by labels constantly looking for the ‘next big thing’ regardless of style, it’s satisfying to see an imprint so confident of its visual and sonic aesthetic, for whom each release expands and explores the ava sound while remaining loyal to the label’s well-conceived style. The stable's core group of producers collaborate and remix each others' tunes, giving the impression of a label family whose warmth and sense of fun translate well into their music (indeed, look at Damiano's tongue-in-cheek trailer for his forthcoming album).  For that reason they’re more than worth championing and sharing, not just to draw deserved attention to a superb imprint, but because we need as many labels like ava as we can get.

Essential ava tracks:

 

Funkycan: CGN - GZT

 

 Damiano Von Erckert: Housem

 

Damiano Von Erckert: The Dude Loop

 

Damiano Von Erckert feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow: Hollywood

-Tom