#gerald donald

[grrlmusic]

Dopplereffekt - Metasymmetry

[yhancik]

Dopplereffekt on Ice

[saisons-en-enfer]

Visit Original Link

[seanmorroww]

Drexciya - “Funk Release Valve”

Neptune’s Lair [Tresor, 2022]

[viciouscyclesradio]

Fact and Fiction

Drexciya Reissues: September's Featured Release

Hydro Doorways - Drexciya (2022, Tresor) is an offshoot of Underground Resistance, consisting of James Stinson (RIP) and Gerald Donald. The premise revolves around the concept of the project, which is a musical riff off the mythology tale of the "Drexciyan" race of underwater beings. These beings are the descendants of pregnant slave women who were thrown overboard the Atlantic from slave ships. The series (three albums in total) instrumentally retells history, but the project goes beyond that, it’s a soundtrack of lore, and the meta of that horrific history.

The 2022 reissue of Tresor 137 (seems to just be a reissue, no mention of a remaster) has repackaged and removed the Abdul Haqq artwork, which exists only for the original 2000 release if you want to hunt that down. Matthew Angelo Harrison has been commissioned by the estates of these artists to re-conceptualize the artwork on this series, which will include the entire back-catalogue. The EP contains a good sum of tracks from the debut full-length, Neptune's Lair (many of the four on the floor tracks in particular). Owning the vinyl is essential for the djs who possess this knowledge, as it is a higher state of awareness in a world of deceptive information. Hydro Doorways and Neptune's Lair are both available in digital and analog formats, reissued on Berlin's Tresor Records.

[joemuggs]

Drexciya’s Kitsch Sublime

Apropos of a conversation about Drexciya’s odder Euro electropop influences, I was reminded of a WIRE review I did for the Neptune's Lair reissue in 2010.

Could Drexciya be the most perfectly-realised project ever to come out of Techno? The consistency of the huge body of work between 1992 and James Stinson’s death in 2002 makes almost any other artist in the field look like a woolly-minded dilettante in comparison. During Stinson’s lifetime, Drexciya’s anonymity was total: despite occasional (masked) interviews, his and his primary musical partner Gerald Donald’s names and identities were never publicly revealed, and their individual roles in the music and ever-developing mythos are still unclear. Their musical practice was severe, with every track’s sparse electronic groove relentlessly linear in structure and seemingly recorded live and without edits. The mythos was Afro-Futurism in excelsis, combining fierce working-class pride and engagement with racial issues with cosmic and utopian thinking, scientific and technological obsessions, and most importantly the creation of Drexciya itself: a black Atlantis peopled by aquatic descendents of drowned slaves, and a fluid imaginitive space where a play of identities and futures could take place.

1999’s Neptune’s Lair was the first Drexciya album proper following the compilation The Quest and also their first release for Tresor, and at the time, thanks to the Berlin label’s dominance, was a leap into the Techno mainstream. What is striking now, though, is how playful it is, even to the point of being wilfully silly in places. The methodology may be austere and the back-story dense, but the music is neither. For every moment of sublime cosmic scope or intense physical funk, there are kooky Star Trek special FX bleeps (“Species Of The Pod”, “Habitat O Negative”) or out-and-out kitsch B Movie sci-fi synths (“Quantum Hydrodynamics”). There’s also a strain of European cabaret camp to the synth pop of “Surface Terrestrial Colonisation” or “Oxyplasmic Gyration Beam” whose place in the post-Kraftwerk lineage is closer to Jimi Tenor or Felix Kubin than to Cybotron or Bambaataa. It’s this which has been taken to ultra-deadpan extremes in Donald’s later work as Dopplereffekt and Arpanet, and which perhaps most directly influenced Electroclash-era acts like Adult. and Peaches (Stinson went on record as being pleased with Drexciya’s influence on these artists, whereas he had criticised white Techno artists like Richie Hawtin for co-opting black musicians’ styles).

But the kitsch never undermines the lofty aims of the Drexicya project, and the reason is simple: behind the mystery and technology, they were ultimately a funk band. It’s explicit in the strangely dainty P-Funk squiggles and slick cyborg jazz-funk, and even the Belgian-style rave of “Devil Ray Cove” has drum fills and voice snatches that are unadulterated funk. Of all Detroit’s Techno artists, Drexciya were the ones with most overlap with the city’s speedy, resolutely non-cerebral Ghettotech sounds. Like James Brown, like George Clinton, like Sly Stone, they were able to short circuit any opposition between foolishness and seriousness, to bring dense layers of history, imagination and futurism into the party without succumbing to the po-facedness that dominated Techno in the late 1990s.

All of which explains why Drexciya are more relevant now than ever: electronic club music is currently undergoing a spectacular resurgence of The Funk. Their influence is obvious in the Glasgow’s Numbers/LuckyMe scene, most notably via Rustie whose early Voltaic releases were pure Drexciyan Electro and who has been remixed by Gerald Donald in his Heinrich Mueller guise. But whether it’s in LA’s Low End Theory or Manchester’s Hoya:Hoya club or Alexander Nut’s Rinse FM show, you can hear the crisp and witty sounds of Drexciya rising from the deep once again. It’s hard to say that this is the definitive Drexciya release – the EPs that preceded it had more raw soundsystem charm, and the deluge of releases that followed (no less than eight albums under different aliases in the final year of Stinson’s life) further finessed their techniques creating ever more immersive soundworlds and moments of overwhelming beauty. But as a centrepiece between these phases of their work, as their breakthrough record, and as one which feels as if its time has finally come, it couldn’t be a better way into their world.

[autowahn]

2017 has been a year of great journeys – for you as well, I hope. Here are five tunes released this year, which made roadtripping even more fun:

Parcels – Gamesofluck Smooth, soulful and incredibly well produced Funk-Pop by Australian newcomers Parcels, now based in Berlin. They’re riding high since their appearance on Conan O’Briens late night show this fall and are currently on tour to promote their EP „Hideout“. Grab a ticket while you can!

Jamiroquai – Cloud 9 There’s just no better soundtrack for a Moyenne Corniche sunset drive.

Goldfrapp – Never Enough Goldfrapp’s ethereal return. Cosmic and beautiful music for lovers.

Xeno & Oaklander – Theriac III I had to include my favorite synth duo from Brooklyn, NY. They went through some changes; new studio, new band member. For a while I thought they were kind of loosing it when Sean introduced all the new harsh sounding Serge modular gear and live shows turned into industrial noise performances. In other words: they were just moving on. I met Liz and Sean several times and was always impressed by their creative potential. Now it’s soothing to see Xeno & Oaklander still know what they can do best: moody and dark Minimal Wave.

Austra - I Love You More Than You Love Yourself „Future Politics“ is an inspired album that really stands out from the millennial-whooped pseudo-folkish guitar hey-ho-ha boredom. Also, Katie Stelmanis has one of the most impressive voices in contemporary pop music.

Dopplereffekt – Cellular Automata Gerald Donald, the master of the sequence, is back with a haunting and deep Ambient Electro album. No drums here – pure athmosphere, strings, basslines and amazing sequencing instead. ELECTRO in the original meaning of the phrase – before it was disfigured by the EDM scene. This is the holy grail of 2017 for anyone who loves Drexciya, Aux88, Keith Tucker and Detroit Techno.

[marie-advanz]