Deep Voices #35
vague notions of a dystopian future
Deep Voices #35 on Spotify
Deep Voices #35 on Apple Music
Tracklist:
Transllusion, “Walking With Clouds”
Albert “Tootie” Heath, “Dunia”
Parris, “Yūrei”
Robert Turman, “Freedom From Fear”
Anz, “Panrico”
Neerja Pandit, “Karyo Manz Jigars”
Deutsche Wetarbeit, “Deutscher Wald”
Spherical Coordinates, “SCBPA - 20 - Original Mix”
Tropical Moon, “4-U”
Drain Pipe, “Low Life”
SSIEGE, “Swan”
2 8 1 4, “恢复”
Playlist notes:
If you’re unfamiliar with Drexciya, there are people better equipped to tell you about their legacy than me. In short, they were a duo from Detroit whose rugged techno was a backdrop for an epic about a race of underwater people, descendants of slaves who died during the Middle Passage. That project, with its ecstatically raw techno, speaks simultaneously to utopia and dystopia. Transllusion, one of the solo projects of James Stinson, one half of Drexciya, points towards a more ecstatic true north. I particularly love the wonderfully named Transllusion album The Opening of the Cerebral Gate, which has a relaxed take on Drexciya’s tighter productions, flirting occasionally with house. The stuttered beginning of “Walking with Clouds” sounds like a machine ramping up for use before it slides into gear and the melody kicks in. The rest of the album alternates has its fair share of straight up lovely moments, like the song “Unordinary Realities,” a lithe and bright song. The album was released in 2001, the same year Stinson died of a heart condition a few weeks shy of his 33rd birthday. Drexciya and another solo Stinson project, The Other People Place, have received ample posthumous accolades while Transllusion, for whatever reason, has not quite garnered the same attention. Maybe it’s because it’s his softest side. Maybe that’s why I especially like it.
I love two things about this Tootie Heath track, “Dunia.” The first is that it manages to basically be a pummeling drum solo and a straight ahead post-bop jazz track at the same time. Having its cake and eating it too! The second is two of the other players on the song are Heath’s brothers, saxophonist Jimmy and bass player Percy. The three of them would later form an official trio, but I believe the album “Dunia” comes from, Kwanza, is one of the, if not the first, recordings of them together. I only have a sister and I get pretty stoked like, when we get to Facetime for 10 minutes.
Tropical Moon is the duo of Nelson “Paradise” Roman and Gene Hughes, who had a variety of different aliases, all revolving around the word Blue. Both were prolific voices in the NY/NJ house scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s. This track is one of their few, and comes from an excellent (and very cheap) double LP compilation Warparty from 1990. But as much as I love their lofi R&B/house hybrid, I’m especially fond of Hughes solo music, especially his three singles as Bluemoon Productions. They’re deep house and deliver the full body throb that the genre’s bass engenders. But whereas that sound is often beautifully manicured (like the Driftwood track included on this week’s playlist) they’re more brittle, more precarious, more handmade. Because of that, the way they bounce feels more timeless. Sometimes the faded piano can pull you back to the ’90s, but it’s less time travel and more like looking through an old photo album, happy to see some old friends in their youth. Hughes died unbelievably tragically in a 2011 hit and run by a man whose license had been revoked because of previous DUIs. Most of his music has not been reissued and is not available on streaming, but it’s well worth searching out the vinyl on Discogs and checking out some of the tracks on YouTube.
According to this profile in Resident Advisor, last year Anz produced 74 tracks. That comes out to about one every five days, which I guess when you think about it isn’t that crazy, but it’s still a pretty solid work ethic. Based in Manchester in the UK, she’s a leading voice in a that country’s garage revival sound. I definitely like her new productions, but this slightly older track, from 2017, is a favorite because I am a huge sucker for steel drums. It’s my fatal flaw. Anz is especially good with her use of them, and they’re on the slightly more subtle side, if the happy little tinkle the drum makes can even be considered subtle at all. What isn’t subtle is the dubstep wobble she heavily leans into on the track’s latter half. A really fun mishmash.
I really love the music of the duo 2 8 1 4, though I couldn’t tell you what any of the songs are called, because the titles are all in Japanese. The album’s cover features Japanese characters on purple hued city buildings that brings to mind a Blade Runner set in a way that seems to blend vague notions of a dystopian future with Asia. It would likely not surprise you that the two members of 2 8 1 4 are not Japanese, one being American and the other British, the latter of whom has “never traveled outside of Europe.” I don’t know what to make of this kind of escapist fantasy version of a very real place, one that operates on the same linear timeline as the rest of the world. I was having a conversation with my friend Cat, whose writing on modern technology and specifically Tik Tok has helped me shape my attitude towards a digital world that sometimes feels as though it is passing me by. On the one hand, the exposure and distribution of any excellent but obscure music is always good, especially when it leads to money in the pockets of artists. On the other, that exposure feels much less useful when it's so deeply removed from its original state, perhaps haphazardly used as a marker of coolness by a non-Asian audience. (Cat can articulate all of this better than me and will have a piece on it soon; I will link to that in a future newsletter when it is published). All of this is to say, I don’t think it’s necessarily racist for 2 8 1 4 to dig deep into a Japanese look for their album, and they are in no way attempting to fool anyone into thinking they are anything other than who they are. But it still seems...weird? Anyway, all of this is funny to think about when I realize I first heard this song at a bar, loved it without knowing anything about it, and then my friend found it on Shazam. I almost wish he hadn’t.