- The Danish artist follows up RA's #1 track of 2019.
- Martin Schacke's centrality to Copenhagen's bubbling techno scene, his prodigious work rate (check out all those aliases) and his use of BDSM themes all partly explain why he's riding high right now. But his key characteristic might be his knack for turning what purist listeners may consider trash into dance floor gold. The most obvious example of this was last year's Kisloty Forever EP, which boldly reconfigured Russian pop songs as modern techno, and, in "Kisloty People," wrote one of the biggest (if not the biggest) tracks of the year. Gabber kicks, trance melodies and arpeggios, sex noises and moods recalling massive arena raves have all featured prominently in his music. There's Something Inside Me, this new EP for SPFDJ's Intrepid Skin imprint, might be the best example yet of his willingness to borrow from different, more maximalist dance music styles.
You certainly don't hear many house-diva vocals in techno, but "Role Modeling" is one such track. After "Kisloty People," "Shit he's done it again" might be your first thought on hearing it. This is an anthem of simple execution, Schacke judiciously deploying the riotous vocal—"Loving you! Losing you!—over one of those tough, swung grooves he seems to so effortlessly throw together. On "Hard Feelings," an apt title given its punchy beat, the killer part is a buzz-saw synth that echoes Snap's 1990 pop-dance smash "The Power." If you checked out Schacke's recent RA podcast, the rave-organ stabs of "Full Contraction" might already be familiar, while "Forever In Total Negation" has a lead melody that belongs on a compilation called The Best Ibiza Trance Anthems Ever: 1999. If all of this sounds a bit novelty-orientated, it is, and that kind of feels like the point. In letting it all hang out, Schacke challenges pretension and generates energy.
TracklistA1 Role Modeling
A2 Full Contraction
B1 Hard Feelings
B2 Forever In Total Negation