The Road / Loose And Blowsy Plumage Betke

Philip Sherburne: “Berlin's Barbara Preisinger introduces her new, vinyl-only label with a familiar face: Stefan Betke, aka Pole, who puts the spatial qualities of his last album -- placing brittle drum patterns and sinewy melodic elements in a yawning vacuum -- in the service of a new groove. The skipping, bouncing pulse, particularly on "Loose and Blowsy Plumage", bears a surface resemblance to the broader deep house revival of the moment, but Betke's music benefits from an unusual sense of cohesion. Where many producers stuff their sound banks with divergent samples, Betke restricts himself to just a handful of sounds. No gratuitous congas here, just scratchy drum machines and understated keyboards, applied with just the right balance of friction and soft release. "Loose and Blowsy Plumage" makes good use of atonality, with dissonant squeals rubbing up against staccato Rhodes chords, and "The Road" invites you to pursue it at your leisure: while dusty chords go about their repetitions, silvery chirps and drones drift up and away, as though freed from the timekeeping. ”