22tracks changes up house and techno playlists

For over ten years, Amsterdam’s Rush Hour has been a leading record store, label and distributor, recognized and well respected all over the globe for their on-point house and techno music. Founders Antal Heitlager and Christiaan Macdonald have been releasing terrific music since day one, supporting local heroes like Aardvarck, Kid Sublime and Tom Trago. A perfect opportunity for 22tracks to join forces with their expertise. In other words, we are very happy to announce that Antal and Chris have joined the 22tracks team! Antal will keep the house playlist updated alongside his pal Tom Trago, while Cool Chris is going to make sure that the techno list is as diverse and fresh as you’d want it to be.

22tracks would like to thank Ricky Rivaro for his effort and dedication during the time he was in charge of the house playlist, and the same goes for Marco Solo and his techno efforts. And good luck to Antal, Chris and Tom with selecting the cream of the dance music crop. Enjoy the refreshed house and techno lists!

Block rockin’ rock

Strange things are happening on the rock playlist this week. It’s still the rock playlist, make no mistake, but, yes, those really are The Chemical Brothers (pictures) and Trentemøller #nowplaying over there. Neither are considered rock artists. In fact, both are big draws on the dance scene and have been for quite a few years. It’s actually been eighteen years since The Chemical Brothers debuted with “Song to the Siren”:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAniGiYVqOo

They were called The Dust Brothers then. Over the years, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons (for it is they) have worked with rock artists from Noel Gallagher to Bobby Gillespie and from The Flaming Lips to the Klaxons. Obviously, they know their rock music. It’s not that big a surprise they’ve “gone rock” for half the songs on their new album Further. Rock, I have to say, in the way that a highly skilled dance production duo would approach it: hypnotic, building, hardly any vocals. “K+D+B” is such a track. Think Neu! in Ibiza, on drugs.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIGJ6hZts9c

Anders Trentemøller first appeared on my radar in 2004, as one of the finest techno producers around. Singles like “Physical Fraction”, “Polar Shift” and the Nam Nam EP (above) are excellent examples of minimal dance music done really, really well. With his (last) name truly established, the Danish producer took to the live stage with a full band, attracting even more fans. Personally, I wasn’t much into his less dancy sound. It felt like Trentemøller was trying a little too hard to make “proper” music. “Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!!”, from his new album Into the Great Wide Yonder, still isn’t techno by any stretch of the imagination, but it is simple, energetic and fun. It’s surf music for the iPad generation. It’s rock ‘n’ roll!

Celebrating that cake: B.R.U.C.E.

A world premiere on 22tracks this week, with the upcoming debut release from B.R.U.C.E. #nowplaying on our techno playlist. I’m not sure what the official word is on whether this world financial crisis is over by now or not, but producer Tom Trago and singer Faberyayo are clearly not worrying one bit: “Dollar wallet, euro wallet, yen wallet / Throw that shit up high.”

Tom Trago, of course, is one of the two DJ’s responsible for our techno playlist. He has another one of his own tracks, the very groovy “200 B.C.”, #nowplaying there as well. “The Wallet” is his first collaboration with fellow-Amsterdammer Pepijn Lanen AKA Sege Fabergé AKA Faberyayo, and it is also the first release on the brand-new Instant Replay label.

It’s 2010 and we’re ready to “celebrate that cake”. In fact, Faberyayo (better known from Amsterdam synth-pop pranksters Le Le, and also a member of chart-topping Dutch hip-hop group De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig) and I enjoyed some lovely patiserie last week in the lounge of the very posh Amstel Hotel, during a break in our Blend magazine interview. You can buy that with your hard-earned cash from April 15 at newsagents worldwide…

Coming up in a few weeks’ time on the Gomma label is Le Classics, a compilation album of Le Le’s first album Flage (2008) and its follow-up EP Marble. It features, of course, this nutritious “Breakfast”:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFmFtwe2-QQ

If u want Deadboy

Some playlists on 22tracks adhere more strictly to genre boundaries than others. Our techno playlist is pretty freestyle, with old tracks as well as new ones and records ranging from deep-house to disco. But let’s not nitpick. Yes, Deadboy‘s “If U Want Me”, #nowplaying right there, is kind of a UK garage tune. And no, it’s not available in any (download) shop just yet. It’s also pretty great, plaintive techno soul (!) for a new decade. The vocal sample sounds like something straight out of a ten year old 2-step record, with a seriously wonky organ playing against a staccato Nineties house synth melody – on top of a seriously funky bassline.

“If U Want Me” is the second single from London producer Deadboy, who started making records in the mid-Noughties, when he “was getting really into 2 step, and early grime stuff like Jon E Cash, the Wiley eski tunes, El-B and Horsepower and stuff like that, then early dubstep stuff from Digital Mystikz, Slaughter Mob and the like. At the same time,” he told Fact Magazine back in January, “I was listening to a lot of other stuff like Detroit techno, dancehall, dub, r&b, house and trying to incorporate those elements as well. Later on I got into bassline and then the UK funky stuff and chucked that in there as well, but my main love and influence is garage.”

It seems like Deadboy himself isn’t much of a genre purist, either.

The one-sided 12-inch of “If U Want Me” was apparently supposed to come out last week on the new Numbers label (AKA Dress 2 Sweat, Stuffrecords and Wireblock joing forces), with the release thwarted by pressing plant issues according to someone on this web forum. Let’s hope this one gets out there quickly. If u want it right now, however, you know where to go.

Deadboy’s debut single, from last December:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a_9Iob8tCg

Who you are: Virgo

Amsterdam record label (and store! remember those?) Rush Hour has been very active in the compilation business lately. After double CD retrospectives on American house and disco producers Rick Wade, Daniel Wang and Anthony “Shake” Shakir, now comes a very welcome reissue of Virgo’s untitled album from 1989. Originally released on the short-lived UK label Radical, Virgo, re-released this week, really is a lost treasure of timeless Chicago house music that will appeal to any fan of true school US house and techno music. “Do You Know Who You Are” is #nowplaying on 22tracks’ techno playlist.

Do you know who Virgo are? There’s reason for being confused, because there were two Chicago house Virgos during the 1980s. The original Virgo consisted of legendary producers Marshall Jefferson, Adonis and Vince Lawrence. When teenagers Merwyn Sanders and Eric Lewis a.k.a. M.E. brought their demo to Trax Records boss Larry Sherman, he thought it would be a good idea to release “Do You Know Who You Are?” under the name Virgo Four, to capitalise on the name of the other Virgo, also signed to Trax. The single was then licensed to Radical, and released as Virgo in Europe. To confuse matters further, a second E.P. was released by Trax under the original name M.E., all four tracks of which turned up on the album. Which was another Virgo release. And only came out in the UK. Confused? I told you you would be.

Eric Lewis is a maths teacher these days, and Merwyn Sanders works as a production designer. They still make music together. Read an extensive 2009 interview with Sanders over at Gridface.