Articles
Robert Henke / Monolake
Lawrence English
Justin Martin

Albums
Chica and the Folder
Ciëlo
Cobblestone Jazz
Cokiyu
Continuum
Crescent
Deceptikon
Fear Falls Burning / Nadja:
Feu Thérèse
Fink
Luca Formentini
Robert Fripp
Gultskra Artikler
Helios
Klima
Komputer
Akira Kosemura
Lusine icl
Michaela Melián
Morning Recordings
Geoff Mullen
Múm
Christopher O'Riley
Pluramon
Pure H
Roam The Hello Clouds
Reverbaphon
Sawako
Skøtt, Rasmussen, Munk
Sleeping People
Slow Six
Studio
Supermayer
To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie
Two Lone Swordsmen
Valentina
Worrytrain

Compilations / Mixes
Benno Blome
Booka Shade
Lee Burridge
Cielo
Justin Martin
Henrik Schwarz
VA: Add To Friends
VA: An Taobh Tuathail
VA: Echod
VA: Ikude
VA: Sky Diary Edits

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Antonelli
Build Buildings
Sylvain Chauveau
Christ.
Daedelus
Daso
Matthew Dear
Goldmund
Kush Arora
Litwenko
Miss Fitz
Plant43
Pulsinger + DJ Glow
Sote
Strategy

Antonelli: Boogie
Dreck

Strategy: Pacific Agenda
Dreck

Paul Dickow's in that sweet zone at the moment where everything released under the Strategy guise seems flecked with brilliance. His Dreck 12-inch, Pacific Agenda, sustains the glorious high of the recent kranky full-length, Future Rock, with two killer jams that achieve a live spontaneity that few of Dickow's brethren seem capable of matching. Sounding at times like a delirious throwdown recorded at a cowbell convention, “Pacific Agenda” stokes an impossibly funky backbeat groove of burbling keys and Rhodes chatter, while the B-side's “Julydub” tracks a double-time drum pulse alongside dub bass lines, gargantuan smears, and synths that sound like they're struggling to wrest free of a straitjacket for most of the tune's ten minutes. Impressive too is how effortlessly Dickow distills the library of music he's absorbed into material that references all of it—dub, soul, funk, techno, house—without pledging allegiance to any one genre in particular.

Dreck's other 12-inch, Boogie, by Antonelli (Italic co-founder Stefan Schwander aka Repeat Orchestra, Rhythm Maker, etc.) can't help but be overshadowed by the Strategy material but the Düsseldorf-based veteran of Background and A Touch of Class makes a strong impression of his own with two solid cuts. The A-side's house track, “Be, Bop and Boogie,” generates an uplifting, summery disco-funk vibe from staccato piano chords and a skipping, bass-addled groove. The flip's “Zabriskie” is much closer in brooding spirit to Schwander's Repeat Orchestra style: building from the alternation of dark shimmering chords, the track slowly gathers force with the accumulation of swinging beats, understated percussion flourishes, and synth punctuations and washes.

November 2007

This review also appears in Grooves.