- It's been ten years since Dexter's debut EP on Klakson, the label he runs with Steffi. In that time the pair have put out a mere twenty releases, combining Dexter's love of electro and Steffi's interest in (banging) house and (banging) techno. Needless to say, the label has been unpredictable: Early records included jittery Drexciyan electro from Fastgraph, flamboyant Italo from Mr Cisco (one-half of Jolly Music) and a Detroit homage from Duplex. In 2008, the softcore porn stylings of Art Bleek's aptly titled Exposed EP marked a bit of a low, but the label got back on track with vigorous workouts from Dexter's own DXR project and Dada Wheel, a characteristically wide-ranging album from long-time Klakson affiliate Mesak.
"Stitch Seq" gets Dada off to a blinding start, marrying the filtered crunch of Marcel Dettmann's "Kernel" with the kind of Basic Channel-like spacey synth washes that always sound like they're eating themselves. The whole thing comes pelting out of the speakers as heavily as anything Redshape has put out, but where the masked producer often takes a purist approach to techno, Mesak seems loath to drive any particular sound into the ground.
"Echo's Bones" recalls the busy and tightly produced funk of Mark-Henning's Jupiter Jive, while a DBX-like devotion to blip, blurp and bleep gets a Chicago spin on "The Gang Punch." In between, you have slower diversions like "A Bag Of Gypsys" which, probably unintentionally, sounds like a straight rework of the DFA's mix of Delia & Gavin's "Relevee." "Postuumi" does a great impression of a dubbed-out Studio 1 record on -8, but "Semiburger" is the album's only major misstep, aiming for Dam-Funk boogie but sounding far more like a discarded Britney backing track.
Mesak finishes Dada with two tracks in the same key—perhaps they started off as variations? —and you can imagine them coming together wonderfully in his live set. "Keinoteko" rides an Italo acid bassline and fat ascending midrange stabs, with bright synth detail on top. It'd go down a storm at your standard deep house or cosmic disco night out. The same probably can't be said for the closer, "Xlap," which immediately reminds of late-period Marco Carola. It has that same simple, loopy attitude to just a couple of tones and a boom-tsh beat, but it's shot through with an undeniable swagger. It's an odd way to finish, but as "Xlap" plays out, it's that confidence that reveals itself as the common thread to all of Mesak's tracks. Clearly happy to try his hand at any genre going, Mesak comes out with something characterful each time out, making Dada Wheel pretty much the Klakson story writ-small in one release.
Tracklist 01. Stitch Seq
02. Echo's Bones
03. Nahat
04. A Bag of Gypsys
05. The Gang Punch
06. Postuumi
07. Semiburger
08. Dada Wheel
09. Keinoteko
10. Xlap