Motor City Drum Ensemble - Raw Cuts Vol 1

MCDE - RAW CUTS Vol 1

(Faces)

OK, so this isn’t really an album, being more of a compilation of some singles and tracks. But it certainly is a totality of Danilo Plessow’s productions so far. Within the more polished realms of internet-community propelled dance music, MCDE is a name that comes up a lot. His refined, thumping tracks fit perfectly into the current trend of Detroit-influenced house that is the vogue in the genre. Alongside a number of other musicians from Germany, Plessow fits into a coterie of producers that seek to find their niche in a nest of slightly abstracted beats taking its lead from Messers Dixon Jr et al.

Fine. No problem. The tracks on here are all well-produced, with a few elements of the essential introspective deepness that seems to be the fashion right now. You want some snatches of spoken word vocals? Check. Thumping backbeat? Check. A bit of saxophone? Jazzy, meandering rhodes keys? It’s all here, with an added frission of live sound thrown in for good measure, and even the odd MPC-triggered lapse in beat to make it all sound not totally regimented, because of course, that’s what is important. But if you want house that actually has some sort of feeling, which we all know is the true ingredient, then you’d better start looking elsewhere. This sort of highly refined and almost atomised house music, which skirts around a melody and just throws in a few tracky elements for DJs to work with, is in my opinion, no better than the worst tech-house you can get. It’s just a selective smash ‘n’ grab of the best parts of Detroit House - there’s nothing here at all that is new or actually interesting. It’s all been synthesised out with nothing but the best intentions.

The trouble is that all the tracks on here are just Moodyman-lite or whatever. Why not just play a Moodymann record instead? If you’re going to produce tracks for DJs, then at least don’t make them sound like other producers, otherwise you cause an avalanche of awful copyists that can ruin a genre. See dub techno for that. If you want a record that touches all the right notes if you’re immersed in this realm of house as a DJ then this won’t do you any harm. But dance music went wrong when people started making tracks just for DJs.

Toby Frith