For a long time I went uncorrected in my thinking that the ‘Motor City’ referenced in the recording alias of Danilo Plessow was Detroit. Not so; Danilo’s ‘Motor City’ is in-fact his hometown of Stuttgart, an industrious hub in southern Germany. A city, where amongst the grey buildings and nearby muddy banks of the River Neckar, a record shop shaped Danilo’s musical interest and future career as one of dance music’s elite. This edition of DJ Kicks, which are becoming increasingly conceptive, plays as Danilo’s ode to the record shop which borne his musical identity.
The elastic mix spans twenty-two tracks in just under ninety-minutes and, as such, most cuts are only two or three minutes long. Not that you’ll notice any brevity, the stretched and varied genres on hand are deftly spliced into, and on-top of, one another; soul and funk leading into techno and house, and then back again. Things start gently with Sun Ra’s 'Door To The Cosmos'. It’s the kind of record that you can imagine a young Danilo discovering in a crate of dusty 12”s and, with its psychic tinges, blowing his mind. Staying on a soulful tip, we get further tender cuts from Electric Wire Hustle and the masterful Tony Allen.
Anyone anticipating an soulful warm-up into an all-out house and techno main-section is going to have alter their expectations; dance-floor cuts are almost in the minority, with Danilo intent on offering a much fuller, rounded and autobiographical compilation than a straight-forward mix. The entire first-half of the album continues to offer off-kilter rhythm and funk, with highlights including the soulful, slow beat of Rick “Big Poppa” Howard’sCan Your Love Find It's Way and Fred P’s enigmatic reverb-heavy house number On This Vibe.
Unlike others, who would take a more heavy-handed approach to such an eclectic offering, Danilo offers a consistent mood and tone (dreamy, introspective, weighty). By the time we’re into the second half of the album, we are treated to some of the dance music that proved formative to that which characterised the output of M.C.D.E. We get Robert Hood’s 1996 hit 'The Pace', Aphex Twin’s ambient classic 'Actium' and, best of all, Isolee’s epic remix of Recloose’s 'Caridology'. The pace having picked up and hurtling the listener through a collage of contemporary sounds, things are then drawn to a well measured disco-funk conclusion with a vintage 1977 James Mason track.
That Danilo Plessow cares enough about the impact his local record-shop has had on his subsequent career to want to release a tentative indirect tribute to it is impressive, but it is the deft execution and restraint that gives the compilation its sense of idiosyncrasy. “If you grow up in circumstances like me, where there’s not an infinite amount of unheard music available at all times and you’re forced to work with what’s available, that’s a whole different kind of inspiration,” notes Danilo in the press-notes for the album, suggesting it was the restrictive range of stock that nurtured artists such as he. He's taken this idea of musical restraint, added it as the secret-ingredient to this compilation, and allowed it to bloom into something deeply personal, thoughtful and engaging.