Category Archives: Switched On

Let’s Dance – Defected presents House Masters: Marshall Jefferson

Posted on by
1

by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Marshall Jefferson needs no introduction as a house music master, for he is one of the genre’s cornerstone names, a founder member of house in its Chicago form.

If he had only made a single record – Move Your Body – Jefferson would already be of great importance to house music. Yet he used that as a springboard to decades of a consistently good output, where he crossed over easily to pop circles – or kept in with the deeper stuff.

With this House Masters compilation Defected have managed to assemble a set of 40 tracks from 1987 to 2022, no doubt overcoming a number of licensing issues on the way.

What’s the music like?

Consistently good – and often goose bump-inducing. Naturally the compilation starts with the piano-led Move Your Body, a bona fine classic – but it is the first of many, including a couple of the best cuts from Ten City, the quartet with whom Jefferson made house and disco-infused pop. The joyous, spring-loaded That’s The Way Love Is only gets better with age, likewise Devotion and Love Is Just A Game.

The deeper side makes itself known with the spaced-out Mushrooms shows how well he does the deeper side of things. The creeping chord sequence of The Cow (Is Already Waiting) works well, as do the volleys of percussion in Raindance.

Remixes and co-productions also feature, and Mission is slower – if a bit smoother. Vicky Martin’s Not Gonna Do It, meanwhile, is a classic extended mix. Other highlights are On The House’s Pleasure Control, a funky treat with busy piano, and Virgo’s R U Hot Enough, an excellent brass and piano workout. Ragtyme’s I Can’t Stay Away is a big room vocal winner, another linkup with Stingily, while Richard Rogers’ Can’t Stop Loving You features a particularly smoky trumpet.

Does it all work?

It does – a generously filled and well linked collection, partying its way through two hours.

Is it recommended?

Wholeheartedly – and more than that, it is an essential part of house music’s history lesson.

Listen & Buy

Published post no.2,221 – Wednesday 26 June 2024

New music – BUNKR: Ceres Outpost (VLSI)

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood

BUNKR, an electronic musician whose first two albums have been greatly appreciated on these pages, is back with a third album.

Antenne is due on Friday 28 June – and if you head on over to Bandcamp on the page below you can hear the first excerpt from it, Ceres Outpost. The signs are good for a quality third opus! Keep coming back here to find out more in the next 10 days…

Published post no.2,215 – Thursday 19 June 2024

Let’s Dance – Fahrland: The World Is Crazy (Microkidz Music Production)

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Fahrland is the pseudonym by which Alexander Geiger makes his music, switching to the name when he released a first Mixtape for the Kompakt label.

In theory, The World Is Crazy finds him in introspective mood – but that is not the case. As he takes up the commentary, “There has been a paradigm shift since the 2000s. From golden to grey. The World Is Crazy (TWIC) is a musical diary, in which Fahrland tries to manifest these changes through musical quotes.

It reflects the global madness that has been developing at an unstoppable pace worldwide ever since the beginning of the financial crisis, the pandemic till now in which wars worldwide and social unrest dominate the news. Despite the apparent hopelessness many songs are thought as an antidote to the crisis the world finds itself in. Always with a romantic wink. And always a bit seductive.”

What’s the music like?

This is indeed an antidote to the world crisis – just what house music should be. In the course of this consistently good album, Fahrland offers up some very danceable beats, plenty of hooks and sunshine grooves – all taking their lead from the deeper side of house, but keeping a great deal of originality while they do.

We begin with some nice, easy going deep house, on the smoky side – but the subtly inventive Geiger drops plenty of good ideas throughout, with well chosen vocal snippets and hook lines. He is not afraid to drive a bit more on cuts like Deeptroit, with its rolling beats, or the chunky set-up of I Am Keeping Up, featuring tOMBo. If You is especially good, while Feel So Fine 2 and Love Me both hit strong grooves, flickering in the half light

Does it all work?

It does – a consistently strong piece of work, nicely woven together.

Is it recommended?

It is. Fahrland’s deeper side of house is a great place to be, and The World Is Crazy offers up a release to the strife – taking house music back to first principles in the best possible way, but with an individual flair.

Listen & Buy

You can listen to the album and explore purchase albums at the ProStudioMasters website

Published post no.2,210 – Saturday 15 June 2024

Switched On – Franck Vigroux: Grand Bal (Aesthetical)

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Released back at the end of March, Grand Bal is the latest musical essay from producer Franck Vigroux, an artist who tends to like his music doing the talking.

The small paragraph he did allow into the ether confirms it. “I am not very talkative about my music unless I am specifically questioned,” he says, “the immaterial dimension of music partly spares us from the major questions which are the prerogative of theatrical forms for which I am also very active, in this sense for me music is a real outlet where things are done intuitively, for pleasure.”

What’s the music like?

Bold – and in some cases, brash. Vigroux is no shrinking violet on Grand Bal, and the chunky sounds are primary musical colours, with big bass sounds, long treble notes and plenty of white noise-based euphoria.

There is definitely a sense of being ‘off the leash’, allowing the music to forge its own white hot path, which it does unerringly. On headphones it can make you physically jump, the sheer power of the music pinning the listener up against an imaginary wall.

Yet on occasion it does go quiet, which only increases the foreboding. Le Bal does this brilliantly, turning the screw with exquisite tension and moving from sonorous calm to a blast of sonic energy, in the manner of a more aggressive Jean-Michel Jarre piece. Meanwhile the longer Lightnin’ builds over a cavernous structure, whereas the following 68 goes for the jugular straight away. The likes of Loïc and Vice add distinctive riffs or rhythmic profiles to give the music its momentum, while Outsider makes for a brooding, cinematic coda to the album.

Does it all work?

It does – but you certainly have to be in the right mood for Vigroux’s more aggressive assaults on the senses!

Is it recommended?

It is. Vigroux is a consistently interesting musical source to follow – and this latest shows off his capabilities as an impressive composer.

Listen & Buy

Published post no.2,205 – Monday 10 June 2024

New music – Actress: Statik (Smalltown Supersound)

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood

This is a tenth album for Actress – and something of a new departure for Darren Cunningham, the man behind the moniker. For Cunningham has produced a purely ambient album.

Smalltown Supersound describe the new album as being “imbued with a sense of freedom. And of stillness. The kind of stillness within artistic motion that arises via the deepest states of flow. Once ‘inside’ the Statik experience, listeners may well find themselves newly calm and meditative.”

Listen below, and see if that happens to you!

Published post no.2,202 – Friday 7 June 2024