Matthew Dear has proven himself one of the more prolific new artists of the year. In 2003 alone, he's released a pair of EPs on Spectral Sound (the more house-oriented arm of Ann Arbor's Ghostly International label), recorded for Richie Hawtin's Plus 8 imprint (as False) and Markus Nikolai's Berlin-based Perlon label (as Jabberjaw), and now finally delivers his debut full-length, Leave Luck to Heaven. It's no wonder that Dear allows his work to be represented by a wide range of labels, from Ghostly's electro-pop, to Plus 8's minimal techno, to Perlon's tech-house-- his music blends elements of each of those genres.
So, yeah, more eclecticism, then? Not really, Leave Luck to Heaven is more like alchemy. Instead of genre-hopping from track to track-- substituting some sort of focused vision and sound for a lack of ideas dressed up as a surfeit of them-- Dear boils down his wide-ranging influences and combines elements of his own more catagorizable work. The result is his most satisfying release to date and (along with Ricardo Villalobos' Alcachofa) another techno-dub record that deftly straddles the line between home listening and the dancefloor.
Comparisons to Hawtin and Villalobos arguably flatter to deceive at this point in Dear's career, but they're far from unfounded. In a sense, Dear is creating sounds that blend the same elements that Hawtin used as building blocks on his Final Scratch-assisted mix CD Decks, EFX & 909. And, like the Chilean Villalobos, Dear takes cues from the Teutonic trends toward mixing the spatial qualities of dub with traditional house beats while retaining an outsider's ear.
As a result, Leave Luck to Heaven is an attractive listen for causal electronic listeners. Its ebb and flow of soothing melodies and lubbing beats-- and its blend of vocal and instrumental tracks-- keeps things lively and creates a sense of balance and dynamics. When the record peaks it's often when Dear stays closer to Detroit techno roots such as the invigorating stripped-and-clipped jaunt of "Just Us Now" or minimal second-wave melody of "The Crush". Elsewhere, gently snapping beats and gracious stabs and eerie washes of synths color Dear's deceptively complex rhythms, creating palpable sensations of tension and release on tracks such as "An Unending" and "You're Fucking Crazy", each of which twitch and hum with hollowed-out nervous energy.
The vocal tracks, sung in gentle falsetto, veer closest to machine-age electro and the deep, rolling basslines of Detroit's second-wave techno. They also provide the highlights of the record: "It's Over Now" and "Dog Days". The former brings life during wartime to the disco. It takes the infectious repetition and sense of communality of the dancefloor, and alternates between sarcastically joining calls to arms ("I don't want to feel left out") and hoping that that isn't the bomb that brings us together ("Why can't we work it out?"). "Dog Days" is better still, a flat-out infectious electro-pop gem, a rope-skipping sing-song of synthetic horns, Dear's cyclical vocals and a see-saw of pulsating tones and beats. "Tell another story," Dear repeats, enthusing the beat to go on and on-- which it does for six head-bobbing minutes. It could have gone on for another six. In a year in which Dear has written his share of stories, "Dog Days" is the standout chapter.
