The first wave of DJs had to overcome an astounding number of barriers that were, in retrospect, both obvious and stupefying. The stumbling block that really sticks with me, however, was one of the first to arise: there was initially opposition-- certainly from musicians but also from patrons-- to recorded music being played in public places. The thought, presumably, was that if a crowd and venue were sufficient to support music, it should be live music. Matthew Herbert's One Club is composed from sounds recorded during one night at the Robert Johnson nightclub in Frankfurt; it is a self-professed attempt by Herbert to document the vibrancy and chaos of an ad-hoc community brought together by recorded sound. It is sort of a will-the-circle-be-unbroken?-artifact for DJ culture, if you enjoy thinking conceptually (Herbert does).
Nothing with Herbert is merely an artifact; everything is a statement. One Club aims to combat what Herbert sees as the growing corporatism in club culture. He will combat this corporatism with high art, natch, but One Club is actually one of Herbert's least overbearingly wacky ideas this decade. (It is also the second volume of this year's "One" trilogy. One Pig-- volume three, scheduled for later this year-- attempts to document the life cycle of a swine.)
Herbert functionally stopped making club music several years ago, so One Club represents something of a return to his roots, though it has little in common with the jazz-inflected microhouse he helped pioneer in the late 1990s. The points Herbert seems to be making-- that clubs are foggy, wonderful, frightening social habitats-- are elementary enough, but the way he makes them is natural. There is chatter, haze, long stretches of aggressive percussion. More than once a crowd starts chanting. I think of my bleeding-together club experiences: DJ call and response sessions ("Marcus Bujak"), bathroom breaks ("Alex Duwe"), stumbles to the bar ("Jalal Malekidoost"), and unmalicious elbows in my side while dancing ("Oliver Bauer"). In what is either a move of astoundingly precise conceptual execution or, well, compositional failure, One Club also embodies the ills of clubgoing: It is loud and too long and leaves you fatigued.
Whereas 1998's Around the House (composed of recordings of household objects) always just sounded like techno, it's actually possible that listeners could suss out One Club's source material without prior knowledge. "Loud, emotionally conflicted public event" really shines through; "football game" (the sponsorship and corporatism of which would likely cause Herbert's head to burst) wouldn't be a bad guess. One Club ran a risk of its source material and subject matter ending up in a weird feedback loop. But the best part about it is that it evokes a club experience without actually sounding like club music. Herbert's re-imagined club is capable of leaving you groggy and sore as well as excited and nostalgic, though that's probably exactly his point.
