Redshape’s visits to Running Back are a welcome recurrence and a soothing reminder that techno and house can still come in several shapes and sizes. Related and referring to earlier acid studies on Release Me and to a certain extend on Rise, the masked man continues to find new approaches to the 303 canon with Acid Leak.
Running Back regular Redshape returns with Release Me. Four tracks and four deeper shades of Techno (or House?). It’s not a secret that the music of the man with the red mask is heavily influenced, inspired and informed by the blueprints and the symbolic language from the twin cities Detroit and Chicago.
4-Storie varied EP with classic Redshape tropes. From slow motion techno poems to clever DJ tools.
Redshape stars in another deep tripping, sci-fi odyssey on his imprint for Present 16. Opening ‘The Gate’ reveals a slow but surely building burner that is classic Redshape, ripping the space-time continuum fabric apart at it’s spoken word climax narrating of solar winds, cosmic ray particles and the speed of light. Heed the track’s unmistakable call and take flight on an interplanetary elevator with parched, bone-dry percussion, twisting lines with propulsive bass and growls that rumble underneath, enveloping you in an air cabin of Jedi-level sound design prowess. The ride truly begins next with ‘Voyager’. It’s all aboard a throbbing deep low end countered by floating, melancholic sustained chords with twinkling bleeps and fading bloops that light up like the star-studded Milky Way. Frantic hi hats and modulated percussion work keep riders on the edge of their seat through this fantasy space-age joyride at warp speed.
Seven years into its celebrated journey, Life and Death assembles its third and most adventurous compilation to date – Displaced Soundtracks. For the first instalment in a new series, DJ Tennis has given free rein to some of his most trusted contemporaries, enabling many of today’s most respected dance music producers to display their hidden talents as composers. Gathering music from a long-aborted film, the collection stands as another bastion of Life and Death’s perpetual evolution. Duncan Gray embraces dissonance, Black Merlin, Appleblim and Artefakt go interstellar and Fango channels post-punk squat music. Hades Rocket showcases the expertly-sequenced synth work that has graced Simian Mobile Disco’s illustrious career, while Redshape revisits all the right sides of 80’s Wave and Library music. Danny Daze and synth-savant KINK embrace non-standard tempi with great success, while Axel Boman delivers sitar-laced gospelhouse without a bass drum. Elsewhere, your favourite producer’s favourite producer, Stimming, team’s up with pianist Lambert and the pair learn to fly. Inspired and challenging, Life and Death ventures into their eighth year confidently, constantly evolving without compromise.
Redshape returns to his own label with a retrovisionist release that looks back in time as much as it looks forward to the future. Revving up on the A side is ‘Shift’, a propulsive hurtle to the final frontiers. Starting off ominously with just drums, bass and a Pollock splatter of toms, the track is soon overrun by an army of relentlessly running basslines, let loose to steer in and out like searching headlights on a dark and endless highway. With a heavier kick, the track shifts into top gear with pensive pads soaring overhead, mesmerising squeaks and his signature attention to percussive detail. On the flip is ‘Drive’, which switches gears down a notch as an astrospace cruise along intergalactic coastlines – from summery California to shiny Coruscant. A rounded pounding beat with heavy sub bass bounces along to a breezy tropical melody and spacious percussive work, before riding off into a cinematic sunset that is as nostalgic as it is hopeful of the coming dawn. Once again on the edge of spatial sound but grounded in analog warmth, Redshape has presented a revision of classic record productions that truly punches as it is meant to be felt and heard – on wax.
The ever-enigmatic Redshape returns to his own label Present with this propulsive and decidedly unearthly release. Bleep Repeat makes for a potent first track. Here, a thumping step gives way to synth lines that sting and swell across solar systems. Things get headier, grittier, reaching a furious and frightening rush with spectral soundbites to match. A homage to UK rave sounds, this track perfectly captures the uncanny pairing of aggression and rapture at the heart of 90s bleep. Paper Blades follows, a celestial soundscape punctuated with hissing breakbeats and a sinewy bassline. Rippling acid lines beam along the astral plane, and a hallucinatory, near-liturgical melody meanders all the while. Spaced-out yet inexplicably driving, this track is elevating, enveloping definitely one for transcending.
Nonplus release a new EP by Redshape. Feel Like Riot’ and ‘The Rift’, stay in the vein of his sci fi laden Detroit techno style that continues to evolve but stay true to his unmistakable Redshape sound.
Dolly brings us two absolute wicked floorburners from the somewhat mysterious Compassion Crew, with this slightly tribal hypnotic feel. Redshape on remix duties takes things to the techy side of life with a smooth & extended techno rework of V.H.S.S.
17 years after first releasing a cassette EP from label boss Marsel van der Wielen under his Peel Seamus guise, Delsin has now hit the landmark category number of 100. Truth is, taking into account choice re-issues and specials such as the recent house series, there have already been scores more than 100 releases. Nevertheless, in that time the Dutch label has become synonymous with a wide range of timeless sounds from house to techno to dub to electronica, nurturing and championing some of the most respected names in the scene, all of which can now be enjoyed on 5 separate, various artist vinyl EPs or one impressive two disc compilation. Far from just a collection of tracks, the 100DSR compilation has been carefully curated to tell the tale of Delsin. Each record conveys a slightly different part of the story – be it house, techno, beats or electro – yet every one is tied together by the label’s own underlying sense of desolate melancholy. Across the five EPs and complete CD collection there are tracks from newbies and old favourites alike, including Sawlin and Delta Funktionen, John Beltran and Bleak, Redshape and Convextion, Gerry Read and Claro Intelecto.
The on-going celebration of Delsin reaching 100 releases continues here with the 4th in the series of 100DSR releases. Featuring key label friends Redshape, D5 and Area Forty_One, it’s another compelling package. First up is the famous masked one with a track specially made to celebrate the centenary. Fittingly it is entitled ‘100 (Classic Mix)’ and finds him in a doleful mood, layering sad synth motifs of a hubbub of nicely crushed drums and scurrying percussion. Sad but optimistic, uplifting but heavy-hearted, it’s a quintessential Redshape track that manages to be industrial and romantic at exactly the same time. Next up is D5, who has basically only ever released on Delsin since emerging in 2001. It’s be a few years since his last EP, but this new track makes the wait worth while: ‘Stem Cell’ is a light-footed, harmonically enriched bit of house that has large opens spaces glowing golden white as paddy kicks keep busy below. A blissful but purposeful track, the final offering comes from sometime Ann Aimee producer Area Forty_One, who offers the dynamic and juddering bit of deep techno that is ‘Supervoid’.
Redshape returns to his own label with a new two tracker! Always a bit special to have a new Present release… and this is no exception. Playful Detroit inspired techno from the Man with the Red face that’s slowly building and gently seducing the floor.
Almost exactly three years after the first, Redshape has readied his second Red Pack, due for co release by his own Present imprint alongside his frequent Dutch home, Delsin. Whilst the world is still enjoying the German’s latest album “Square”, the man himself has typically moved on once more. On Red Pack II he offers up six tracks new of hugely atmospheric and romantically industrial techno across two pieces of vinyl. First up, ‘Disco Marauder’ has raw, jangling beats, traumatised vocal cries and plenty of sci-fi ambiance all coalescing into a filmic techno tapestry, before ‘Path Dub’ goes deeper and more streamlined with rattling claps peeling off taught synth cables in hypnotic fashion. ‘The Source’ is a track slowed to a crawl that almost seems to want to collapse under its own weight. Machines gurgle and gargle, the beats march on with a heavy heart and widescreen synths all that ever present sense of cinematism that makes Redshape such a unique producer. Standout track ‘Daft Mode’ features a beautiful Reese bassline and rich layers of classic Detroit chords of the sort Inner City once championed. Redshape then pairs them with slicing percussion and loose limbed but tough edged beats and lets them roll on to a blissfully emotive oblivion. Last track ‘Bulp Head’ is one of Redshape’s more euphoric tracks thanks to the glistening and pixelated melodies which rise up and up through choppy, metallic percussion. It closes out another release from Redshape that offers six more classic pieces that are as idiosyncratic as they innovative.
The second part of my review of 2012 is dedicated to the best events and performances I attended this year. Part I was published some weeks ago and includes the preferences of our followers.
“Square” is the follow up to Redshape’s album debut “The Dance Paradox” (Delsin, 2009) – that is if you don’t want to count the double impact 12-inch “Red Pack” as a long player. And indeed, it is a long player in the truest sense of the term. Pamphlets, theories and opinions about the dubious role of “the album” in techno are dime a dozen, i.e. squaring the circle, but the man with the mask makes an effort to prove all of them wrong. “Square” doesn’t care for styles, genres or expectations, it can hold its own. Spread across twelve tracks you are as likely to meet vintage Redshape on tracks like “It’s In The Rain” or “The Playground (Square Version)” as you will encounter new facets of him with the Hyperdub affiliated Space Ape featuring “Until We Burn” and “Moods And Mice” or with a cluster of ambience pieces (“Orange Clouds”, “Landing”, Departing”). Working its way through all these states and moments on and off the dance floor, through melancholy and industrial romanticism alike, “Square” leaves you with the feeling of having experienced an electronic music album with identity that trusts in itself and wants you to trust in it. No matter if your perspective comes from a classic album like Kenny Larkin’s “Metaphor” (R&S, 1995) or is informed by the recent retro futuristic developments in the United Kingdom, if techno means more than a desperately compressed kick drum to you, Redshape with all his idiosyncrasy finds his way into your heart.
The Hipodrome Of Music 