MUSIC

Workshop caretaker Lowtec returns with two extended, collage-like tapestries of abstract house and disjointed electronics spanning early electronic intimations and hazy house structures. Stitched from studio research over the past few years, ‘Old Economy’ is presented as a reflection “of the end of the old economy” according to the pivotal Berlin producer and label owner. A sort of last signal from the transition between two eras, it balances classically searching, radiophonic optimism, with a more melancholic, even foreboding feel that could be taken as a Janus-faced metaphor for the artist’s feelings on the precariousness of a new decade. Perhaps more akin to Burial’s collage tekkerz or a long lost ambient house mix from Berlin’s halcyon days than a typical album, ‘Old Economy’ deeply absorbs in the lokey nuance of its layers and eddying flow. On the first side we hear him transition from intercepted dream signals and outta reach field recordings to plumb depths of murky house abstraction with a wonderfully groggy logic that sloshes between all its aspects, pooling into lush passages and flowing out into odder parts, on the B-side’s untangled fronds of electro-dub, bleary-eyed dub chords and beautifully blunted Berlin-style sensuality.

The band project Drums Off Chaos was one of the central and on-going projects of the recently deceased drummer Jaki Liebezeit (who is normally associated first and foremost with the Cologne-based band CAN). In the early 1980s he had initiated an – at first – loose collective of drummers, who created a rhythmic concept on the basis of simple, strictly binding codes that enabled expansive improvisations.

Over the years the ensemble became smaller and refined its collaboration marked by repetitive patterns and their variation. “You have to play monotonous,” a member of the audience had already told Liebezeit in the 1960s. He took this to heart and there was hardly any other formation where he could bring this concept to life as regularly and with as much inspiration as in Drums Off Chaos.

During a development spanning more than three decades, this extraordinary band, which never saw itself as such, made numerous recordings but rarely any releases. However, in the last few months of his life Jaki Liebezeit, with colleagues Reiner Linke, Maf Retter and Manos Tsangaris, earmarked some tracks for imminent release on vinyl and CD – on different compilations. Liebezeit’s death is all the more reason to go ahead with this plan.

Vancouver producer Jeremy Rawkins aka PARC’s 2nd collection further finesses his signature fusion of dexterous rhythm dynamics, liquid field recordings, and digital synth ambience into an immersive, aerodynamic domain: Wave Iridescence. Embracing the limitations and tonal saturation of 80’s and 90’s digital synths and converters, the tracks gleam and slipstream with a sleek, weightless futurism, conjuring visions of fiber optic clouds and lost biodome terrariums. Rawkins cites notions of organic electronics, randomized beauty, and the peripheries of dance music as inspiration, but ultimately the sound he maps is too fluid and prismatic for effective categorization. It’s music of heights and breaks, precision and vertigo, loops and radiance – vivid cybernetic heavens forever in flux.