Genres?
How do we choose what genre a piece of music falls into?
Is it Dubstep-Techno-Dub or maybe Dub-Techno-Dubstep?
Perhaps Post-Industrial-Grimestep? Or maybe Neurofunk-Solipsynthm?
"Stop" I hear you scream (but I have just taken your Stop and looped it with some classic ping-pong delay & dialled the feedback right up so infinity beckons in a speaker storming stampede of "Stop", oh the joy).
When the beats break and the bass swoops in from all directions around your head surely a genre is immaterial? What matters is the vibe and the feel of the music. When sonic sound waves creep into your aural receptors than all that matters is the emotion you feel. A genre is none of this, it is just a musical label. With this self-titled debut album TOT DOKKSTÄTTER you will feel vast emotions with genre bending tracks to satisfy, soothe, shock, stretch and stimulate your senses.
A collaboration of 2 major exponents in the Independent European Experimental Dub field. ALIEN LEVI (Levi Lee), UNCLE FESTER ON ACID (Pats Dokter). Hailing from Germany and Holland this duo are indomitable inventors and epic explorers of musical dimensions that many mere mortals fear to venture into. They lead the way for others to feel the courage to go forth and try to follow similar paths and tributaries and then branch off on their own to discover new musical highways and byways. A triumvirate of brave and hardy souls who meld together music that works on every level. They pull off the impossible in aural adventures and then weave it carefully into crafted passages of rare beauty, great skill and majestic music. They spin bass, drums, percussion, keyboards, samples et al into an alloy of thoughtfully blended strength yet subtleness. Then mix and produce a final product that bears all the hallmarks of a truly classic album.
Each track can be taken as a standalone, from the opening subtle springiness of "Weeed" to the closing bars of the powerfully ambiguous ambience of "I Want U [Remix]" each track is an individual slice of dubalicious deliciousness. However you can indeed have your cake and eat it with this album for if you put all the slices together it makes a whole confectionary of consciousness raising delight. The album works just as well in its entirety as it does with each single track. A mean feat indeed. An album that you can enjoy as a whole on a journey, some quiet you time (although the sheer power of this album will make it not so quiet you time ha ha) or with friends or you can pluck individual tracks and enjoy them one at a time just as much in their singularity away from the others.
Take the wonderful wobble bass & percs opening of the 2nd track "Unsettled", the bass then shifts and powers out of the speakers at you, almost knocking you flat, while the synths & percs float around your personal space demanding attention, bliss. "The Cure" & "Neil A." move along freeways of experimentalism with a verve and confidence that astounds & reassures at the same time. With "My Fathers Grave" you almost feel that you have fallen into a classic Reggae track only to be shaken and unsettled by the clever & imaginative use of vocal samples that seem somehow chillingly calming. "Colony" is exactly what its title says it is. A colony of sublime musical textures that live in harmony with each other to produce utopian tones that promise tranquil dwelling in the otherworldly spaces of mystifying & mellifluous municipalities. And so onto "Chi" and 22 becoming the new 42 and the meaning of life, the universe & everything, nice. "Breathe" is disquietly like being in an iron lung that will percussively breathe for you at a strangely just out of time rhythm that you can follow yet not quite capture, a beat/breath missed then doubled or tripled in another instance, then missed again, and again, then not, a fantastic arrangement of baffling and bewildering beatism. The track "Growing Up" shows just how far the both artists have grown up in their musical development and skills and stands testament to a collaboration that not only works but excels in aural delight.
If you are reading this then you have welcomed this album into your collection. Enjoy it. Then enjoy it again and again. It will delight you every time you listen to it. Listen to it in different places and ways. Enjoy it in your home, in a city center, in the quiet countryside. Listen through perfectly measured stereo environments, through multi-speaker sound-systems, through headphones. The musical virtuousness and quality production techniques mean you have an album for the ages. Influenced by the past, inspired by the future and made in the now, this album is a classic that you will be proud to own and to share with friends and family and, quite possibly if you are a gregarious type of person, with total strangers and will become the soundtrack to many moments in your life.
Peace, Love, Justice & Respect.
VisionarySoundSystem.
January 2020.