Reviewed by Philip Sherburne in his Critical Beats column in the July 2010 issue of The Wire:

07.20.2010

Tracks:
A – Hindsight feat. Kevin Knapp
B – Ya Feel Me?

About:
Marc Smith’s Untitled 16 fears no house with chunky rhythmic swing and emotional chord progressions. These two tracks drench your ears in vintage shimmer and pulse over focused dancefloor provocation. Think Nu Space Disco without the lethargic pace.
Hindsight is a full, lush mix of melodies and swing that makes no small use of the vocals of one of the most in-demand vocalists in techno and house today: Kevin Knapp. A simple, emotional falsetto melody in the spirit of Odyssey, Imagination and Shalamar (or dare we say Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang?) asks “How did I ever see you were for me? …But the problem isn’t me.” Love in conflict – isn’t this the stuff dance classics are made from?
Painted from the same palette of spacious vintage synths and shuffling beats, Ya Feel Me? brings a touch more of the Tech with a tight kick-to-clap punch. Snips of male vox play hide-and-seek with swirling, shifting melodies that echo and drift into the ether.

Peter Kruder (Kruder & Dorfmeister / G-Stone / Peace Orchestra) Rating: 4/5 – Like both tracks. Will play this.

Mathias Schaffhäuser (Ware) Rating: 4/5 – cool tracks, i like these euphoric vocals in Hindsight and the KRAFTWERK like synth in YA FEEL…..

Luciano (Cadenza) Rating: 4/5

Laurent Garnier (F Communications) Rating: 4 – Great deepness

Tyree Cooper (Groove Baby / Supa Dupa / Ovum / DJ International) I like “Ya Feel Me” because its a nice track to start with at six in the morning and the crowd is still waking up…..Nice Job

Robert Owens (Compost / Poker Flat / Trax) Rating: 4/5 – nice vibe

Perc (Perctrax / Kompakt / Drumcode) Rating: 4/5 – Classic sounding house music, I like it.

Omid 16b (SexOnWax / Alola) Rating: 4/5 – cool

Aubrey (Solid Groove / Textures / Dark) Rating: 4/5 – Ya feel me is very deep, great selection of noises… thanks alot

07.06.2010

Tracks:
A – Luv Hate Us
B – Another Man (You’re On the DL II)

About:
The Lady Blacktronika’s Untitled 15 is a pair of deep, resonant tracks in the spirit of Detoit’s Beatdown sound. Amidst the resurgence of interest in Deep House, these tracks take their cue, not from the evolution of Minimal, but from pioneers like Moodyman, Theo Parrish and Norma Jean Bell, creating what Lady B calls, “Future Blues”. They come from the tradition of reflecting a soft soul out of hard urban life, creating beauty from heartache.
Lady B’s moody, soulful vocal samples are so moving you’d forget any love song ever had a happy ending. Vocals pitch up and down, between genders, swirling and echoing. Luv Hate Us is a thumping heartbeat, that pumps ever forward as we’re asked, “Why do we love love when love seems to hate us?” Another Man shuffles and shimmers behind the confession, “If I could, could forget him, I would, please believe me…I’m in love with another man.”

Tyree Cooper (Groove Baby / Supa Dupa / Dance Mania) Rating: 4/5 – I like the Detroit Beat Down stuff and this no different. I’m feelin “Luv Hates Us” it has that slow build up and then drops u off into the funk.”Another Man” Is also a good track when u wanna keep that crowd jackin to something so different……Great Job.

Deepchild (Trapez / Anabatic / Resopal) Rating: 5/5 – Damn, damn fine stuff. Moodymann’s spirit continues with a unique incarnation and angle…just… FRESH. Full support for Another Man. YES. YES. YES.

Philip Sherburne (The Wire / Pitchfork / Beatportal / Resident Advisor) beautiful stuff. love the pace, love the textures, love the vocals…

Perc (Perctrax / Kompakt / Drumcode) Rating: 4/5 – Very good release. 99% more interesting than 99% of releases!

Groj’s new mix titled “Morfluphe” featuring two Untitled & After tracks.

06.01.2010

Tracks:
A – Beren Gardh
B – Nén Varna
C – Ethuil Siniath

About:
Groj’s Untitled 14 collects three techno tracks, at once epic and quirky. Groj’s use of synthesis is so diverse and highly crafted that electronic becomes organic, each track creating its own ecosystem of cohabiting life-forms. Though Untitled 14 is aimed at the dancefloor, you could almost imagine no human hand intervening in their creation, but artificial life forms creating sound according to game theory that balances struggle with harmony.
Beren Gardh (the bold world) is entangled and suspenseful, generating rippling sounds that accumulate to capacity…and release.
Nén Varna (safe waters) is a steady thump amidst turmoil, seeking island refuge from a wild ocean.
Ethuil Sinath (spring tidings) is an ornate and sensual progression of beats and blossoming vernal melodies.

Laurent Garnier (F Communications)
Rating: 4 – will play this a lot

Deepchild (Trapez / Anabatic / Resopal)
Rating: 4 – Loose and experimental, dope. Exciting to hear such unexpectedly creative work.

Max Cooper (Traum)
Thanks for this, Beren Gardh is a really really great track!!

Tom Findlay (Groove Armada / Lovebox)
Rating: 4 – nice and moody, but not too much so.

05.25.2010

Tracks:
A – so fast
B – so long ago

About:
Kenneth Scott’s Untitled 13 is a deep techno generator, running low and slow. Churning below the 120 BPM threshhold, these heavy tracks overflow with sparkling details and melodic twists.

so fast pumps out Detroit-tuned synths with a near-orchestral approach to composition…but something’s not quite right as leads joust in and out of tune, jumping left and right, creating unexpected, decentered shifts.
so long ago spins like a dark, dancefloor caliope in dialog with minimal pricks and pops.

This pair of tracks were originally lost when Scott’s laptop was stollen from a gig in 2009. Luckily, a cd-r of so fast and so long ago was found in the DJ booth at legendary 222 Club in San Francisco in early 2010.

Hence, this pairing is the beginning and the end. There will never be a remix.

04.20.2010

Tracks:
A – Sarapiquí
B – Kommós
C – Sarapiquí (Organon Remix)

About:
Overcast Sound’s Untitled 12 is a deep and rich chapter in the mysterious and unyielding history of dub-tech. These three tracks exist in the haze between a museum dose of opiates and REM sleep.
Sarapiquí is a slow tempo pulse guiding us past breathing caves, bird sounds and open spaces that issue strangely familiar sounds that we just can’t place.
Kommós merely hints at rhythmic propulsion as subtle sounds glide by, just perceptible, just out of reach. A man’s murmuring voice confides to the listener – a confession? A cry for help? An apology? His voice and the sounds that cradle it, pass timelessly without resolution.
Organon’s remix of Sarapiquí is slighty more psychedelic than the original as textures and deep chords undulate and swirl. The dub tech rhythm pushes more to the up beat through myriad atmospheric details.

Support:

Dubfire (Sci + Tec / Deep Dish)
Rating: 5/5

DJ Bleed (De:Bug Magazine)
Rating: 4/5

Rick Bull – Deepchild (Trapez / Anabatic / Resopal)
lovely rainy-day dub….superdeep…in good company with Vladislav Delay et al…

Q-Burns Abstract Message (Eighth Dimension / EIGHT-TRACKS / Invisible Airwaves Radio Show)
Rating: 4/5
Lush + Gorgeous.

04.13.2010

Tracks:
1 – Malibu
2 – Indian Summer
3 – Everything Is Forgiven

About:
Robert Crouch’s Untitled 11 is the result of experiments in writing techno tracks based on field recordings and generating rhythmic textures through spontaneous looping and re-sampling. Each track creates its own sense of place, locating the listener or dancefloor away from their immediaate surroundings to somewhere thick with ambient sound – from human to natural soundscapes. But rather than taking us to some dislocated non-space, the atmospheres are immediate and palpable. Very there – in a tension and release between yearning and fullfillment.






Support:

03.23.2010

Tracks:

About:
For its tenth release, Untitled & After issues a compilation of music that seeks solace in the outer reaches of electronic music. Akin to Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series, Untitled 10 (The Black Album) pulls away from the structures of techno into more expansive terrain.

Collected from artists as diverse as Bizz Circuits and Morgan Packard, from locations as distant as Sapporo, Los Angeles and Berlin, Untitled 10 (The Black Album) is a meditation on the tension between force and fragility. An extension of the beat driven roots of Untitled & After, this compilation revels in the paranoid spaciousness of dub, the personal documents of field recordings and the otherworldliness of soft synthesis. Here, ambient is not a genre, but a timeless, spaceless moment. Untitled 10 (The Black Album) attempts the impossible by documenting something so fleeting.