EFDEMIN – CHICAGO (album info)
dialCDLP 021
Phillip Sollmann has never been to CHICAGO …
After the huge success of his selftitled debut in 2007 CHICAGO is the second
album of the Berlin-based Producer and DJ who releases his music under his
moniker EFDEMIN with DIAL Records. While setting up his new studio – autumn
turned into winter and berlin would soon be covered in snow. The outside world
faded away, noises were muffled and Sollmann felt more and more like being
in musical psychoanalysis with himself. A perfect starting point for the production
of a new album.
Revealing his wide range of expressions EFDEMIN starts with a kind of jazz
jam-session between himself and his studio environment. Playing the drummachines,
a farfisa organ and the drumkit makes “cowbell” an artificial weird
tune, yet it remains human. Following are the two deep dance tracks “shoeshine”
and “nightrain” which reflect his love for house and deeper techno. They aren’t
looking for cheap peaktimes or breakdowns but focus on subtle seduction
through sound. ”Oh my god” brings back the obscure jazz of “cowbell” with
a piano-loop in the main role, contrasting against noisy bubbles, vocal-flakes
and a melody you won’t forget.
EFDEMIN – CHICAGO
dialCDLP 021
release date: May 24
Next is the soulful “there will be singing” – a tune in the vein of detroit house
with a long introduction followed by an impressive groove with a dark bass-line.
“Le grand voyage” is a short but seductive study in dub-techno based on organchords
and bass. From now on the heart lies more in the sound than in the
melodies and the further the album develops, the more abstract and eccentric
it becomes. In “round here” sound totally takes over and the beat takes a back
seat. “Wonderland” is a long trip through sound and abstract layers of percussiongrooves
– a somewhat psychotic piece of music which goes way beyond being
music for clubs. CHICAGO comes to end with the reprise of the hearttouching
melodie of “oh my god”, this time without the beat.
CHICAGO, EFDEMIN’s second contribution to urban blues, contains ten tracks
as a result of Phillip Sollmann’s immersion into his own archives and experiences
– may it be as a singer in a band years ago, composing theatre-music or playing
as a DJ in clubs all over the globe. They deal with various influences, although
always expressing his unique sense for deepness and his love for dance music.
There is Jazz, there is house, there is techno and there are his instruments you
can hear: Cello, Zither, Drums, Percussion, Organ, Synths, Drummachines and
several small things like flutes and pipes appear here and there without ever
walking into the trap of virtuosity.
Besides Techno itself, there are many important influences in EFDEMIN’s music
from different sources and other times - a cosmos of music that has followed
him for a long time and influenced his drifting and melancholic approach to
producing electronic dance music. Be it the otherworldly music of chicago-based
Sun Ra, minimalistic jazz /world-music-studies of don cherry, the enterprising tape
music of basil kirchin or the microtonal instruments of Harry Partch to name a
few of the influences that layed the groundwork leading up to the production
of this album.
Is this a “chicago-house” record? No! But the windy city was the starting point
to blow the cosmos with such abstract lovely music developed in a thousand
directions. Arts, literature, architecture, jazz, american folkmusic, hip hop -
CHICAGO seems to be the source of reference for so many important movements
crossing EFDEMIN’s work. Finally CHICAGO is the title for an album rich in
flavors and full of directions into contemporary dance music and the end of the
world as we know it.
To quote his favourite pop-band Prefab Sprout:
“there is no chicago urban blues” (Cruel, Swoon, 1984)
deutsche version
