The fourth installment in a markedly busy year for !K7's DJ-Kicks series, Apparat's (real name: Sascha Ring) contribution is also the least predictable. Part of that has to do with how difficult it is to describe his music, an ambiguous form of electronic dance where texture varies greatly from one sound to the next. In his world, if a reverbed guitar echoes overhead, then perhaps the hectic clickity-clack of skittering drums will offset it, rapidly stapling it down. And each sound in an Apparat track seems like it was created using different tools, so that guitar strain might reflect the smoothness and shine of silk while each of those percussive instruments sounds like a completely different kind of metal was used to sculpt it. Since Apparat has such a wide array of textures at his disposal, his possibilities for a mix seem vast.
Of the three 2010 DJ-Kicks mixes prior to this one-- Juan MacLean, Kode9, and James Holden-- Apparat's most resembles the latter. Where MacLean blurred distinctions between house music old and new and Kode9 tried to pack as many funky/dubstep records into a small space, Holden went a different route: He took a number of disparate records and tried to make them resemble his own aesthetic. MacLean and Kode9 were selecting and mixing tracks in order to make a banging mix; Holden was selecting and mixing tracks to make a banging album. Likewise, Apparat digs through his collection in an attempt to make an Apparat-sounding album out of other people's music. Though in so doing, he shows his cards a bit, suggesting that his sound could be loosely categorized as one where experimental electronic music edges further into indie territory.
Between Holden's and Apparat's DJ-Kicks, Holden's gets the edge, and it's not even because he selects better tracks. Ultimately, Holden is the better sequencer, with a stronger understanding of the rhythm and pacing of a mix. Apparat finds his groove during a stretch in the middle beginning with Four Tet's remix of Born Ruffians' "I Need a Life" and ending at Vincent Markowski's "The Madness of Moths", possibly the best patch on any of the four DJ-Kicks this year, but there's a lack of a defined arc over the course of these 24 songs. When Thom Yorke's "Harrowdown Hill" appears near the end, its placement feels odd and disjunctive, as if your roommate came in and decided to drag one of his favorite songs into a playlist you spent hours making.
That's a shame, because Apparat does have a knack for conveying his aesthetic through other people's music, especially when he blends two records that shouldn't work together but do. It's most indicative here when the chirrup of small, echoed percussion on Phon.o's "Intervall" peppers the muffled sadness of Burial and Four Tet's "Moth", enhancing an already smoldering track. And the way Apparat mixes his exclusive DJ-Kicks track, the operatic techno of "Sayulita", is similarly representative of this skill. Arriving just after the dryly funky dubstep of Joy Orbison's "The Shrew Would Have Cushioned the Blow" and a couple tracks before the expansive ambience of the closing track, Tim Hecker's "Borderlands", Apparat demonstrates how his exacting attention to detail unites him with artists from all over electronic music's terrain.
