Kikumoto Allstars - House Music

KIKUMOTO ALLSTARS - HOUSE MUSIC (GIGOLO)

When albums like this are so brazenly retro, it makes you wonder if innovation does really matter anymore. Australian producer Cam Farrar has taken all the tools of Chicago House and made a piece that is so 1987 that one wonders what happened to dance music for 22 years. Yet niggling away at my sensibility that one must innovate to move forward is the nagging fact that this album, chock full of 13 tracks of dancefloor slammers produces what it set out to do, Farrar’s nom de guerre inspired by Tadao Kikumoto, the brains behind the Roland renaissance.

Farrar is far too young and far away to have heard the initial impact of Chi-town House in its initial glory, but what’s to stop him producing a tribute LP? To his credit, he doesn’t put a foot wrong with a selection of very well produced and more importantly arranged pieces that are as close to Adonis or Heard as one might expect. “Last town to Chi-town” takes the meandering majesty of the latter’s melodic talents to heart with a drifting synth line, whilst “Sagittarius” is as near to old Dance Mania releases from the likes of Vince Floyd as you can get. It’s impeccably done, with the ear of a well-trained musician obviously at the helm, only “DCO” hinting at a rawness that one might expect from Tadd Mullinix nowadays. Even the vocals have the appropriate sheen to them, repeating mantras such as “Back in the Warehouse Days” or “I’ll Make you Jack”.

When we consider the fact that by their nature, tracks of this sort are meant to be essentially disposable, one shouldn’t then have any real problems with what amounts to wholesale copying. The issue though is that the old Chicago records do have their place, and have a real resonance to a particular era that makes their inclusion in DJ sets and the like all the more potent. We know that with the proliferation of digital technology, an analogue 909 or 303 has a great deal of power when set against a more modern record. Given that we are seeing a marked improvement in many places with the quality of soundsystems in clubs, the frequencies and levels that these records were originally mastered at makes their texture all the more sought after. And undeniably most of house and techno is essentially still somewhat in thrall to the rudimentary, almost accidental approach that the producers of yore had during the mid-eighties. For all the sheen and studio trickery that young producers can apply to the genre nowadays, nothing comes close to the raw, “boxjam” feel that they had back then. As such, this release, whilst intentional in its heads up to that time, just seems surplus to requirements. To try and equal the energy and spirit produced then requires a new generation to come up with a riposte rather than a dedication.

Toby Frith