(May 2010) BACK on their The Men You’ll Never See EP, D.I.E. (Detroit in Effect) spoke of “being from Planet Detroit, where techno never comes up short.” For many Michigan electronic artists and labels this mantra has been upheld, can the same be said for Planet Detroit? The label began in 2006 and has just released its fourth EP. But has the label lived up to the its lofty name?
Three records arrived through the postman’s fair hands in a Detroit stamped package. PDET04, PDET03 and PDET02. The latest undertaking, PDET04, is by Hakim Murphy, entitled Digital Vs Analogue. The four tracker contains a quartet of well thought out pieces of techno. The tempo is nice, not too fast, not too slow. The tracks slope in and out, flirting with some of the deeper techno sounds but maintaining a floor friendliness. There’s even some originality on here, such as the silly piano stylings of “Lilly Dally” and the house influenced “Transitions.”
As we regress across the label sadly things begin to slip. Cignal to Noise, the label owner Tim Steward’s moniker, and the Cignal to Noise EP is a bludgeoning, pounding 12″ of fingernail splitting techno. The tracks could only be stomached in a sweaty, smoky environment; preferably under some kind of influence.
The Hammer Brothers 2007 EP, Drop the Hammer, is the last to squeeze its way out of the 12×12 cardboard sleeve. The record suffers from some of the same pounding symptoms as Cignal to Noise, but hasn’t reached such an advanced condition. Some of the tracks are quite good, but you find yourself pitching them down to make any sense of them. The end piece, “Tree Funk” leaves some of the relentless BPM to leave a less caustic taste behind.
This Planet Detroit trio is a pretty mixed lot. Listening from the latest release it seems like the label knows what is is up to, but as the catalogue numbers descend the tracks seem to do the same. The next 12″ in the works is by Scan 7 of Underground Resistance fame. Let’s hope the imprint’s good points are built on, and some of the nose bleed beats are left in the annals of the the Planet Detroit discography.
For more information about Planet Detroit, visit their website here.
