LIT

Virgil Moorefield, Merge and nospectacle in Live in Time, May 21, Detroit Film Theatre, @ DIA, 5200 Woodward Avenue. Doors 7 p.m. $10.

Live in Time - May 21, 2009

House is a feeling that no one can understand really unless you're deep into the vibe of house.

What's that? You haven't heard about the $100 Detroit house yet? Walter Wasacz over at Model D says that the new ideas being generated here are priceless. Is Detroit the next Berlin?

I don’t really know what I can say that hasn’t already been said about Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert’s Power House Project. They've been all over the media radar ever since Toby Barlow's $100 House Op-Ed contribution was published in the NYTimes on 7 March 2009. The Detroit News follows up. Watch the $100 house segment from 20/20's "Life on the Edge" here.

The Power House Project has taken over the airwaves on Michigan Radio, All Things Considered and Boston's Here & Now.

Ismael Estrada, producer for Anderson Cooper 360 asked: what would you do with a $100 house? I have to try hard to ignore all the uninformed comments at the bottom. Mitch and Gina are not bourgeois, suburban artists trying to create some kind of elitist artist community in a rough neighborhood. The idea is to integrate art into existing communities while employing ideas of alternative energy, community gardens and human resources provided by the neighborhood people.

Dwell discusses the hopefulness of art in Detroit. I have always had a hard time convincing people that there is a glimmer of hope in my Detroit photography of abandoned boats out of water, firebombed cars, crumbling architectural gems and depictions of nature taking back parts of the city. I swear, I can see the hopefulness.

Amazingly, when they aren't adding accomplishments to the Power House Report, Mitch and Gina operate Design99 (which they describe as "retail space for experimental design and contemporary architecture that blurs the distinction between art and design.") in Hamtramck, conveniently located on the corner of Gallagher and Caniff in close proximity to Al-Haramain Market which has great fresh produce, bulk spices, nuts and a boundless olive bar. The owners of Al-Haramain also run the snazzy Middle Eastern restaurant across the street, Royal Kabob.

Keep your eyes peeled on the Power House blog for updates. Mitch and Gina work fast!

Also, read my article in the Hamtramck Citizen.

Subterraneans Best of 2008

Call me old-fashioned, but I actually like most of the music I write about, making each year-end, best-of list I do a delight not a chore. Sure, there’s lots of bad stuff out there, horrible shit, in fact, but the good work that makes it through the din of mediocrity makes it all worthwhile.

And looking back over a year’s worth of tunes gives the period some weight it didn’t immediately have. In techno, it’s 1995 that brings meaning to memory, when Berlin’s Basic Channel (and everything associated with it: the artists, the label, the brand) morphed into Chain Reaction, and 1996, when it launched the murky and immersive Burial Mix imprint, still the most compelling template for all pitched down, digital dubs to follow.

Instead of the individual works themselves, I’ve listed the top dozen labels that kicked out the most incredible product of the year. Nothing revolutionary, just pure techno investigation; you follow the label, find the sound you like, identify the artist (or sometimes not, with so many hiding behind bewildering pseudonyms and akas) … and just crank those knobs to the right.

As always, the list is built on a foundation of subjective imperfection, and leans heavily toward dub and dread techno sounds from the UK, where the current action is. Minimal, in case you care, is over, in rapid freefall into institutional narcissism and increasing irrelevancy. We feel sad for the loss, but spill whisky and dance gleefully over its not so pretty corpse. It was nice while it lasted, baby. Now, in order of achievement, on with the new and improved show:

Skull Disco – The undisputed princes of an organic movement that brings techno and more roots-based music into low-end unity are Sam Shackleton and Appleblim (Laurie Osborne) of London and Bristol-based funky bass project Skull Disco. They destroyed everything in their path with badass black jams like “The Rope Tightens,” “Death is Not Final,” “Grit” on the brilliant Soundboy’s Gravestone Gets Desecrated by Vandals double CD and double-12-inch remix pack that ended a four-year run of venturesome soul-dub partnership. Plus: degenerate cover art by illustrator Zeke Clough is mad as hell, authentically hardcore.

Hessle Audio – Tight, house-inspired dubstep with warm, layered vocals and wild effects on top of junglist shimmer ‘n’ shake — and hard and deep bass thrusts for good measure. Ooh, ahh. Pangaea’s “Router / You & I” is both romantic and tough, musical kin to similarly out (there) local producers KDJ and Piranhahead. Tracks by Ramadanman (one of the label co-owners), Untold and Romania’s TRG (featuring remixes by Martyn, who also had an incredible year on his fledgling 3024 label) are true bad blood, like sex in your soul.

Echospace – Rod Modell and Steve Hitchell have been on a serious skyward trajectory since 2007 and even speeded up production activity in 2008 by releasing a CD of remixes of Juan Atkins’ classic “Starlight,” side projects by Intrusion and CV313, and a reshaped/re-mastered/re-engineered version of DeepChord’s 2002 Vantage Isle sessions. Combustible, brooding techno art without beginning or end.

Modern Love – Manchester label affiliated with Boomkat and Pelicanneck Records had another sweet year with new groovin’ dubs by Andy Stott, Claro Intelecto, MLZ and Move D. But what really gave the label weight was its release of limited edition white label dance 12s by Unknown / Hate, freaky-fractured mind/body beat music said to be from anonymous hardcore tapes recovered from ’93 or thereabouts. One of the sides contains the best title of any single this year: “Pretty Boys Don’t Survive Up North.”

Hyperdub – Still hot after two straight years of releasing what were the smartest, loveliest full-lengths in ambitious global clubland (the self-titled Burial and Untrue LPs), Steve Goodman’s South London power center contributed Zomby’s double 12-inch pack, King Midas Sound (featuring the Bug’s Kevin Martin and including a remix by Ann Arbor’s Dabrye) and his own Kode9 productions, one of them (“Konfusion”) with longtime psychotropic audio/visual collaborator the Spaceape.

Smallville – Hamburg-based label had probably the most spectacular debut of the year, Move D (David Moufang, who has been releasing records since ’94) and Benjamin Brunn’s Songs from the Beehive LP and the duo’s follow-up, the New Horizons EP. Sophisticated techno also influenced by the pillow talk of (Detroit) house music and mind games found in space jazz. Oh, so nice. Hamburg homeboy Sten (Peter Kersten aka Lawrence) also kept his elegant grooves rising with the Squares EP.

Echocord – This Danish imprint puts out heady, danceable deep techno, rough stuff like Detroiter Mike Huckaby’s remix of Mikkel Metal’s Peaks and Troughs and suburban spaceman Quantec’s Berlin-Detroit, greyscale-glamorous Unusual Signals LP. Score an extra point for colored vinyl releases and classy graphics.

Mule Electronic - Japanese label with just the right touch marries techno, house and ambient tones to create crafty new electronic world music. With contributions by Sweden’s Minilogue, Japan’s Koss, the ever-present Lawrence and the electoacoustic find of the year, the Imps, a real time band with electronics that creates tasty dream-jazz vignettes as if for a surrealist ballet.

Tectonic – New releases from Bristol by Skream, Peverelist, 2562 (aka Dave Huismans, who also records under the name A Made Up Sound) and RSD gave dubstep the swift kick in the ass it needed by building sexual heat on the bottom end and letting the high end drift into radiant abstraction. The hits were everywhere, especially the mighty “Techno Dread” (2562) and the rankin’ “Midnight Oil / Joyride,” the latest single by label owner Pinch (Rob Ellis).

Ghostly International / Spectral – A year of renewed pop energy for the Ann Arbor-based label celebrating 10 years in the fast track next summer. Colorfully adorned millennial newbies included Michna, the Sight Below, the Chap and School of Seven Bells. But the best record to come out on the franchise this year was by Spectral pillar Todd Osborn, whose “Osborne” debut full length went deeper into the mind of the Detroit night then all others combined.

12K - Taylor Duepree’s inventive Brooklyn-based label project never fails to sound weirdly pristine, as on his own re-mastered Northern solo effort, on Sawako’s Bitter Sweet or especially the violently beautiful Ocean Fire, a collab between legendary modern classical composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (Yellow Magic Orchestra; Academy Award winning soundtrack work on The Last Emperor) and the planetary Max/MSP/Jitter-guitarist Christopher Willits.

Caravan – The future of body music takes another turn through Bristol, where culture on the ground is apparently not afraid to trade in multiple inspirations and creative file sharing. Crossover dub, 2-step garage, grime, house, techno, rave and seemingly every underground sound worth re-imagining can be heard on new records by Emptyset, October (tip: “Houston / Listen, Move, Dance”) and TG’s Feign EP, which includes a remix by Markus Guentner.

And we would be remiss not to include more than honorable mention to the sounds found this year on Anticipate, Barge, Meanwhile, Millions of Moments (which released Modell’s sublime remix of local treasure Aaron Carl’s Crucified), Punch Drunk, Tempa, Touch, Type, Vakant, WerkDiscs, and International Freakshow, not just because we love the name but for the fact that the criminally under-regarded minimalist Jens Zimmermann dropped four hypnotic drumzzz-driven jams (the C30 double EP) on the label this summer. Happy New Year, freaks everywhere, and much weird love from Detroit.

By Walter Wasacz

nospectacle DJ set Wednesday in Hamtramck

Video from Cranbrook and Photos from Broadcast

Photos by Walter Wasacz and Jennifer Paull from live radio broadcast








Video from Cranbrook Art Museum shot by Sherry Gaines, edited by Jennifer Paull

nospectacle to broadcast from MOCAD

Curated by Irene Hofmann and co-organized by ICI, New York,
and the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, the Broadcast exhibition
runs through Dec. 28 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

Broadcast explores ways in which artists since the late 1960s have
engaged, critiqued and inserted themselves into official channels of
broadcast television and radio.

On Dec. 18, nospectacle and Paris '68 present Holiday in the Sun VII
as part of the series of special live transmissions from the museum at
4454 Woodward Avenue, Detroit. Guests include nosoul, noscene and
nofuture.

Music and conversation, 4 - 8 p.m.