Derrick Carter was one of the earliest second-wave Chicago house artists to make it big in Europe. He's the type of name that can pack houses and play festivals overseas but can probably walk around his native Chicago without being noticed. Carter hails from a generation of electronic artists who have enjoyed this peculiar fame dichotomy, and like many of those producers, he has built his reputation on DJ sets and remixes more than his original productions. This makes him a natural choice for Fabric's bi-monthly mix series, a legacy artist who still has pull.
Carter absolutely deserves his reputation behind the decks; he favors aerobic, loud tracks that lean heavily on jackin' house (more specifically the type of fleshed-out, studio-produced house music that Chicago was churning out in the 1990s after the style gained its footing) but has also been willing to step outside that style to incorporate modern artists (e.g. Hercules and Love Affair) into his mixes. It's tough to say what went wrong on Fabric 56; Carter's first commercial mix since 2005 trades heavily in classic Chicago sounds, but it's devoid of the humor and pacing that have marked Carter's best work.
Carter has never been shy about leaning on tracks with major funk and disco influences, and Fabric 56 sounds particularly indebted to funk and R&B from the 1970s. Tracks like Roger Sanchez's "My Organ" contribute to a steady, dense mix that sometimes feels like the classic rock version of house music: age-old rhythms punctuated by horns, hammond organs, and a noticeable sense of The Way Music Should Be. These moments are charmless at best and more often suffocating; this mix replaces house's self-referential up-with-people/up-with-dancing ethos with a self-congratulating largesse. If you like your dance music funny, dubby, or sexually suggestive (instead of aggressive), look elsewhere.
That Fabric 56 doesn't represent my personal house music utopia is hardly Carter's fault; that the mix barrels along without thought given to the dynamics of volume and tempo certainly is. Carter's choices undoubtedly play better in large rooms on world-class soundsystems, but the constant, hard-charging attitude makes Fabric 56 a poor choice for home listening. Loathe to disrupt his selections, Carter lets the tracks here play for five and six minutes at a time, but they lack a narrative, sonic or otherwise. Carter is normally known for the rampant sexual energy of his sets, but Fabric 56 isn't particularly erotic or sultry. The mix actually closes with a spiraling, up-tempo jazz freakout; this is Carter's idea of a comedown.
Carter has never been house music's most subtle DJ, but his aggressive tone and execution backfire here. Though his legacy is already secure, Fabric 56 was an opportunity to document Carter's style for a new audience; his history-indebted tracklist suggests this might have even been his intent. Carter told the Chicago Reader that DJing is "work" for him at this point; let's consider Fabric 56 just a bad day at the office.
