Antonelli: Soulkiller (Italic CD/LP/digital)
Stefan Schwander is, or at least was, one of my musical heroes. I think in the world stage of techno, he's a bit unsung, preferring to remain in the shadows a bit as he works his hand at what can sometimes seem rather utilitarian instrumental music. When I first heard Antonelli Electr.'s Me, The Disco Machine in 2001 or so (a couple years after its release, even), I was bowled over by its clever intersection of repetitive, minimal structures, vague disco references (without anything so overt that I'd call the music itself proper disco), a touch of electro-pop and his own special style of syncopation. Schwander shares with Jörg Burger what I consider a knack for surprise as far as his sequencing and layering of chords, basslines and beats. While the tracks themselves usually are quite spare as far as the number of elements at any one time, and they often mutate and build and change rather gradually, there is often the introduction of a kick drum, a bassline, a hi-hat or other device that is completely off the pacing that the listener may have anticipated.
Schwander seemed to move away from the vague pop sensibility of Me, The Disco Machine with the records that followed. Click was entirely instrumental, and seemed to focus in on stiff but spry Detroit techno by way of German minimalism. Love And Other Solutions loosened up a bit and was a little more romantic in tone, less mechanical but still quite minimal. And while I never fully heard The Blackout Sessions, it seemed to veer much further into the weird mid-tempo electronic soul of Jan Jelinek and his Farben moniker, ditching much of the dancefloor verve that made his earlier records so special to me.
While Schwander has continued to release 12" records with a certain amount of regularity, Soulkiller is his first LP of uptempo tracks in some time. True to those earlier albums, the tracks themselves are fairly lengthy, with its 8 tracks approaching an hour as an album. The crisp, clean, metered feel of Schwander's Pop Up collaborations or the streamlined Detroit-cum-Germany tech house of Click come to mind as the title track kicks things off. It's a slow build, for sure - there are no melodic elements whatsoever for the first minute and a half, when a flanged square bass line comes in. Then the layers build, and build, and build - some panning, persistent chords, a secondary bass line that adds an extra amount of swagger... once he has all the pieces in places, then Schwander begins to subtract, add, vary on the formula, never losing that insistent kick and descending tick-tick-tick-tock high pitched rim shot that frame the entire track. It's deceivingly simple as it dares you to not bob your head. "When Terry Sings" is presumably a nod to Specials singer Terry Hall, a smooth-rolling house track characterized by extended chords and buoyant, clean bass. It's not Schwander's first reference to music of the past; Me, The Disco Machine featured a generous and more obvious tribute to Hamilton Bohannon. He continues that tribute with a track here called "Hamilton." It doesn't have the same irresistible slap bass that nailed it on Disco Machine's "Bohannon," but Schwander's own personal funk is hard to deny here. But his is a sort of anti-funk, operating at the far opposite end of the spectrum from more commonly "funky" electronic acts out there, all efficient and no-nonsense.
So it's probably not without a sense of humor that Schwander has titled this opus Soulkiller, deriving inspiration from sources like Bohannon and Terry Hall and rendering them virtually soulless by common standards. But there is a wonderful sort of mechanical, computer soul at work here, something that resonates with me and no doubt others. So when he lays down a track toward the end called "Cold Entertainment," it's hard not to smile. It's as if he's acknowledging the public at large's misconception of electronic music, poking fun at his own aesthetic, but with a wink; it may be repetitive, minimal, electronic, even stiff at times, but soulless it most certainly ain't.
mp3s: Soulkiller | Hamilton
more info: Official artist site | Italic on Virb | Antonelli on Virb | Discogs
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