Slave to the Rhythm (2012)

LIVESTREAM HERE // SUBSCRIBE TO DMT LAB FOR MORE.*

A chance encounter with the DMT Lab — while writing an article on the world drumming & trance crew for Pique — led me to throw down this unprepared set on the 29th June 2012. I ran out of time to organise newer material, but what you are hearing is a slice from several (digital) crates that bear titles like “the electrik technik” and “showroom.” At points, this mix encapsulates the moment where techno meets deep trance, and where psychedelia overwhelms all sound, lost in swirling and deep rhythms, a motion and a feeling irrespective of the semantic tags of genre and style. It’s the driving rhythm, a becoming slave to the rhythm, that defines the core experience of electronic (dance) music.

Which is why this mix is called slave to the rhythm. The Afrofuturist acid roller is buried within — a remix of the Grace Jones 1985 classic — alongside a few other modern throwbacks including a wickedly dark spanking of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus by Heartthrob (1989; 2006) and Mathew Jonson’s remix of Inner City’s Good Life (1988; 2009).

*Of note, though the Livestream has poorer quality video, it doesn’t have the editing glitches of the Youtube video above. Apples & oranges.

subliminal bronchialsaurus (2006)

subliminal bronchialsaurus (2006)

DOWNLOAD SUBLIMINAL BRONCHIALSAURUS

Recorded in Montréal, gazing across at Patati Patata, to the traffic of St. Laurent and the remnants of bronchitis… this set is evocative of what I was spinning at Montréal loft parties that summer (though only part of that summer’s style, as I would play for 3-5 hours on average). Kompakt deep techno, acid house and the strains of what was to become known as mnml are heartily present.

Photo is from the Full Pleine Moon Party of 13th April 2006, held down the street on St. Laurent, high atop the Duluth skyscraper (thanks @ MM). This was a good night — packed and sweaty, dancing until sunrise, playing all night with Colin the Mole if memory serves me right.

tobias.dj
April 2012