House Is A Feeling

If you have any interest in house music, do yourself a really big favour and download Efdemin’s amazing (and free) Resident Advisor podcast.

For some, the fact that Efdemin is resident at the ever-hallowed German venue the Panorama Bar is enough said as regards his ability to select and mix house music. But even if a mere mention of 00s dance music meccas like that doesn’t automatically capture your imagination, this mix could be a good place to start your journey.

Remember house music before Germany was the epicentre? No I’m not going to get all misty eyed and say things were better back then, just that this mix is the first piece of music in a long time that reminds me, a little, of the sort of heat drenched US house sound that used to just be how every house mix you heard sounded. This is particularly true of the first 40 minutes of the mix, after which things become a little less compact (think that’s the first time I’ve written that word without Ks in a few years) and move towards techno.

There are parts of this mix where it makes me think, as a DJ, “I wish I played a narrower selection of music”, which probably sounds amusing given it might already seem like I do play a narrow selection. But in this podcast, and especially in the first half, the music selected is just locked together as one piece of art. It’s an incredibly strong statement of style, and it makes the mix so much greater than the sum of its parts.

In a way this is what I (and perhaps you) look for in techno, selections that show the narrowest sliver of a sound at its rawest and most potent best. You gather a lot of bits together and then challenge yourself to build something where the joins between the parts don’t show. This is perhaps why the DJ mix is such an incredibly difficult artistic medium to perfect. You need to be so single minded to create a mix like this.

If you like the mix you should check out Efdemin’s deep swooning album on Dial. I read him recently, somewhere, describe his sound (or perhaps someone elses that he liked) as “this US/House/Trance stuff”, in which the inclusion of trance is really important I think.

As dance has swung away somewhat from the clicks of minimal and the more bombastic trance of the likes of Booka Shade and their hundreds of imitators, everyone is quick to point out how it’s become more US influenced again. But I think the trance sounds have remained even with US house revival.

Efdemin’s music is a prime example, but there are heaps of others: the new Tiger Stripes record as featured in last week’s radio show, anything on Diynamic, and of course Loco Dice and his producer Martin Buttrich, who are practically Detroit Trance.

Which almost sounds like….heresy! But it’s best to just try and enjoy the music, which is pretty easy when you get such an amazing mix for absolutely no charge whatsoever. Truly we live in a golden age of sitting on your ass.