REAGENZ - PLAYTIME (Workshop)

Reagenz is something of an anomaly: a group that met, by chance, and recorded one album, and which then met 13 years later, this time by design, to record a follow up.  More strikingly, David Moufang and Jonah Sharp have put together a doozy of a record, full of emotional honesty, depth and a playful joie de vivre.  However, ‘Playtime’ is also an album with conflicting visions—that of an earthy, Detroit and Chicago techno soul, and an extra-solar ambient bliss.  Though each has its moments, the more terrestrial offerings are generally more compelling. 

The album begins with “Dinner with Q,” an interesting mix of live instrument samples—dual electric bass, jazz guitar chords—combined with lively, Detroit style melodic synth flourishes and space-elevator pads.  The result is easy-breezy, summertime techno. “DJ Friendly RMX” follows, which is best described as polyrhythmic Detroit techno.  Melodic movement comes courtesy of a heavily distorted and filtered electric piano, which surprisingly gives way to blips, beeps and progressively more layered percussion.  It gets a bit long in the tooth, but would give a competent DJ quite a bit to work with. 

Reagenz then shift gears to the gorgeous electronica of “Shibuya Day,” on which they channel the best of 1990s ambient.  The breakbeat, thankfully, stays in the background and lets the synths take center stage. On “Keep Building,” Reagenz channel Larry Heard, from the luscious chords to the melancholic bass and dreamy, utopian vocals.  This is nostalgia in the most reverent and sophisticated terms, an exit from cliché and a return to what made deep house music great. 

Given the high quality of all the offerings to this point, the slowed-down shuffle funk of “Confidence” is a bit of a letdown.  It’s competent, to be sure, but lacks enough of an emotional core to be compelling headphones material, but isn’t really all that useful for the dancefloor either.  The next track, “Freerotation,” is more middling material: nice but uninspiring electronica.  Thankfully the album closer, “Du Bist Hier!” returns Reagenz to greatness.  It is truly epic ambient, featuring outer-orbit pads cascading through shifting alien soundscapes, building towards a climax that always seems inevitable yet, cleverly, never quite arrives. 

Blemishes aside, ‘Playtime’ is certainly pulls its weight.  It’s a fun, lively and clever album that doesn’t sound like any ten releases from the past year and puts some serious creativity on display.  Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another decade for the third installment…   

Gustav Brown