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Azari & III, Azari & III

2012 | Label: Dim Mak Records / The Orchard

By Lee Smith eMusic Contributor

08.08.11 Azari & III exuberantly surfs the wave of retro that has swept across dance music over the last few years. On their self-titled debut, the focus is firmly on house music’s “golden” period of ’86-92. Whether this represents an awareness of heritage or a stylised affectation isn’t clear, but there are enough smart twists on the format here to elevate them well above pure pastiche.

The nervy tech-soul of “Into the Night” is a suitably neo-nostalgic opener, with sultry vocals and smooth synth pads dashed with the slightest pinch of studio… more »

Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek, Bird, Lake, Objects

2010 | Label: Faitiche / Morr Music GBR

By Philip Sherburne eMusic Contributor

03.26.10 Jan Jelinek's early works, particularly his dry, clipped, click-house recordings as Farben, have led him to be tagged as a minimalist. It's true that Jelinek works at an unusually granular level; in his hands, invisible and disembodied soundwaves seem to freeze, crack and pulverize. But since at least 2005, when he released the Krautrock-influenced Kosmischer Pitch, Jelinek has focused his attentions not on reduction but its opposite, layering digital and electro-acoustic elements to create an unusual sense of fullness. Its structure is molecular in nature, with tiny atomic particles whizzing… more »

Miwon, A To B

2008 | Label: City Centre Offices / Morr Music GBR

By Michelangelo Matos eMusic Contributor

01.06.09 Sometimes you think you know where a song is going. The first time I listened to the title track of A to B, a lovely twinkle-electro album by Berlin producer Hendrik Kröz, a.k.a. Miwon, its gliding synth-bass line, jumpy beat pattern, sighing synth pads and keyboard line whose notes sound slightly bent, were sounding just fine on their own. Then, out of the song's lyric ("A to B/Always something, always"), the music shifted into a colder, warier mode, and one line jumped out: "You can go your own way/ You… more »

Popnoname, Surrounded by Weather

2008 | Label: Italic / Morr Music GBR

By Philip Sherburne eMusic Contributor

12.19.08 Cologne's Popnoname (Jens Uwe Beyer) is a regular contributor to Kompakt's Pop Ambient series, but where his submissions to those compilations generally lean towards the beatless, his second full-length for Italic label splashes back down on the unabashedly pop end of the spectrum. True to his hometown and his label affiliations, the steady chug of minimal techno underpins Popnoname's music, in the form of steady four-on-the-floor beats and rubbery bass lines steadily marking the time. This earthly tether, ironically, is precisely what gives his music such airy, spacious potential,… more »