So I've finally got hold of the vinyl edition of this, and it turns out that THIS is the track that's been, literally, haunting me ever since I heard Luciano spinning it on a sunlit Berlin dancefloor back in June. I swear that those horns, and the riff, have been in my head ever since. And now, re-listening, it turns out to be probably the best thing Villalobos has done, and quite probably the best release of the year.
What first grabbed me was, of course, those horns. Like nothing I've heard on a dance track before, and in the original context (a small but packed dancefloor lit with brilliant summer sunshine) it struck me that they are an utterly perverse, utterly original praise of the dawn, heralding, in their shakily pompous way, the dawn of a new day. On repeated (home) listenings, the textural detail and quality of production start to shine through. It's waaay more stripped down than, e.g. Achso, with just a handful of elements doing the work for the full forty-odd minutes. There's lots of classic RV downbeat trickery, and repetition of elements over a considerable time span (often more than 32 bars). This creates the effect Sherburne was talking about in his most recent Pitchfork column, the effect of completely transcending the individual elements, and in so doing hinting at the infinite. It's just that Fizheuer Zieheuer does it better than any one else I've heard. In fact, this release confirms for me the idea that RV, at his best, is operating in a different league to even the finest other minimal producers (Matt John, Pan-Pot, Matthew Dear, Buttrich etc).
So what do you all reckon?
What first grabbed me was, of course, those horns. Like nothing I've heard on a dance track before, and in the original context (a small but packed dancefloor lit with brilliant summer sunshine) it struck me that they are an utterly perverse, utterly original praise of the dawn, heralding, in their shakily pompous way, the dawn of a new day. On repeated (home) listenings, the textural detail and quality of production start to shine through. It's waaay more stripped down than, e.g. Achso, with just a handful of elements doing the work for the full forty-odd minutes. There's lots of classic RV downbeat trickery, and repetition of elements over a considerable time span (often more than 32 bars). This creates the effect Sherburne was talking about in his most recent Pitchfork column, the effect of completely transcending the individual elements, and in so doing hinting at the infinite. It's just that Fizheuer Zieheuer does it better than any one else I've heard. In fact, this release confirms for me the idea that RV, at his best, is operating in a different league to even the finest other minimal producers (Matt John, Pan-Pot, Matthew Dear, Buttrich etc).
So what do you all reckon?