PETAR DUNDOV - ESCAPEMENTS (2008)

REAL TECHNO REVIVAL
ARTIST`````PETAR DUNDOV
ALBUM`````ESCAPEMENTS
GENRE`````TECHNO, MINIMAL, RETRO
YEAR````````2008

WHOA!
Now, since i tend to trust in techno music ever since I started listening to it and since I always knew that it doesn't matter when mainstream techno easily and frequently starts to sound like pure empty crap (just like the rest of the mainstream music) and that this genre should be respected by critics just like any other genre, great examples of electronic repetitive brilliance always come as a huge breathe of fresh air which reinforce my desire to either dig up old stuff or wait 'till something new comes along.

Escapements is a beautiful injection and a slap in the face to the industry. It's retro in the truest possible way, the songs reach climax using only the hihats and crashes (just like it used to be) and the melodies never, ever stop. Read the great review below from some unknown source.



ALBUM REVIEW AND SOME BIO:
Techno music is a funny old game at the moment. The merest hint of fashion, or ego, and the old guard are up in arms. In 2008 then, they are marching with pitchforks on Berlin, waving banners proclaiming ‘we want the old Hawtin back’. It’s understandable, of course. This music was never about image, less so personality (put up your hand if you remember Rising High’s infamous “Faceless Techno Bollocks” t-shirts). It was owned by no one, a treasure discovered by those fortunate and open-minded enough to appreciate it simply on the basis of form. A lot has changed. Mixmag proclaimed that techno is now officially ‘sexy’ music. Er… it always was, thanks. But cue media frenzy. Everyone’s moved to Berlin. ‘Minimal’ is a — get this — ‘new sound’... don’t make me laugh. Sure, there is a slew of copycat, dullard 4/4 records going around that are about as cutting-edge as the Kaiser Chiefs, but this does not a musical revolution make. Far from it. And yet, as always, there are gems to be discovered by the adventurous. Techno isn’t dead, it’s just suffering from a dodgy botox job and a sketchy PR consultant.

Petar Dundov is a Croatian producer whose new album Escapements is a thing of absolute joy. Despite a number of previous releases, including one for Jeff Mills, I hadn’t come across his work until now. What Dundov has achieved so effortlessly here is to cross the apparent gaps in the world of techno, to remind us all of some things we may have forgotten. This album takes the word ‘minimal’ and applies it in the classic sense — long, meandering pieces that seem to do little yet are constantly evolving. Drums are pared right back, whole tracts of the album are powered by a simple kick and nothing else. You get the feeling that the club will explode with the momentous arrival of a hi-hat. And it will. But that won’t be for the lack of anything else going on. This album contains heavy synth action. This album contains a lot of — gasp! — arpeggios. For the oldest of the old guard, there was a time, fabled in the history books, when even trance was not a dirty word. Before it was co-opted by fluoro-adorned crusties in the '90s, trance and techno were almost interchangeable terms, particularly if a track was long and repetitive. Escapements harks back to this period and beyond (She In Purple gives a nod to Italo disco), but it’s not wilfully retro. It simply takes the perceived rules of modern minimal, techno and trance and throws them out of the window to create something rare: a truly honest record. And it bangs. The single Oasis is a monster. It is almost impossible to explain in words — just one of those tunes that is ten minutes of big sound system perfection, a guaranteed future classic. But Escapements also contains deep and reflective elements: Waterfall, for example, could easily be straight out of the Motor City with its big strings and deep, driving groove. Dundov’s not afraid to throw the drums out entirely either, with both opener Kanon and closer Anja’s Theme stripped bare of them.

So refreshing then, to hear this album. This is about as real and purist as techno music gets in 2008, and proves there’s plenty of life left in the old dog yet. Time to stop worrying about Hawtin’s jedi-knight-meets-flashing-bluetooth-box shenanigans and start concentrating on great techno records again. Make no mistake, in Escapements Petar Dundov has supplied us with one.

DOWNLOAD

KONONO Nº1 - CONGOTRONICS (2005)

Original cover.
NON-STOP RAVING NOISE AFRICAN MADNESS FROM CONGO!
ARTIST`````````````KONONO Nº1
ALBUM`````````````CONGOTRONIC
GENRE`````````````BAZOMBO TRANCE MUSIC
YEAR```````````````2005

MY VIEW:
This is a complete and sudden surprise. You could call this - pure contemporary african rave. Unfortunately, of all the musicians in the world, Bjork was the first capitalist bitch who gave them a bunch of money to play for her...

NICE ALBUM REVIEW (by Steve Leggett):
This amazing record is the product of utility, coincidence, and accidental discovery as much as it is a product of academic deliberation, and it manages to sound old and traditional even as it is refreshingly (even radically) new and avant-garde. Konono No. 1 was formed in the 1980s by a group of Bazombo musicians, dancers, and singers from the Democratic Republic of Congo to play traditional likembe (thumb piano) music in the streets. They soon discovered, though, that they needed amplification to be heard and -- this is where the story of this album really begins -- they took a DIY and utilitarian approach by building their own amplification systems out of junked car parts, magnets, and other flotsam. Once assembled, the system produced a huge hum that Konono No. 1 embraced as part of the sound of the group. At the center of everything were three amped-up thumb pianos tuned to three different registers, and coupled with all manner of pots, pans, whistles, and brake drum snares for percussion and with the vocals blasting through megaphones, all embedded in the huge buzz and hum of the homemade PA system, the group accidentally created a sound that was at once both ancient and traditional and yet eerily akin to experimental 21st century electronica.

Congotronics is Konono's second album (the first was a live outing entitled Lubuaku), and while it was ostensibly recorded in a studio setting, it sounds wonderfully live and immediate, as if the dozen members of the group were standing on a busy street corner like some Congolese version of a second-line Mardi Gras band, only with thumb pianos instead of horns. Musical themes emerge and reemerge in the various tracks, and what sounds initially chaotic and random is revealed to be nothing of the sort, giving the whole album the feel of a ragged, joyous suite. Part traditional, part African rhumba, part smart avant-garde electronica, Congotronics is the sound of an urban junkyard band simultaneously weaving the past and the future into one amazingly coherent structure, and not only that, you can dance to it. This is the band Tom Waits has been looking for all his life.

The group recently finished collaborating with Björk on the song "Earth Intruders" from her studio album, Volta. They will also accompany her on her promotional tour for the album.

DOWNLOAD

Reuploaded 8/June/2010.