Listen up: TuneSmith’s musical recommendations for April
Posted by Anthony on March 31st, 2011The man behind the music, our resident TuneSmith Rob Wood, proves you’re never too old for techno…
ALBUM OF THE MONTH
You Make Me Real
by Brandt Brauer Frick
When? You yearn to dance, but your knees won’t allow it
Why? This is techno, but not as we know it
Standing next to bass bins in sweat-soaked nightclubs has rather lost much its appeal for the original acid-house generation, now that they have hit 40+. These days, they’re more likely to find hedonism in a hotel room than on a dancefloor. That doesn’t mean the retired raver needs to be confined to classical concerts though. Except in this case it does. The answer for those who still have a penchant for the techno beat may well lie with the German trio Brandt Brauer Frick. They mix minimal tech with real instruments, performing what can only be called classical techno. With no computers or drum machines involved, their sonic arsenal consists of glockenspiel, piano, drum and rainstick. Not very Creamfields then, but it finds as much common ground with Detroit techno pioneers Carl Criag and Jeff Mills as it does with Steve Reich. Each track is crafted like a club hit, with layers of percussion building with German precision to breakdowns and climatic pay-offs. Like their mechanical polar opposites Kraftwerk, they also put on a remarkable live show – growing to a 10-piece ensemble in the process. Diehard dance heads might well end up in a concert hall, after all.
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THE SMITH CLASSIC
Tom Tom Club
by Tom Tom Club
When Talking Heads have stopped making sense 
Why? It’s one of pop’s great side projects
Clearly playing the drums and bass in Talking Heads wasn’t enough for husband-and-wife team Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. The twosome was often referred to as the hippest rhythm section in the world, and by 1981 they were moonlighting as Tom Tom Club. Named after the dancehall they rehearsed in while recording at the legendary Compass Point studios in the Bahamas, their side mission appears to have been making funk-based pop music that owed as much to Jamaican rhythm and dub as it did to downtown New York. The result was an infectious, inspired new pop sound that now seems very at home in today’s cross-pollinating music world. ‘Genius Of Love’ continues to be loved by old school hip hoppers, and ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ showed that Debbie Harry wasn’t the only white girl in town who could lay down a fly rap.
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