James Holden – DJ-Kicks (!K7)
4/5
By: Chris Jones
James Holden’s contribution to the DJ-Kicks series is an offering of eclectic techno, psychedelia and dance in which he mixes tracks from artists as diverse and Caribou, Mogwai and Walls to form a gathering of musical talent from around the world expertly infused with his own digital-sorcerer’s touch.
Holden is a renowned club DJ, remixing artists such as Madonna, Depeche Mode and New Order in his time, but this album is more of an investigative endeavour than the kind of thing you might associate with those artists, or expect to hear in one of his club sets. It’s all over the place, in a very liberating way, really stretching what’s between your ears and letting it slacken again before beating some pulsing rhythms back down your throat and running away, along with your sense of what just happened.
The album opens with a Piano Magic track standing very much in line with the current tendency for using found sound. The ticking clock on the intro is a countdown to wandering techno that builds and builds, slowly coating on more sounds and percussion parts. Holden follows it with his own new track ‘Triangle Folds’, a jaunt that’s mellow, smooth and possessive of a layering that has a transcendental effect, flowing seamlessly into James Ruskin’s Brit-tech classic ‘Definition Of’. Considering the latter is a decade old, the mix seems all the more flawless.
Elsewhere, Walls’ ‘Gaberdine’ has a futuristic character that feels simultaneously fast and slow, which gives a superb disorientating feel amongst the dreamy repeating vocals, and the transition into the Lukas Nystrand track that follows is my mix favourite of the album.
Holden’s DJ Kicks ends with ‘Catacomb City’, a dark, at times ear perforating, dreadnought of brooding tension that concludes the album and leaves you completely unsure of how to define it as a work. He’s certainly not alone in defying genre boundaries, as there is a definite feeling among current electronic musicians that insists genre boundaries belong less as a blueprint for making music and more as a direction toward the music, a hint at it what it is. The supposition that genre is definitive is seemingly (and welcomely) out.
But I think that might be the point, or at least the reason why Holden enjoyed putting this album together - the music is without label. In the past, musicians crafted work which was similarly indefinable and were subsequently (either around the time or in years to come) commended as ahead of the game. Whether this will be the case with our James, or if this is just a masterful compilation of bravely varied sounds, its a tribute to Holden’s ability as a DJ.
Artists in this article: James Holden
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