You might not associate the creators of 2005's ubiquitous milky way jam, "Rej," with musty old school funk and techno. But in creating Fabric 42, Âme's Kristian Beyer and Frank Widemann dug into their collection in an attempt to step out of their deep house shadow a bit. As such, perhaps more than any mix this year, Fabric 42 is reminiscent of The Mole's As High as the Sky. With its vintage jazz, funk and house, the mix mirrors the way The Mole seemed to compact weathered sources and sounds into a humid mix of variable heritage. Just listen to the way they use Matthew Styles' "We Said Nothing" and KB Project's "The Symphony" for example—with their ripple-effect vocals carved up 'til they gain their own innate sense of beat and motion—to get a sense for this antique mélange of timbres, which gives Fabric 42 so much of its cushiony homespace vibe.
In fact, Fabric 42 often feels almost a-synthetic, the result solely of human hands, sunlight hours and machines that work only when you kick 'em. Mixworks' "Berlin Dub," which marks the mix's transitional point after a loungey start, is chewing gum pop compared to most of today's techno, getting room-sound out of thick lusty bass alone. So does STL's "Something is Raw," which stretches its simple, thick chested funk and an earworm synth melody into one of the mix's centerpieces. Murky and reverberant at once, Fabric 42 often seems refracted through a dense and cluttered space, one that resembles a museum storage hall as much as a dancefloor. There's so much synthesis between cuts that the age or relative freshness of the tracks gets cross-wired, the freshest vinyl feeling as though just pulled from crate bottom. The twinkle-eyed flute bursts of Linkwood's "Hear the Sun" segue shortly into the Wighnomy Brothers' swirling, almost-live remix of Minilogue and KAB's "That's a Nice Way to Give Me Feedback." Âme's own "D.P.O.M.B. (Version 1)" with Henrik Schwarz and Dixon melds in perfectly too, its chunky deep house rhythms, Amazonian yodeling and propulsive motion capturing the mix's inversions of musical eras.
As it slowly loses its radiant warmth though, Âme reinforces the mix's throwback feel with spoken-word recitals along increasingly anthemic techno. Armando's "Don't Take It" is an '80s blacktop feminist chant made to bounce on squelchy acid waves, while Âme layers the breathless soapbox poesie of "An American Poem" by Those Guys and Ras Baraka over the sticky grind of Edward's "Raw Structure." Though it closes with more foreseeable dance choices—the token tribal sample-techno of Marcel Dettman's remix of Gowentgone's "M.A.M." and the morning-after glow of LFO vs. Fuse's classic "Loop"—Fabric 42 is ultimately a testament to Âme's well-crafted texture and their talent for manipulating history, one that's playing sweat-in-the-eye tricks with both its own nows and its thens.
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Tracklist: Âme - Fabric 42
01. Linkwood – Hear The Sun
02. Even Tuell – Untitled B1
03. Minilogue & KAB - That’s A Nice Way To Give Me Feedback
[Wighnomy Brothers Quintenzirkel Remikks]
04. Jens Zimmerman – Moddodblubbblub
xx. Moondog - Moondog Monologue
05. Mixworks – Berlin Dub
06. Armando – Don’t Take It [Thomos Edit]
07. STL – Something Is Raw
08. Edward Ft. Justus– Raw Structure
xx. Those Guys Ft Ras Baraka – An American Poem
09. 76-79 – Six Ten
10. Henrik Schwartz/Âme/Dixon – D.P.O.M.B [Version 1]
11. Matthew Styles – We Said Nothing
12. KB Project – The Symphony
13. Gowentgone - M.A.M. (Marcel Dettmann Remix)
xx. Broken Compass – Australiapella 2
14. LFO vs Fuse – Loop [Fuse Mix] – Plus 8
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