Music “with a certain mindset” was the brief that the Dutch-born, Berlin-based DJ and electronic musician known as Steffi gave to her friends when she solicited new material for Fabric 94, her first official mix CD since 2013’s Panorama Bar 05. Whatever further specifications she may have given them, that mindset rings out clear as a bell from virtually every bar of the 70-minute mix, which she composed entirely from the exclusives she sought out. It's remarkably cohesive both in mood and style: energetic but never wanton, bittersweet but never wallowing. Songs are steeped in the synthesizers and whip-cracking drum programming of 1990s electro and IDM, yet because it covers a set of stylistic cues that aren’t particularly in fashion right now, the set is also free of retro pretense. Most of these tunes could be mistaken for tracks put out by tiny Dutch or Detroit labels 20-odd years ago. To hear the style sounding so vital is a little bit like spotting a bird long thought to be extinct flourishing in the wild.
Many artists have utilized Fabric mixes as proving grounds for their own material: Ricardo Villalobos, Omar S, Shackleton, and Daphni have all delivered sets comprising only original productions and custom edits. Steffi’s decision to commission a set’s worth of exclusive material marks a new twist in that approach, one that goes to the heart of her interest in narrative—in the mix as a kind of essay, a thought experiment. “It’s very important to me to tell a story when I’m DJing,” she told RBMA in 2015. “The records that I choose have certain connections, in my head, with each other.”
The story she tells here has to do with sounds that tend to get left out of the standard, binary accounts of house and techno as dance music’s twin poles. Instead of steady, four-to-the-floor grooves, she opts for slippery syncopations and rhythms that lurch from side to side, reflecting on her earliest years as a DJ, when she cut her teeth playing electro, Miami bass, and laser-cut grooves from labels like Warp and Rephlex. Despite the jagged beats, Steffi’s smooth, linear style of mixing defines the shape of the set: Her blends are seamless yet dynamic, and tracks fit together like robotic hands in robotic gloves.
She begins with scene-setting shoegaze chords—perhaps the only element in the entire mix that isn’t descended from “Numbers” and Man Parrish—and a gravelly scrap of NASA control room chatter. It's a fitting way to set up Voiski’s “Sound of Distance”: Combining tension-building drums with unfurling synths, it serves as a launch pad for everything to come. The next few tracks build on that widescreen vibe, with gorgeous pads falling across bruising drums like sunbeams cutting through thick clouds. Echoes of mid-‘90s Autechre and Carl Craig are all over “No Life on the Surface,” by Doms & Deykers (Steffi and the Dutch producer Martyn), and Dexter’s “66” offers an even more thrilling take on classic IDM, with stuttering vocal loops reminiscent of Gescom or Phoenecia perforating a legato melody that’s pure Boards of Canada. Forceful and fluid all at once, it marks the set’s first major peak.
From there she steps back and concentrates on rebuilding energy with a series of dark, ominous cuts infused with electric jolts of bass. The sun pokes through the murk again in the middle of Duplex’s “Voidfiller,” as bright funk keys splash over rolling, mechanical grooves. Much iconic electro and techno was inspired by Detroit’s car culture, and Fabric 94 excels as an automotive soundtrack: It takes its inspirations from long, halogen-lit avenues and graceful cloverleaf sweeps. Heading into the final stretch, she tunnels into deep electro-funk with a driving, atmospheric cut from Late Night Approach, a Milan act with scant profile, and a kinetic, deeply hued tune—sounding like a Miami electro remix of Violator-era Depeche Mode—from Afik Naim, a new producer on Steffi’s Dolly label. All hell breaks loose for the finale. With Dexter & Virginia’s “Off the Beat,” the drop-top pops open to reveal the tremolo-soaked synth flourishes of electro at its funkiest—a pure party jam—while Privacy’s shimmering “Broke” takes us out with a melancholy Drexciya tribute. As with her Panorama Bar 05 mix, there’s no lengthy outro, just a gentle fade to black—a reminder that, as moody as it might get, Steffi’s favored mindset always puts rhythm first.
