Kerri Chandler

Clubland


Kerri Chandler once said that in order to enjoy your (house) music all you needed was “a basement, a red light and a feeling.” The simple truth spoken many years ago still holds today, as does the career of Mr Chandler, with his ongoing production of impeccable classic house cuts and a slight tweaking of that red light into a red laser.
House music in 2008 is seeing a renaissance, partly thanks to a backlash against formulaic minimal-by-numbers releases finally reaching a point of unsustainable dehydration. It's not that house music went away or anything, just that more DJ's are switching back to something a little more hefty in the soul department for their sets.

Chandler has always set a benchmark for quality house music and his most recent album Computer Games from July showcases an artist still striving to capture that envelopment of soulful feeling through electronic music and perfect basslines.
The remixes from Computer Games have been outsourced to two producers at the quality end of minimal techno; Ben Klock and Argy. Klock takes Pong and peels back the melody, discarding the heedless lilting keys to present a chilly, forceful alternative that belies only a trace of warmth with occasional pads creeping in to break the freeze. Chandler's exclusive to the remix EP, For The Next X=1 to 1000 heads down a more mechanical path itself, perhaps mirroring the efforts of Klock, in any case letting us know that deep house isn't the only trick up his sleeve.
The second part of the remix EP sees Argy tackle Fortran from three different directions. The first is Argy's 6:23 Legendary Bonus Beats, using an old handle of Chandler's and doing his best to ape the New Jersey natives classic remix treatment. He does a respectable job, ably pinning down the simple, relentless kinetic grooves that Kaoz is known for, injecting a few tricks of the edit to keep things exciting. The Big Room Detroit Mix is true to its word in that it is a big room sound. Horns clamber over a rotund bassline, which itself competes with a tinkling arpeggio amidst all manner of wooshes and other assorted effects. I'm sure those horns sound all encompassing on a big system but unless you're there, it's not a mix that even begins to stack up to the original. The last pass is the Dub mix of the Big Room foible and it succeeds where its predecessor failed. The bassline sits way out in front leading the charge, the tinkles follow along accordingly and the horns are relegated to an occasional parp. Though Argy doesn't quite manage the mastery over the bottom end like Chandler does, his results still find their mark. Even more pleasing is hearing interpretations of Chandler's work in more of a techno vein, as his tracks have previously only been touched upon by other house producers (to my mind Roy Davis Jr's spacey tech remix of Hallelujah being the only exception).
Closer to home Simon Beeston releases his latest cut on Tom Clark's Highgrade Records digital division. Horn Fed straps you to a camel's back for a saunter through the narrow streets of Morocco by way of Berlin, a nafir blaring as your guide proffers short, stuttered, intelligible speech. He ropes in fellow patriot Simon Flower for the remix, which is rendered in Mr Flower's own inimitable style; full of contrasting melodies and chord-tastic depth. Do It Yaself, the third track on the release seems to double back on itself half way through, but despite its somewhat rudderless course is possessed of a strong bass groove and solid incidental sounds that would make for a great track in the mix.

Kerri Chandler – Computer Games remixes

***1/2

Kaoz still burning with the feeling after all these years




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