Exchange

Excellent extended tripping & percussive Beatdown House jams
 
www.hardwax.com

Cologne’s Viola Klein has long been interested in exchange. One of her past singles was an “appreciation” of a church in New York, cutting thoughtful house music with a recorded sermon. The other centred on the “presence” of two other artists, among them Detroit producer Whodat. Detroit often features in Klein’s exchanges. The film editor, DJ and writer has flown some of the city’s key house DJs to Germany for her Bring Your Ass party, and presented a 2012 art exhibition in Berlin called New Michigan. This release, for Belgium’s ever-adventurous Meakusma label, connects the city with another node in Klein’s global network. She works as a facilitator, combining Whodat’s beats—demurely soulful, deepest-of-deep house—with the Senegalese Family Diop, practitioners of traditional Sabar drumming.
 
The exchange is two-way on the A-side, where head-nodding drum loops are interwoven with live percussion that tugs and nudges loosely at the groove. The feeling of flux isn’t entirely comfortable, because of a tense high pedal-note, but jazzy chords in the second half soften the mood. They might be taking their cues from Senegalese writer Ndongo Samba Sylla, who sprinkles in a few optimistic statements. (“History is full of potential, it’s full of avenues. And we have the capability to choose and to build the avenue we find desirable to take.”)
 
On the B-side, Whodat’s beatmaking steals the show. Her delicate chord-bassline interplay and wafts of pensive piano make for a Detroit house groover of rare vintage. The serenity is emphasised by Kim Sherobbi, an educator at a Detroit school, instructing us to “have an open mind, knowing that things change all the time.” Sure enough, after seven minutes, they do: that gentle beat is picked up by the Family Diop and taken for a leisurely walk.
 
Angus Finlayson
 
www.residentadvisor.net

Als Viola Klein vor etwas weniger als zwei Jahren für die Am Deck-Serie vorstellig wurde, brachte sie in ihrem Mix gekonnt afrikanische Musik von etwa dem kamerunischen Sanza-Maestro Francis Bebey mit House und Techno der Detroiter Schule von Moodymann, Hieroglyphic Being und K-Hand zusammen. Ihre neue EP für das belgische Meakusma-Label zeigt sich ähnlich engagiert darin, die Wurzeln ihres verspielten, oldschooligen House-Sounds zu ehren. Exchange entstand tatsächlich in einem Austausch, der Klein bis nach Senegal und die USA brachte. Über zwei Tracks erstreckt sich das transatlantische Projekt, das neben Sabar-Trommeln der Family Diop und Grooves der Detroiter Produzentin Whodat auch die Stimmen des Schriftstellers Ndongo Samba Sylla und der Detroiter Aktivistin Kim Sherobbi hörbar macht. Eine 18-minütige Weltreise nach dem Motto, welches Sylla am Anfang des ersten unbetitelten Tracks vorgibt: „We need to be more utopian.“
 
Kristoffer Cornils
 
groove.de

Back in 2014, Viola Klein set the pulse racing with a pair of 12″ singles that effortlessly combined the loose, jazz-fuelled deep house of Detroit – and most specifically Moodymann and Theo Parrish – with homemade recordings of African percussionists and musicians. This similarly minded follow-up is equally as inspired, and features musicians, drummers and vocalists from Senegal and Detroit. There are two sublime cuts to choose from: the rolling, percussive hypnotism of “B”, where tactile synth bass and rich electronics combine brilliantly with dense Senegalese percussion, and the slower, more intoxicating fusion of “A”, which includes a brilliant spoken word vocal musing on the nature of democracy.
 
www.junodownload.com