- Tobias Freund is a man with a past steeped equally in experimental music as it is in house: see NSI and his recent RA podcast for the experimental side and his excellent releases under the name of Tobias for house. So when he teams up with Ricardo Villalobos, who is not exactly known for making big room anthems himself, you know that the music they produce is going to come down on the side of the strange.
‘We Brought Our Friends’ bears out this observation: what Freund and Villalobos serve up here is two sides of Musique concrète techno. On the A-side a four by four kick is the only nod to convention. Unidentifiable sounds rage over a bare percussive groove, and it really does recall European serialism rather than anything to do with dance music. The B-side dispenses with any recognisable club pattern at all. The drums jerk away under a steadily modulated vocal sample as a simple synthesiser pattern runs on. It's a testament to both musicians that even though this is some extremely odd music, it somehow manages to be catchy. The creepy vocals were stuck in my head for days.
Neither of these cuts are likely to be dropped at your local club, but if you can spend time unraveling the dense layers of sound in this release, you will find it ultimately rewarding.
TracklistA We Brought Our Friends
B To Learn More