My monthly column from Real Groove magazine - this month: Redshape
CLUBLAND - AUGUST
For the past two years he’s been prescribing raw slabs of Detroit techno funk to a self-medicating faithful behind the anonymity of a red mask. Little is known about Redshape except that he is of shorn head and European decent. The rumours are many; that he is a well known producer; that he has produced for Delsin and Music Man before he adopted his current guise; that he is in fact Carl Craig/Deetron/Dave Clarke/Luke Slater/Tiesto… okay maybe not Tiesto.
Obviously the reason behind the mask is that Redshape doesn’t want people to know who he is, and has stated that the reason is that he wants the music to be judged on its own merits. It has been a long time since techno was faceless, so for the first time since Mad Mike lead the Underground Resistance we have a mysterious warrior in our midst to bring the music back to the fore in an increasingly personality based community.
His productions are deeply rooted in the legacy of Detroit, so much so that they gave rise to the Carl Craig rumour (check ‘Playground’, his debut release on his own Present imprint that owes a huge debt to Craig’s ‘Science Fiction’). His sound shirks any sense of the current trend of techno; no glitch, crackles or neo-minimalism here. Redshape exudes a stripped back sound that Motor City pundits originally called minimal, but stacked up alongside the present day definition of the term it comes across like a sonic fireball threatening to suck all that dry air up into its epicentre. Making the majority of his tracks on analogue gear accounts for his raw steel grinding steel into molten synthesized hell sound, but for any of his harder, punishing tracks there are others equally ethereal in nature, shimmering concertos of techno soul (both these sides of Redshape are perfectly illustrated on his Telefunk and Steam EP’s on Styrax and Delsin Records respectively).
The latest Redshape release comes at us on Belgium’s Music Man label and is a double sided banger comprised of ‘Robot’ and ‘Neon’. ‘Robot’ starts off with a devastating kick pared with futuristic swooshes blasting off into the far reaches of Andromeda before one of those signature Redshape synth lines drops on your head like a tonne of mercury, paving the way for complimentary melodic hooks. As with most of his productions you kind of get the idea after the first couple of minutes, but this doesn’t in any way detract from the effectiveness of the track. ‘Neon’ could almost be called tribal, though with it’s two repetitive toms you’ve got to take that tag at its most minimal nuance. The bass line is similarly spare; a couple of afterthought stabs rumbling the bars along, menacing, simplistic synths tweaking here and there.
His remixes tend to show still more facets to Redshape; whereas some producers stick to their sound throughout their own records and those they remix, Redshape seems to take leave of his signature style a little bit more when he uses the source material of others. His remix of Simon Flower’s ‘The Whisper Had It’ sees him opting for a more Basic Channel approach to Detroit rather than a UR/Carl Craig/Octave One take as per his own releases.
Unfortunately it seems for some the presence of a masked crusader is too much of a mystery and the identity of Redshape is so hotly contested in on-line forums that it looks like he may have already been pointed out. For those that like a little bit of renegade romanticism with their techno just buy the releases and enjoy the masque.
Redshape - Robot/Neon
****
The MF Doom of techno shoots for the stars with two more bangers to mash.
Silverbeat’s Top 5
Redshape - Robot/Neon
Sami Koivikko - Sapphire
Fairmont - I Need Medecine
Jacek Sienkiewicz - My Little Place
Petter Grummich - Mountain
Silverbeat’s Classic Album
Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
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