Ital – Hive Mind

Label: Planet Mu

Doesn’t Matter (If You Love Him)

Israel

First Wave

Daniel Martin-McCormick, aka Ital, has got quite a history behind him. From his beginnings with the group Black Eyes to Sex Worker’s indefinable Dance releases, he’s always had a powerfully independent voice. Having spent some time recently releasing on Not Not Fun and 100% Silk, his debut LP as Ital takes a very different route to his punchier early singles, presenting four long-form pieces (and a short one) that take the listener on mesmeric journeys through shifting soundscapes.

Ital is a real export of the internet’s role in music, and has spoken very interestingly on the subject in a recent interview with The Quietus. “The internet has become this place for evil,” he says, going on to explain that Hive Mind was born as a response to the “crushing aspect of our society” and “the glacial onslaught of the world we’ve made for ourselves.” Interestingly, then, the first track here samples Lady Gaga, who could justifiably be named the most enormous product of the internet thus far in the celebrity sphere. In Doesn’t Matter (If You Love Him) the titular vocal sample is looped to a nauseous, inhuman degree, and it almost feels as if Martin-McCormick is reducing Gaga to a droning electronic loop with a toneless, generic quality that aurally symbolises the same depthless anonymity of most music born from the internet generation. If we take it away from the more philosophical angle the sample is clearly indebted to the recent rise of Footwork, but the composition is firmly rooted in the world of House. A warm bass loop belies well-paced percussive textures and a huge host of glittering synth accents that swoop across the track magnificently. Although there’s a lot of repetition here there’s a keen sense of pacing throughout (as well as a curiously relevant Whitney Houston sample), and clean micro-edits ensure that the length of these songs never undermine their intentions.

All this seems to put Martin-McCormick on a level with many Dance producers who, when putting out a long-player, try to do something different; to use dance styles and tropes to create something that can no longer be danced to. The tracks now serve as cerebral journeys through twitching Electronic soundscapes, with scattered ideas and stylistic references cohering into a sound that is both heady and challenging. It’s not an easy thing to pull off, but most of these tracks really work. After Doesn’t Matter (If You Love Him) ends tellingly with Gaga’s voice looped and crushed into an uncomfortable, inhuman sonic mulch, second cut Floridian Void provides a more laid-back slice of cosmic House. A solid kick-drum is the only constant here amidst a swirling mass of garbled voices, squealing synth deviations and lush pads. It’s a track that, like most on offer here, reveals its beauty slowly over careful repeated spins, allowing you to discern the moments when the clouds part and a gorgeous melody makes its slow way across the soundfield before receding back into the ether. Most of the reason that these moments are more obscure is the shear amount of layers here, but they rarely feel gratuitous, for example there’s no faulting the sharp snare that appears in the last few minutes of this second tune.

Privacy Settings is the central axis of these more lumbering House numbers, and it’s clearly the sonic black sheep. It’s about a third of the length of anything else on here, there’s no anchoring drum kick or pleasant synth melody to draw you in, and Ital ramps up the broken-audio rips and effects that he has always enjoyed implementing. It’s a menacing and disorientating tune with ghostly synths and threatening percussive snaps, and it seems the perfect analogue for Martin-McCormick’s alarming vision of today’s internet culture. As the track recedes, synths slowly morph into the sound of howling wolves, a well-chosen symbol for the power of machines; whether a vision of our internet use or electronic music production itself.

Fourth cut Israel opens with a barely audible monologue, overpowered by some of the sharpest beats on the record. The track has a great swing to it, with cosmic synths washing dramatically over well-structured percussive sequences. Even though these songs can feel repetitive at times, the moments where they deviate are always so impressive that it’s hard to mind. This is just the case on Israel, when hollow percussive bounces take centre-stage only to be effaced by too-bright synth streaks from around the 6-minute mark. These are the moments that open up over repeated listens, and highlight just how surprising and satisfying Ital can be as a producer. Final cut First Wave closes the album in stunning fashion, souping up the languid pace of Hive Mind into a decaying Disco number that combines bright synths and gloopy acid basslines with an enormous amount of canny micro-edits. It comes off as the album’s most overtly beautiful track, and will probably stay with you longest after it’s over.

Ital gives you a lot to think about and a lot to listen to with Hive Mind, but it’s not quite a perfect album. The track lengths mean that the LP lacks a certain dynamism, and while there is an abundance of ideas on show, perhaps they could have been employed more deftly to give these tracks a little more pace and excitement. Because these tunes are so densely layered they require quite a lot of time to fully absorb but their formidable length and lack of clear hooks mean it might not be an album you’re dying to return to. This isn’t helped by the fact that most of the tracks here are constructed in a fairly similar fashion, but if you listen with patience and allow the sounds to immerse you it’s easy to lose yourself. Apparently Ital constructs all his tunes on Audacity, so I’m willing to forgive some of the effects sounding a little flat because it’s remarkable just how many of them don’t; frequently individual sonic elements leap out at the listener just for being so crisp and interesting. If you can give Hive Mind some time you’ll find yourself rapturously hypnotised by these flowing tracks, and there’s a wealth of detail and innovation to explore once you’re in there.

7.5/10

Machinedrum – Room(s)

Label: Planet Mu

I've been working on a review for this album before DJ Diamond's Flight Muzik (the other big footwork LP of the last month or so) even came out, yet the review didn't come easy. Even though these are two immensely talented producers weaving better-produced compositions out of the same juke cloth, it seems to me the intent of these albums could hardly be more different. Footwork originated with the dancing style of the same name in Chicago a couple of years back, and Diamond's LP was a celebration of the different styles it could take in while welcoming a whole new audience to the genre, and to a great extent was a success. But Machinedrum, aka Travis Stewart, for whom this is in fact the 7^th album (although you might not know it), seems to be driving at something else.

The celebrated vocals are both ubiquitous and surprisingly deep in the mix, less adding to the dance staples of rhythm or beat in their clipped sample-form and more evoking mood and atmosphere. On opener She Died There the vocal sample never stops after it starts, just submerging and re-appearing at different points over the stutteringly fast beats, and it doesn't quite feel like they're being used to the same effect as standard (and generally oversexed) juke vocals. Because I suppose at its heart this isn't a footwork album, it's not really a dance album, and it's only questionably an album designed to be listened to at home; so the only conclusion I can draw is that this is something blinding and new. In fact, it's easier to ascertain the quality of this record than label it in any way, because from the composition side of things it's absolutely fantastic. The production is detailed and always extraordinarily fast and confident without ever causing a sense of fatigue. It's also sequenced flawlessly, following a mood arch that starts with the paranoia of the aforementioned opener, rises to the ecstatic high of Come1 and ends in the atmospheric uncertainty of closer Where Did We Go Wrong with all the requisite stages in between.

It's hard to take the LP apart for discussion as it all hangs together so delicately, but suffice to say none of the tracks feel out of place and each opens up its own pleasures and individual qualities with repeat listens. Sacred Frequency is an early highlight, layering searingly bright synths with frantic rhythms and a submerged vocal sample that brings a darker quality to the sound, lending the track a depth that easily outstrips most of Stewart's contemporaries. Another euphorically upbeat track is the album centrepiece Come1 in which Stewarts abandons the untreated drums of his juke stablemates to contrast stabby rave piano chords with a free jazz rhythm, both a great achievement and the kind of detail it is absolutely unnecessary to notice in order to enjoy the track.

This track is followed by another fantastic cut, Youniverse, which offers a darker energy through fever-pitch beats where it sounds like you can hear the hand slapping the drumhead. This is twinned with a undulating organ tone that shifts in pitch, adding an oddly unsettling warmth to proceedings. The middle belt of the LP is fortified by another brilliant track immediately after, the unbelievably energetic GBYE in which micro-edited samples duel over an insanely dense drum pattern and you can just hear a snatch of 'I love you' before the sample is whipped away and replaced.

Towards the end of the album there are a few tracks that veer slightly from expectations. In Lay Me Down the vocals are twisted into something that sounds almost tender, like a footwork-style RnB ballad, but there is still an insistence that every space in the track is filled; by a beat, by a synth, by a human voice. Which brings me to a parallel that you might've already seen coming. The stone I must touch is of course one of the only untouchable 'dance' albums in the last 10 years, Burial's masterwork Untrue. Now I'll say straight out, this album is not as good as Untrue (but then, what is?) But it combines the washes of digital production with the incongruous appearances of human voices to a similar end; to evoke an emotional impact. And I do genuinely find this a moving album at some points. Come1's ecstasy dissolves into the ether like the emotion itself, the voice on U Don't Survive soulfully states “Now is the time to be alive” before being swept off by another round of breakneck percussion, but the message stays with the listener. There is an unutterable warmth to the vocals used that's impossible to shake, and perhaps most affecting of all are those of the closing track, Where Did We Go Wrong. For the first time in 49 minutes, the sound is allowed space to breathe, an ambient wash rising over record hiss and lost voices without a trace of a beat, and after such a relentless period of fascinating energy so stimulating you don't even know what to concentrate on, it's a sobering close indeed. But that's not to say the track is out of place. Indeed, the only feeling to expect after the highs and lows of such a startling pace is the fallout period, where indecision and contemplation must play a role in proceedings and it functions perfectly, a beautiful end to an amazingly consistent album in which every sound has its place and a superhuman level of control is displayed throughout.

Because there's so much constantly going on here, it's not the easiest of albums in which to dig deeper, but I could hardly recommend a more worthy candidate of your time this year. This is a wholly original vision that has been realised fluently and without flaw, and to put it simply, you just can't say that about a lot of albums.

9.5/10

DJ Diamond – Flight Muzik

Label: Planet Mu

The recent spate of footwork LPs, such as this and Machinedrum's excellent Room(s) may cause those just learning about the genre to ask why the Chicago juke scene has inspired such deeply experimental and abstract music on such a large stage, or even why label Planet Mu is pushing it out there so hard. Hopefully for those still asking, DJ Diamond's debut LP can bridge the gap between dance experimentalism and the electronic home-listening album by marrying the imperative movement in these tracks with the precision and attention to detail only found in the most obsessive beat-choppers.

For what are essentially tracks based on dance genres to work as an album, the mixing and sequencing is key. Luckily here the listener is given an LP where all of this has been taken into account, the tracks are formed like a DJ set with few discernible intros or outros, separating individual tracks and varying styles while keeping the general mood between cuts comparable enough to never feel particularly jarring. This seems an appropriate way to mix an album of footwork tracks, a genre so stripped and trippy that conventional song structure or sequencing couldn't have worked.

It's hard to isolate highlights as all the tracks bring their own unique nuances onto the established footwork style of shifting synths overlaid with aggressive percussion and repetitive vocal sampling, typically embodied in one of the straighter cuts, Pop The Trunk or fantastic early cut Vibe. What makes DJ Diamond's LP special is both the breadth of his stylistic influence and the attention to detail found across the album, seen everywhere from the taut bassline of Horns to the gorgeously shifting percussive noises and strings of Go Hard. Each track is a concise burst of tense energy, never going on too long and always accompanied by disciplined composition and an acute awareness of space in the sound, ensuring the listener is never completely overloaded.

Throughout the LP vocals and synths are clipped so finely that the music feels constantly unsettled, such as in standout opener Rep Yo Clique, but luckily Diamond's movement between samples is controlled enough that the songs unsettle but do not overwhelm, just as good footwork should, keeping production skills and dance-friendliness in the foreground. This is key, as by crafting an album rather than a set of singles Diamond has put a foot in the home listening market where production quality is more important and listeners are just as attentive to the detail and nuance of a track as its force and dance-ability. In Flight Muzik he has taken both needs to heart, as this album has both the high-end production that modern electronic music demands in order to highlight the skill and precision behind it alongside plenty of the weird sounds you only really get in bedroom productions, resulting in a happy 'best of both worlds' situation. This precision has to be partially down to his sample-based approach which allows him complete control to essentially chop everything to tiny slices of rhythm and melody and rebuild a swaying, dynamic sound that never slows even for a moment.

The breadth of styles Diamond has taken on is often spectacular, the bitter bass and slippy percussion of Torture Rack recalls the filth of stripped grime, following standout Decoded melts hard-nosed house and almost-hilarious trance chords into a swirling mass where there's nothing solid to hold on to, which is pretty much the goal of the genre where the speed of the melodic and beat changes is only matched by the blurred legs of those dancing to it. Elsewhere the heavy, minimal post-dubstep of Wreckage really emphasises the excellent middle belt the LP has to offer, and as it brushes up against the micro-edits of Digimon you'll be amazed at just how much rhythm and disparate stylistic influences Diamond can take in, reconstruct and put back out in so few tracks. Each track genuinely wows by itself, from the soul sample allowed to blare out before being chopped to microsamples in Snare Fanfare to the nausea-inducing vocals and irregular snares of Speakerz 'n' Tonguez.

This is clearly an album crafted with an enormous amount of skill and there a lot of great individual tracks here as well as an impressive whole, so it leaves me with only one more question to ask. For a genre so embedded in the juke scene that created it, how does footwork stand up in an LP which clearly isn't simply focussed on getting crowds moving but also being a stimulating home listen? There's no simple answer. Fans of J Dilla and his admirable legacy will enjoy the super-short tracks across the album in themselves as well as part of a whole and appreciate them for their concise expression. However I feel that others may find too little to hold onto here, even the simplest and most percussive of the shorter tracks such as the sweet Uh could sound like a mere teaser to someone who finds the entire genre alien. But at the same time, you can't get into every genre on a cursory listen, and this is certainly one of the broadest and most cohesive footwork LPs out there, so I'd definitely recommend giving this more than a single listen before deciding it's 'not for you'. And lastly, for those able to deal with the constantly shifting sound and who can take in the meticulously detailed production all in one go, you'll already be loving it, and the only problem will be working out how the average Joe can dance to it.

8/10