- Matthew Burton may have left Berlin for the English countryside, but he hasn't lost his taste for mind-bending sounds. Vielen Donk, his first solo release since 2012, is stacked with them, laying down four slabs of subaquatic minimal built for hallucinogenic dance floors. It's the first release on Chord Records, a new label based in his former home town. Bass-heavy and crisp, it pushes a twisted brand of minimal that's been all but forgotten since electro took a foothold at Club Der Visionaere a few years ago. A reminder of just how effective this ultra-precise brand of dance music can be, Vielen Donk is a welcome return from a producer who seems happy to sit in the shadows.
These tracks might be minimal, but there's a tech house sensibility buried inside. Alongside the pin-prick drums and droning basslines, pads and snippets of synth come and go, adding a sense of depth that eludes similarly reduced tunes. In spite of its goofy title, "Vielen Donk" is the pick of the bunch, with a shifting drum pattern and a mood that hovers between elation and melancholy. "Shuderz" and "Dockyard" are deeper, with greyscale textures and plenty of moving parts down low. "Broken Glass," with its 130-BPM strut, is the EP's most straightforward track, and a handy tool to have alongside the more ethereal selections. If Burton can slip out a few more EPs like this, he might convince minimal's émigrés that the style isn't so bad, after all.
TracklistA1 Vielen Donk
A2 Shuderz
B1 Broken Glass
B2 Dockyard