D-ua E.P

Ooh it’s all so cool. Everything about it oozes trendy, Hamburg location, minimal-tech house style, the name-check (Solomun, Stimming, Kollektiv Turmstrasse, Martin Landsky), the club nights, the radio show. It’s like the German Olympic team for deep have come out to play. Diynamic have been around for two years, and are actually doing a great job at promoting quality underground music that’s deep yet floor friendly. They never have quite reached the heady heights of Get Physical, but maybe that’s intentional. You do get the feeling that everything about Diynamic is planned, measured, precise.

So it’s strange that I can’t find anything about AMT8. Perhaps this artist’s debut is not really a debut at all but an alias or a collective from the label’s pedigree stable, certainly this is an accomplished piece of music. Deep in a minimal way, definitely German sounding, but well produced and mixed with all the sounds sitting well and creating a slightly housey groove that does rather remind me of some of Martin Landsky’s previous releases such as Cloudy Bay. This is deepness with melody though, there are some lovely delicate riffs sitting almost apologetically over the groove. There’s a solid sub and the obligatory white noise swooshes to build the tension. It’s only when the horns really kick in that it becomes time to dance, because without them this track, despite being technically very good, would not stand out above the many other technically good tracks coming from Germany.

Not content with a solid placing, label boss Solomun goes for gold with his remix and does a good effort at keeping up with the pace. The intro has the kind of gentle build that DJs love and the whole affair, again, oozes quality but it never gets to the kind of speed that will win the race. I don’t think it’s really meant to, but to me this sounds like solid warm up or one for the big rig. Now here’s the head scratcher; despite no introduction or advance billing there seems to be a gatecrasher to the package.

Drive D & Goshva & Westboy’s Sacrament of Shamans is the track that rather steals the show with its amazing instrumentation and cosmic chanting. It won’t be to everyone’s taste (the chanting is a little too frequent for my liking) but the overall effect is very unusual. The bass is driving and the wobble board type noises in the background are super cool as are the string sounds and mad drum programming. An instrumental would be a more viable alternative but I guess that misses the point. Well worth a peruse. Too cool for school, but in a good way.