- Tin Man's "Nonneo" may have garnered Acid Test the lion's share of its praise last year, but Iron Curtis and Edit Piafra's Achterbahn D'Amour project, whose tracks for the label constitute a plurality of its material to date, is at least as responsible for its peculiarly forward-thinking vision for the 303. The duo has thus far been defined by its omnivorous take on classic house tropes, but on their third release, for Frank Music, the influences they'd been wearing on their sleeves start to meld into something more distinctly theirs.
Between the brittle drum machine workout of "Your Love (In A Jam)" and the peaktime ecstasy of "Trance Me Up (I Wanna Go Higher)" lies "JX2," a speedy house workout (with a 303 line, of course) tempered by rainy-day pads and a generally reduced sensibility. "The Middle Of" opts for a similar aesthetic, though they take it at a more leisurely pace, leaving ample room between its drums for its infectiousness to sneak through the mix and grab hold. Sustained, scratchy strings lend some lovely tension, priming it as a potentially deadly pivot point in a DJ set. "Into the Wilde"'s boxy percussion owes a few things to Ron Hardy, but its curious proportions, playful bass programming and good humor feel like the essence of what Achterbahn D'Amour are fast becoming—a production team striving in their own way to be part of a lineage, not merely aping from one.
Tracklist A JX2
B1 The Middle Of
B2 Into The Wilde