Dettmann conducts his brute orchestra of kick-pulse, synth-stab and bass-throb with predictable pazazz, choreographing anthemic and abstruse, antiques and curios, deriving gains from playing tradition off against sub-genre-cidal rule-breaking.
Marcel Dettmann’s star continues its ascension with a second commercial mix, notwithstanding the hiatus since 2008’s scene-defining Berghain 02 – “near flawless” according to Techno arbiter RA. Resident DJ at Berghain since it was no-name, and a key player on their Ostgut Ton label, which released his debut, as well as one of the most in-demand remixers around (try this for size), Dettmann’s manifesto for Conducted seems that of a new-tooled old-school. This impression is further fuelled by the fact of its release on the classic Music Man imprint, founded over two decades ago, with a roster including the likes of Jeff Mills and Green Velvet; it suggests a spirit of connecting past traditions via re-found re-soundings to present explorations in the form of new soundings from more recent tech-totems like Redshape and Shed.
Words like purist and uncompromising are often seen in apposition to Dettmann, but Conducted is both pretty wide-ranging and not particularly hard work, barely even qualifying for the epithet challenging, unlike some of his solo work. In fact, it can feel a little lightweight at certain points, such as in the sequence between the strong opening salvo (Sandwell District–>Signal–>Roman Lindau) and the muscular early-mid section (Vril–>Milton Bradley–>Silent Servant); and his remix of “Too Far” from this year’s dark-house dark horse, Morphosis, suffers from an undernourished low-end. Dettmann perhaps is sometimes distracted by the overarching mission, seeking a timeless feel in a touch-all-bases connect-the-dots style where others may mine narrower veins more deeply. That reservation aside, Conducted has the usual banging credentials, the specs of this year’s model, Zeitgeist-channeling, tending more to the slower and lower – and the er… glower, viz. the stern and/or spooked atmospherics – reduced BPMs, evacuated spaces, other places – of Sandwell District, Milton Bradley and Morphosis. The selection is variously characterized by the conductor’s preferred stylist-tics de nos jours – be they industrial (Roman Lindau, Vril), shabby chic (The Analogue Cops and Answer Code Request), or retro/nostalgia (Bluemoon Productions and Reel By Real).
In sum, Dettmann conducts his brute orchestra of kick-pulse, synth-stab and bass-throb with predictable pazazz, choreographing anthemic and abstruse, antiques and curios, deriving gains from playing tradition off against sub-genre-cidal rule-breaking. Conducted can be seen as a state-of-the-art despatch from the vantage point of one of the major techno scenesters of the last half-decade, though this reviewer can’t help feeling it short-changes the listener in favour of the floor, bearing in mind Dettmann’s added value – as more than just a cuer/sequencer of other people’s sounds, but as a creator of atmospheric beat-driven electronic music.
Conducted is available on Music Man. [Release page]
