03. Mai 2013 // Bar & Krypta: SALON DES AMATEURS mit NEUD PHOTO / TOLOUSE LOW TRAX / LENA WILLIKENS / PHUONG-DAN / YØR
Vertrauensvoll geben wir für einen Abend und eine Nacht unsere Räume in die Hände des von uns hochangesehen Düsseldorfer SALON DES AMATEURS.
BAR
TOLOUSE LOW TRAX (KREIDLER/ SYNCOM DATA)
LENA WILLIKENS (CÓMEME/ SALON DES AMATEURS)
PHUONG-DAN (GATTO MUSCULOSO)
YØR (PURPLE MAZE)
KRYPTA
LIVE NEUD PHOTO (NYC)
LIVE TOLOUSE LOW TRAX (KREIDLER/ SYNCOM DATA)
LENA WILLIKENS (CÓMEME/ SALON DES AMATEURS) – DJ
YØR (PURPLE MAZE) – DJ
PHUONG-DAN (GATTO MUSCULOSO) – DJ
Neud Photo, aka Nico Nightingale, is an artist who seems to be releasing back to front. The young New Yorker has been serving up his own brand of minimal synth infused electro on labels like Living Tapes and Pylon. But, three albums down there isn’t an EP to mention. 2012 and it’s time for a 12”, Simulations. White vinyl, pink label and four tracks. So what’s this long awaited EP about?
The title track gets the show on the road. Crisp beats set the scene before synthesizer swans land. Delicate key taps flutter and dance with analogue reverberations rumbling next to complex melodies. There’s an electro disco aspect glowing in the backdrop, one that continues to shine through on “Comrades of Time.”Neud Photo meanders his synths through a web of sounds for this multifaceted piece. The antiquated Arp of “Collection House” has aspects of Bernard Fevre’s cosmic excursions. Somewhat unsettling, somewhat soundtrack, ultimately a vivid synthscape. “Earth Tones” finishes off Neud Photo’s latest foray. A parred back piece of synth as aperitif. The track is subtle and considered. A deep and textured number to close.
Mr Nightingale has achieved something quite difficult for his first EP. The entire 12” has a wonderful musical quality, being extremely fluid whilst managing to tether parts of itself to a floor sound. Not something easily accomplished. The quartet dished up work for the DJ minded, for the electronics enthusiast, and all in between. Neud Photo makes Simulations seem effortless; the tracks ebb and flow masking the intricacies of Nightingale’s vintage synthesizer arsenal. A well rounded, and in parts mesmerizing, record.
It took Lena Willikens almost no time to seduce the spoiled and demanding clubbers of Cologne. An impressive feat, considering that she arrived in a train coming from Düsseldorf, Cologne’s most competitive, rival city. Now residing in Cologne, hanging out and also playing at parties there (alongside Christian S and Korkut Elbay). She remains a resident in Dusseldorf’s, Salon des Amateurs, inviting guests such as Matías Aguayo, Jamal Moss, Alejandro Paz and more. Her DJ style is dirty, rough, dark and bizarre – full of love for the spirit of good dance music and the will to surprise; driven also by the will to make people dance to tunes they have never heard before.
TOLOUSE LOW TRAX
Detlef Weinrich, alias Toulouse Low Trax, too, seems to have lingered in the irrational universe of frozen continuity quite frequently within the last two years. Everyone who drifts to the sound of his first solo album “Mask Talk” will soon sense the musical intensity boding a different
dancefloor. Cool, atmospheric new-wave-sharpness, and a cushioned beat rate between 107 and 116 bpm call out a mechanical functionality that doesn’t bow to any contemporary doctrine. “Mask Talk”: urban music, club album. Big city lights in Africa. Chilly neon-sounds made in
Dusseldorf.
The tempos and 4/4 beats on Yør’s Rave EP inch nascent Dutch imprint Purple Maze back towards traditional techno territory, but it’s still as distinctive a record as you’ll find in the racks right now. “Rave,” at 115 shuffling beats per minute, isn’t so far off from what Kassem Mosse is doing, if a bit housier, with gritty drum machines and elegiac Rhodes. It’s suffused in hiss and pushed forward by an indistinct grumble; I’m reminded of the sense of desolation Raime conjures, though here it’s tempered into a warmer, friendlier sort of melancholy. Paced at a similar tempo, “Golden Boy” nevertheless feels more upbeat, thanks to a jacking groove and buoyant chords, tumbling like a trampolinist in slow motion. What might take a few listens to pick out is a strange rattle corkscrewing through the high end. It’s a tiny detail, but it makes the track, tugging it ever so slightly off its axis.
The final track is the tour de force. Ten minutes long, “2712″ feels like two, maybe three tracks mashed together. It opens with a low drone, a swirl of voices and a crackle suggesting boots in snow; two and a half minutes pass before the first kick drum drops, making it the perfect mixtape opener. (Almost too perfect: it sets the mood so well, you’d feel like you were cheating.) With the 4/4 kick, it grinds ahead like some fusion of Sandwell District and Newworldaquarium until, improbably, a buzzing chord progression takes the fore, straight out of Moodymann’s playbook. It thumps on like that for a while, all spilled beer and needle fluff, before easing out the way it came in.
Phuong-Dan is a DJ in the range of musical variety. He runs his clubnight called Gatto Musculoso at Hamburg´s legendary venue Golden Pudel Club for several years now. There he breaks boundaries, inviting people such as italien legend Beppe Loda, Minimal Wave´s Veronica Vasicka, Tolouse Low Trax from Kreidler, Daniel Wang, Vidal Benjamin, Lovefingers and Traxx from Nation Records to broadcast their unique energies.
Expect to discover anything from obscure electronics, kraut, wave, proto-techno, acid to odd disco, avantgarde or balearic…
