2562 - "Aerial"

2562 - Morvern (Tectonic 2008)

2562 - Aerial / Tectonic

So, so many albums to hear this summer. They just keep coming, endlessly fascinating and frustrating and so many that are so long, so overly long, that it's tough to care about all but a select few. This is one of the latter. 2562, the Hague area code where the man behind it lives. At the moment, it is tough to argue the brilliance of Dave Huismans and his rogue record, a culmination of 12s tracked differently between CD and LP (You get two additional songs in "Walkover" and "Theorem" that do not appear on the CD, but you sacrifice "Channel Two," "Techno Dread," "Enforcers," and "Kameleon") that seem so out of step with the season that it could only be a dubstep record marketed exclusively for dubsteppers.

Too many things are wrong about this album for it to make the same impression on the masses that Burial did last year with Untrue. Even the lineage that led to Aerial seems wrong: Huismans has chosen Tectonic as his debut label, helmed by DJ Pinch of last year's last-second stunner Underwater Dancehall. For an insular scene that has largely kept its crop within South London, here are two guys operating beyond the geographical borders dubstep is so often unfairly planted with. Pinch is even further south and right off the River Severn to the west; Huismans is on the other side of the Channel in the Netherlands. But if there is much that this outsider reputation tells us about the anomaly that Aerial presents (and not just in the music, though we'll get to that in a second), there is also a lot that it isn't telling us, at least not directly: From the Internet's ability to decimate geographical exclusivity to the appeal it has across much of the Lowlands (There's a regular 24/7 dubstep stream from Belgium, for one example; plenty of others are out there to boot), Aerial is a milestone for a genre that seems to continue to evolve almost in spite of itself at times.

It's relatively easy to bang out a quick plate and be done with things, but making a dubstep full-length is tricky and 2562's first step was to keep it instrumental (removing the necessity for a second disc of instrumental's à la Pinch last year). The second major thing you'll notice in cuts like the thumping "Morvern" and the rubbery highlight "Techno Dread" is that Huismans was aiming for the scattershot minimal techno crowd. The feel that this is really just a Bpitch Control release at half-speed is evident, and if Ellen Allien were a dubstep producer, it's very likely she would be generating sounds not unlike those found on Aerial. It doesn't sound like this initially: "Moog Dub" brings an island breeze to the proceedings for a different approach to the sound. It's like you could almost, almost imagine this working at a party. It's also the most dub Huismans ever gets, at least until the digitally afflicated "Basin Dub" just past halfway. The heart of this record beats with the pulse of modern Berlin every bit as much as modern London.

When I first heard about this release a couple of months ago on Dubstepforum, the palpable sense of excitement was for a record that had taken the genre in a new direction and turned last year's cold synth stabs into warmer (if not friendlier) confines for a new year and a new crowd. Ironically, if this had come out last October, we might very well have been talking about 2562 as the record of the year. Closer to the truth is that, at this point, with so many tastemakers working on their tans and enjoying the density of the festival season rather than sitting behind a computer screen waiting for the Next Big Leak to satisfy their chilly isolation and exacerbate their loneliness, Aerial is doomed to the deadlands of underapprecation, destined to be unearthed either long after the excitement has died down or years from now when Huismans has retired from the game a defeated shell of a man who gave it his all and for one astounding record actually had it all right. That's extreme, and I hope it never comes to this... But I'm writing this review a month after the guy from Dusted, and I'm not seeing anyone else aside from Prefix care. It's all wrong. All of it, that is, but the music. In the end, this is what you cannot argue. Better that than some half-bit hack writing on his blog during listmaking season.

Jackson Conti - "Sunjinho"

Jackson Conti - Nao Tem Nada Nao (Mochilla/Kindred Spirits 2008)

Jackson Conti - Sunjinho / Mochilla/ Kindred Spirits

Though I've been listening to this record on and off for a few days now, I don't have too much to add beyond what Michael has already said over at Dusted, so if you want a detailed description of the history behind the bossa nova grooves and Conti-driven polyrhythms that dominate this album, head there - but let me add my own unsolicited opinion on this one: When I listen to the tropical sounds and the lighthearted buoyancy of tracks like "Berumba" or the 70s gameshow key interlude that is "Waiting on the Corner," I just think to myself: "Damn, so this is Madlib's muzak."

But in a way, it's also another interesting footnote in Jackson's deep discography. Instead of just outright making a bad album, he made a good bad album. Like, instead of lowballing with a halfhearted Yesterdays New Quintet release that might've disappointed more petulant followers of his work, Otis basically went and made Beat Konducta in the Hotel Lobby. Doesn't sound so bland that way. And you know what? If this is what they wind up playing in the elevators of The Spire in four years, I won't complain... Probably because I won't be paying attention.