Onur Ozer & Tolga Fidan

CLUBLAND


There’s no doubt that hip hop is well and truly a global phenomenon now. There are kids in almost every continent either listening to it or making it. In fact across nearly every genre the world of contemporary music has never seemed so small. Techno and house music is no exception. For a very long time the majority of my record collection has been made up of artists from America, England and Germany, but of late I’ve been noticing how many artists are emerging from the countries you wouldn’t necessarily associate with techno.

Places like Israel and Turkey are spawning exciting new producers, increasing the scope of the sound and adding the influence of their native cultures. This can easily be heard on Turkish producer Tolga Fidan’s most recent release, Tanbulistan with its dark Asiatic horns and punchy percussion. Onur Ozer, another producer from Istanbul likewise has a very distinct sound and on his Red Cabaret EP on Vakant Records you can hear his heritage shining through.
Israel has had a few trance and progressive producers over the years, but of late there have been an increasing number of techno producers from the country coming to the attention of the taste-making labels around the world. Guy Gerber, Shlomi Aber, Itamar Sagi, Chaim and Gel Abril all have highly sought after releases on Cocoon, Ovum, Supplement Facts and the Be As One imprint. Track down some of these releases and sample yourself some world techno.
No strangers to the world of dance music, it’s been over fifteen years now that Ed and Tom Chemical have been making music together; first as The Dust Brothers with their amazing debut single ‘Song to the Siren’ (championed by Andrew Weatherall who helped break the duo), then two years later and ever since, as The Chemical Brothers. They gained a following at The Heavenly Social night and went on to remix a swag of tracks from their regulars – namely Primal Scream, The Charlatans, Prodigy, The Manic Street Preachers. From there they were off and over the past twelve years as The Chemicals have released six albums, five of them reaching the number one spot in the UK, including their newly released We Are The Night. Over the years they’ve managed to keep their place in the lexicon of electronic music, though have suffered at the hands of critics who seem to always want something a little more than the consistently solid albums they’ve put out. Despite detractors they have proven time and again to be one of the only arena-sized electronic acts that have stood the test of time, though the very fact that they have lasted so long sees them cop even more flak for their continued efforts. We Are The Night is no exception; for every fan of this new album there is someone saying they are past it and should hang up their synths. But the reality is that if you close your eyes and forget for a second that it was made by The Chemical Brothers what you hear is a collection of outstanding tracks that stand up next to the current wave of electronic artists with ease. Yes they do align themselves with the more commercial end of the genre but they do this without shamelessly cashing in. I’ll admit that few of their albums have tickled me in all the right places for their entirety but I can certainly appreciate the production throughout. We Are The Night is occasionally mired in the late nineties swirl of psychedelic electronica but that has always been a part of the Chemical sound. What they’ve done here is update that formula, even providing their own take on the current trends in techno with tracks like the massive ‘Saturate’, an organic meets synthetic version of tracks like Patrick Chardronnet’s ‘Eve by Day’ and Nathan Fake’s ‘The Sky Was Pink’. Being an album though it’s not all big dance floor fillers like this; there’s also a good dose of their more downbeat numbers with a range of vocalists form Willy Mason to Midlake, even The Pharcyde’s Fatlip turning up on the children’s themed ‘The Salmon Dance’. Overall the album highlights Ed and Tom Chemical’s relevance within the oeuvre and shows that they’ve still got lots of life left in them yet.
As mentioned a couple of months back, one of our hottest production talents Simon Flower has a number of releases coming out on reputed German labels. ‘Send In The Clowns’ is out now on Moon Harbour with a remix from 2001 (label head of 100% Pure), ‘Past Perfect’ is due for release soon on Poker Flat sub label Dessous, and he also has a Poker Flat release coming out with remixes by Mark August and Redshape. There are other releases and remixes on the way and in August Simon will be heading over to Germany on a mini tour thanks to the Goethe Institute. In fact I’ve roped him in to providing us with a travel diary of the tour, so check your October edition of Real Groove for that. Righto!