Âme's career has been a long voyage into sternness-- from 2005's eerie classic "Rej" onwards, the German duo have progressively shed the playfulness and levity of their prior lush disco-house blueprint. In most cases they've gained more than they lost: From the shamanic trance of 2006's "Where We At" (in collaboration with Henrik Scwharz and Dixon) to the dynamic surge of 2007's "Balandine" and "Enoi", the increasing seriousness of Âme's aesthetic is never in vain. In fact the portentousness of their sound is of the best sort, not so much awesome as itself awed and alienated by some apocalyptic vision somewhere off-screen.
But in taking this route, Âme are swimming against the tide, discovering the strange joy of masochistic submission at the same time as their peers retreat further into the safe harbor of deep house re-re-revivalism. So while 2007's Coast 2 Coast mix was a near-perfect document of the latter impulse (reveling in the soft warmth of deep house old and new), they spend much of Fabric 42 carefully retracing the steps of a scene that is abandoning them, offering up a combination of viscous minimal techno and rigorous tech-house; the vibe starts off anxious, ends up muscular, and on the way somehow bypasses "sexy" and "soulful" altogether. Fabric 42 certainly shares Coast to Coast's lack of pretension, more interested in constructing a cruisy, enveloping feel than making any kind of statement or wowing with its diversity; but whereas the easy gentility of Coast to Coast's deep house sound made it a charming home listening or dinner party staple, Fabric 42 is just hard-edged enough to seem slightly ill-suited to any context other than the dancefloor itself.
All of which serves to make Fabric 42 appear rather inessential, and I must confess that I found it hard to pay adequate attention at first. It doesn't help that Âme have deliberately avoided including any established or even potential bangers, with the exceptions of their own churning epic "D.P.O.M.B." (a homage to DJ Pierre's "Wild Pitch" early-1990s house sound, again composed in collaboration with Schwarz and Dixon) and the riveting old school techno classic "Loop" by LFO vs Fuse-- included at the end of this mix like a victory lap, the hour-long grimace of concentration relaxing into a broad, triumphant grin. Earlier, things can get a bit grim at times, although not always for the worse: The ungainly groove of Jens Zimmerman's "Modmod Blubbblub" is not at all helped by the pseudo-existential wordplay of its detached narrator vocal, but the far superior "Raw Structure" by Edward (seething old school house propping up an excoriating slam poetry vocal) shares the explosive furrow-browed intensity of its blueprint, Green Velvet's "Preacher Man".
It's a grimness that has to sneak up on you to work. When I actively concentrate on the music, I want a lascivious diva vocal, an impudent piano riff, or a camp string arrangement to appear somewhere, anywhere; switch my concentration to something else, though, and the music's inexhaustible physicality takes on a compulsive power, locking in to the "jack" component of house with a fierceness you'd think would be beyond two effete German boys. And, as usual, Âme distinguish themselves with some inspired (if unflashy) transitions: the arrival of the skanking waterlogged drums of STL's "Something Is Raw" over the top of the fading acid bleeps of Armando's "Don't Take It" sounds so perfect, so exact in its unlikely mix'n'match, that the eventual emergence of the dominant organ riff on STL's track seems vaguely disappointing.
The duo spend much of the second half of the mix alluding to their taste for all things "Wild Pitch"-- a weakness they share with Tiefscwharz, who have plotted a similar stylistic trajectory from lush prettiness to riotous intensity. What's at stake here is nothing less than the function of dance music itself: unlike other current revivalist trends, Wild Pitch revivalism maintains a vision of house music as rave-flavoured and populist rather than soulful and specialist. This secret compact with hectic populism survives as a ghostly undercurrent even when Fabric 42 threatens to get a bit dour and greyscale, and it's that undercurrent that makes those moments worth sitting (or, better, scrubbing) through.
