- I've got a bit of a thing about paint-by-numbers tech house. As in I think it should all be burnt in a public place. (I should probably add at this point that when something new is brought to the table, it's among my favourite genres). Hold your horses before you assume I'm about to issue some kind of blanket condemnation of Holger Behn's new EP, though: This intro merely serves both as a platform to vent my spleen (Abletonites, please listen) and to lay out a metric by which to overview the three tracks here.
"Dead and Alive" can hardly be said to fall into this category. It opens tough and funky: 808 cowbells, simple analogue squelching and a single-note bass shuffle all march underneath a tough vocal like the one in Pan-Pot's "Charly." All very nice. The bass rises and is joined by piano fruitiness, giving it something of a schizophrenic—read: interesting—nature. "Tour de Fonque" drifts closer to blandness, as a guitar picking flirts around in the second half of the track, not quite kicking off and remaining in the "decent warm-up fodder" end of your record box. Agogo shows remarkably solid production for someone without a trace on either RA or Discogs—is it just another name for Behn?—but the way he pours fertilizer on the original's piano riff to end up all beachballs and fun in the sun can't really be said to stand out amongst the hordes.
Tracklist A Dead and Alive feat. Taprikk Sweezee
B1 Dead and Alive (Agogo Dub)
B2 Tour De Fonque