If Itiswhatitis wasn't actually Mathew Jonson's baby, it absolutely is now: as RA reported in August, founder Spencer Drennan recently signed the label over to its most famous alum, paving the way for the long-overdue reactivation of one of minimal techno's most foundational back catalogs. Playfully funky but with a drive that absolutely means business, Jonson's IIWII highlights—"Typerope," "Freedom Engine," the early Cobblestone Jazz missives—seem to exist on their own trend-defying plane, enough so that two unreleased tracks produced at the same time could fool you into thinking they're brand-new material.
And unless you were one of the lucky few to snag them on CD-R from Jonson nearly ten years ago, "Panna Cotta" and "Passage to the Other Wise" may as well be. The former recalls more up-to-the-minute Jonson sides like "Learning to Fly" and "Daze," with prickly synth programming skipping over crisp, lockstep drums. Slower and shades darker, "Passage to the Other Side" is a simply devastating floor-filler, with a fat bassline tempered by ethereal, rising synth textures that burst into digital dust once they hit a certain altitude. Forget the decade between germination and official release; these tunes have arrived right on time.
Buy Mathew Jonson - Panna Cotta at
Tracklist: Mathew Jonson - Panna Cotta
 A Panna Cotta
B Passage to the Other Side
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