TECH HOUSE BITS: Aril Brikha, Earthman, Rudolf C, Trackmaster Dre

Tech house, are you serious? It’s pretty difficult to imagine a red carpet being rolled out to the genre, which has been struggling in recent years. While the 1990s brought to us many outstanding releases – first I’m thinking of 430 West and Soma productions – later development was not so rosy and minimal’s takeover from the mid-2000s discredited also tech house. But now I can smell this summer could be different and let’s have a look at some tunes. Hope that everybody concerned in this post would feel OK of being associated with tech house, as it could be the next revival visiting us.

*** Aril Brikha – Pattern Recognition (Mule Musiq MULE MUSIQ 236 – 2019) [Buy from Juno]

In 1997, Brikha came out of nowhere with “Art Of Vengeance” on Transmat’s sublabel Fragile. An unknown producer even in his Swedish homeland, he hit the jackpot with “Groove La Chord” and the subsequent album “Deeparture In Time”. Since that Brikha has been releasing music with less spectacular effort but he’s still in a good form, a proof given with his second EP for Tokyo based Mule Musiq. Two first pieces, “Pattern Recognition” as a smooth 9:09-minute before-the-midnight builder with progressive house touches, and “Policy Of Youth” tend to be stopovers to the culmination, when “In The Night” takes us to house music’s past with Inner City’s stabs and inviting crowd exclamations.


**** Earthman – Orogenesis (TerraFirm® TerraFirm 3 – 2019) [Buy from Juno]

By boarding new contemporary artists and retrieving long-lost sounds from the 1990s, Pittsburgh’s is / was  label cluster has garnered appreciation in the electronic music community. Now  Tom McConnell aka Earthman appears on is / was’s TerraFirm® offshoot. Fluffy chords and hard-working synth riffs are the building blocks of the opener “Repeeto” and
“Radiant Bio Energy Field” could be called electro house, driven by agile repetition of The Drum Club kind. “Lemon Duck Phase” is the strongest link in the chain with old Guerilla-style progressive beats and voices from robot scouts,  while quirky funk of “S.K.E.W.” reminds of early Sativae.


***** Rudolf C – Deep Sea Survivor (X-Kalay XK016 – 2019) [Buy from Juno]

Hailing from Salt Mines, a label of Australian origin, Rudolf C is back on X-Kalay after his vinyl debut “Synaesthesia” in 2016. A portion of breakbeats comes with the title cut “Deep Sea Survivor”, followed by a real five-star track called “Second Hand Love”, which kicks off like a cross-breeding of Hardfloor’s “Acperience 1” and Cassegrain’s “Carnal”, being propelled by buzzing acid worms  and mysterious whispers. “Shmartie Pantz” are worn for tech house crowd, nicely complemented with didgeridoo sound, and “Natural Cycle” belongs to the same club of summerly electronic delights, even though the EP is out since February.


*** Trackmaster Dre – Konnektin Dots EP (Odd Even ODDEVEN023 – 2019) [Buy from Juno]

A new name has joined Odd Even, a club techno platform of the DJ and producer André Kronert, with a nice repertoire for night people. In all four tracks funk and groove are going hand in hand, driven by echoing dubs and sturdy bass. Subtle textures combined with bolder patterns complement each other perfectly, for belly-shaking and mind-tripping experience, especially in the title cut and “Med 17”.

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