- Sought-after '90s techno, "ethically" reissued by Nathan Micay.
- Here's a conversation starter. Nathan Micay's reissue label, Eternal Schvitz, was set up to "fight the evil no-ID-DJ forces currently at work." He doesn't elaborate, but I'd guess he's referring to the debate that on one side says track IDs should be shared in the spirit of community and that artists whose creations are being played should be credited. And on the other side says that digging for rare music is many DJs' stock-in-trade, and therefore why should they share their finds just because someone asked? Another layer to this is the murky world of Discogs inflation, usually driven by a "digger DJ" playing a track, and reissue projects in which the original artist doesn't get paid. Eternal Schvitz intends to counter this second point by handing the artist involved a 60 percent cut, with the remaining 40 percent going to the Berlin-based charity / collective aequa. Whichever position you take in all this, few people outside of Discogs speculators would argue against the wider availability of music as good as Aaron Palmquist's Cohesion EP.
You can hear why the original EP might have excited DJs in the digger community. It brings to the table a few different sounds—electro, breakbeats, tech house, a little trance—that have been popular in recent years. Palmquist, a Canadian artist who also released music as Chameleon and performed live at leading Toronto venues, wrote these tracks in the mid-'90s when these styles were still relatively fresh. Indeed, there's a lovely sense of naivety here that you also find in plenty of classic music from this time period, a kind of shock-of-the-new zeitgeist that'll never be recaptured. "Beautiful" and the Chameleon remix of "House People" are pure '90s house bumpers, the former more bold and melody-driven, the latter more rhythm- and bass-focussed. The sense of minimalism on "House People," particularly in the middle when the arrangement grows sparse and the sub-bass groans, is especially gratifying. "Dreamtime," which also features in an updated 2019 version, is a broken-beat number with spacey theatricality at its core. Its climax is a shower of E-friendly pads, percussion and synth tones, making it a track for squinted eye contact and knowing smiles on a dance floor.
TracklistA1 Beautiful
A2 Dreamtime
B1 House People (Chameleon Remix)
B2 Dreamtime 2019