The crew behind the much-adored but recently closed inner-west venue The Abercrombie has lured one of the foremost names in techno today, Minneapolis’ Zak Khutoretsky, to play The Basement in Circular Quay on Saturday February 8. Best known in club circles as DVS1 (for those reading this column aloud to a packed room, it’s pronounced ‘devious one’), Khutoretsky has built his reputation through two decades of DJing, but it was not until he gained the support of Germany’s Ben Klock that Khutoretsky vaulted into the top echelon of techno producers. “Ben opened the door for me to get noticed,” Khutoretsky reflected in a recent interview. “It’s extremely difficult to get noticed as just a DJ, to break through without production credits to your name is nearly impossible. By putting out my records he gave me that opportunity, to show what I’ve been doing for years already as a DJ.” Khutoretsky’s first release as DVS1 dropped on Klock’s Klockworks label in August 2009, and was followed by releases on Derrick May’s venerated Transmat imprint and Dustin Zahn’s Enemy Records. Khutoretsky has since launched his own record label Hush (which has only released a single record, from DVS1 in 2011) and its sub-label Mistress, which was launched last year with the manifesto of tapping into a wider spectrum of house and techno than its more tightly-focused parent label. While Khutoretsky has built up a strong body of remixes for the likes of Lucy, Nina Kraviz, Trus’me and Rolando, by his own admission he remains a “DJ first and foremost. I’ve always loved to DJ and only stepped out of that a few times for a live set … As a DJ I feel that I’m fluent. I can speak and describe my emotion and my vibe. As a producer I’m still learning to speak.” Anyone after a fix of unadulterated deep and pure techno must ensure they see the devious polyglot technophile in full throttle when he throws down at The Basement. Presale tickets are currently selling online.
Canadian producer Daniel Gardner, who has made a name for himself recording under the moniker Frivolous, has just put out an album of previously unreleased tracks that is aptly entitled Lost And Forgotten. Sydneysiders are well acquainted with Frivolous’ unique live set that he has showcased on past tours at showpiece events like Mad Racket and the 2011 Subsonic Music Festival, wowing punters with his unusual set-ups and audacious live sampling. After honing his bouncy brand of melodic oddball house through his albums Somewhere In The Suburbs and my personal favourite, 2007’s Midnight Black Indulgence, Frivolous released his most recent artist album Meteorology on Luciano’s Cadenza imprint back in 2010. While Frivolous has been in production hibernation ever since, he has recently dug through his archives and found an array of unreleased tracks dating back to his earliest production forays that otherwise may have never seen the light of day, including ‘Far From This World’, originally penned in 2008, and ‘303D’ from back in ’04. The result is Lost And Forgotten, available now through theBelgian label Lessizmore.
To celebrate its ten-year anniversary, Omar-S’ FXHE Records will release a compilation called FXHE 10 Year Mix Compilation,made up of 16 tracks from its back catalogue. Fittingly, the compilation will be mixed by Omar-S himself, marking only his second commercially released mix, following 2009’s Fabric 45, and the first to feature material from other producers, as the Fabric compilation was comprised solely of Omar-S’ own productions (a tad self-aggrandising perhaps, but it’s hard to raise such qualms when the final product was of such high quality). In addition to being the primary outlet for Omar-S’s productions, the FXHE imprint has also released cuts from the likes of Gunnar Wendel (AKA Kassem Mosse), OB Ignitt and Luke Hess, all of whom feature on the forthcoming compilation, which is apparently the first part of a series that will be released every three months throughout 2014. FXHE 10 Year Mix Compilation drops real soon – on the first day of February to be precise.
LOOKING DEEPER
Saturday February 1
Andrew Weatherall
Oxford Art Factory
Saturday February 8
DVS1
The Basement
Saturday March 1
Redshape
Civic Underground
Sunday March 2
DJ Harvey
TBA
Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through [email protected].
