ALBUM REVIEWS
6.0
9.0
Actress
Phlash
Werk Discs
Archive
Actress (aka Londoner Darren Cunningham) is a true iconoclast, never playing the record industry game. His last two albums for Honest Jon’s, ‘Splazsh’ and ‘R.I.P’, were original, very weird outsider techno mini-masterworks. It’s clear from listening to his music that it’s highly conceptual and dredged up from the murkiest corners of his imagination. But this sequel of sorts to his classic debut ‘Hazyville’ falls flat by comparison. Gone are the submerged, stretched disco fragments; vanished are the playful electro riffs. In their place are scraping, scuffling found sound samples the like of which would give Yvette Fielding a nightmare. Dreary, moody, industrial ambient for the most part, though ‘Corner’ stands out for its ultra-slow graveyard shift, a gauzy 4/4 thump with monstrous robotic snarls that go thump in the night. ‘Gaze’ is a return to his past leftfield house splendour, but overall it’s the sound of drowning in a barbiturate soup. Ben Murphy
Phil Asher should have a blue plaque on his house for his services to house music, enduring and pretty much flawless as they have been for the past couple of decades. Reinvigorating his Phlash pseudonym for the Italian imprint Archive has proved to be an inspired move, his ‘House Phillerz’ EPs devastating dancefloors across the planet. Several of those tracks appear here, as he flaunts his mastery with an assured swagger. There is genuinely not a single, solitary duffer here. Not one. It’s got range too. ‘All I Want’ and ‘Moodswinging’ are sumptuous, Chandler-esque garage, ‘Papaya Con Hierbas’ a take on Latin-tinged techno, while ‘Despacio’ is indebted to Italo and boogie. ‘That’s Right’ is dark and tribal, while ‘Alone In A Crowded Room’ recalls the glory days of Deep Dish. These are just comparisons, though. This inspiring house music is all his very own. Ben Arnold
Ghettoville
House Phillerz
Challenging, moi?
Phlash woah!
Planningtorock All Love Is Legal Human Level
8.5
Round the bend FOR a culture rooted so firmly within homosexuality, dance music rarely explicitly touches on its inherent countenance of gender subversion. With the commercialisation and popularisation of the club scene has come play-safe modes of music once designed to blow social boundaries outwards. Today, the increasingly homogenous sounds of house and techno pay service to what’s now a blunted tool, a catalyst that in the ‘70s (New York), ‘80s (Chicago) and ‘90s (London) pierced the valves of sexual repression and liberated a drastically marginalised section of society. On her latest full-length opus, Jam Rostron, known to most as DFAcontributor Planningtorock, has sought to readdress this balance. Most gay men and women object to the word queer to denote sexual preference, but it’s the most appropriate way to describe Jam and her music. If gender-bending is on the political agenda, the musical modus operandi here is one defined by its weirdness. 098 djmag.com 76 www.djmag.ca
The album’s opener ‘Welcome’ enters a fantastical world of high-pitched synths, evoking a more traditional idea of the fabulous, closer to Sinatra than Sinitta. ‘All Love Is Legal’, with its grandiose strings and trap hi-hats, is a rousing anthem about emotional liberation, while ‘Human Drama’ is a reflective and forlorn house track indicting the unfair and unnecessary negativity attributed to sexual diversity. ‘Let’s Talk About Gender’ is a straight-up disco tune paying homage to the genre that started it all, while ‘Misogyny Drop Dead’ is an offbeat Dadaist experiment (it even repeatedly samples the word ‘Da’) that twists and bends synths into disjointed, bug-eyed melodies. Closer ‘Patriarchy (Over & Out)’, meanwhile, could be Hercules & Love Affair. A brave and pertinent attack on an issue so regularly ignored in dance music today, ‘All Love Is Legal’ is both wistful and unwavering in its exploration; a challenging, at times chaotic listen that’s as enjoyable as it is playfully experimental. Adam Saville
8.5
6.0
The Jaydes
Tensnake
Dame Music
Virgin
Ever ended up collaborating with a mate because you kept sharing so much gear between each other to keep costs down that a natural partnership developed? Not a particularly far-fetched situation to imagine, if you haven’t already been through this yourself. What makes The Jaydes’ story different is that this accidental alliance is actually quite good. Together, producers Bloody Mary and Attan trawl through house and techno’s various offshoots over the decades. From vocal-heavy proto-trance to full-on stabby rave, they use classic hardware immaculately produced and mixed down to infectious pop perfection. It’s not serious, nor tries to be weird and challenging; this is well-made, fun dance music made to, you know, have fun and dance to? Put it on and get down, whether you’re in a club or in front of your mirror with nothing to be ashamed of. Zara Wladawsky
Gesaffelstein managed to migrate to Parlophone (Universal) without changing his spots last year. Tensnake, however, has grown a new skin entirely after getting picked up by Virgin (also Universal). By skin, we actually mean a massive techni-coloured dream coat lined with rabbit fur. Those who relished the tropical steel drums of ‘Coma Cat’ can hear them on ‘Love Sublime’, featuring a standard Nile Rodgers riff, a track that’s almost passable as the Tensnake we love until the tawdry disco diva vocals. ‘Feel Of Love’, with Jacques Lu Cont, does Robert Palmer with a French touch, while Jamie Lidell does his best Andre 3000 impression. ‘Selfish’ is diluted ‘Need Your Lovin’’ with a crap R&B vocal and ‘58BPM’ is also shit, like Imogen Heap attempting witch house. It’s not all bad, though. ‘No Colour’ is like listening to the Drive soundtrack on ketamine, and ‘No Relief’ is well-made dancefloor house similar to Dusky. Adam Saville
The Jaydes
Un-Jayded after all these years
Glow
Snake me up before you go-go