- Luciano has found a kindred spirit in Loco Dice to appear on his Cadenza label. Adopting the pseudonym Loco Dice after his backgammon skills, the Dusseldorf-based producer who started out in hip-hop using the name Dice'C has releases on Four:Twenty Recordings, Ovum and Cocoon, but as Harissa demonstrates, he's well suited to his current homes at Cadenza and M_nus. This double 12" presents three long, intricate webs of subtly-shifting endlessly-engaging micro-rhythms, with a straightforward minimal-house number rounding things out.
Tiny bits are drizzled all over this but they're particularly pleasurable in 'Raindrops on my Window', opening with indistinct Doppler sweeps and equally unclear Troy Pierce-esque vocal mumblings. Things proceed gradually, spurred on by a steady kick and a doom-laden bleep line worthy of John Carpenter, but when the hats kick in and the melody goes wonky, like Luciano's mix of Argy's 'Love Dose', you're enthralled. It grows like Jack's beanstalk over its ten minutes, with the clap arriving late amid further vocal snippets and welcome clutter, and closes with a kindergarten's worth of wellington boots stomping in puddles. At 12.51 'Vamos A Cali' is the longest cut here but wastes not a second, starting out with a clean melody of pops and directionless arpeggios but soon alive with all manner of chirruping pond life. A tight bassline and castanets keeps things flapping like a flamenco dancer while shadowy tones and strings climb aboard, only for a whole re-invention to take place turning the final four minutes into staggered dub techno.
'A Chico A Rytmico' is almost as long and expansive yet cooler, chugging along to a distorted clave and a see-sawing bassline atop the usual boom-chkk. A strummed harp joins tones which bounce and stutter like Mobilee, only there's none of that label's jerky tension. The departure comes from the more immediate 'Paradiso', which centres around a looped triad of rising tones, with thicker sounds, clearer breaks and less patience, sounding like a Fairmont track. Pleasant enough but not as essential as the other three.
Long strand techno of this sort is gaining popularity and becoming further refined, spiralling into a burgeoning minimal micro-genre. The winning three here fit beautifully alongside many of this year's drawn-out best: Luciano's 'Father', Crowdpleaser's 'Rodeo' remix, Exercise One's 'Yellow Crystal Seed' and much recent Villalobos. If you like them, get this.
TracklistA Raindrops On My Window
B Paradiso
C Vamos A Cali
D A Chico A Rhytmico