Various
Dekmantel 10 Years 01
Dekmantel/NL/12
It’s been ten years since Dekmantel, the Amsterdam-based, festival promotion team and label, threw their first party in the Dutch capital. To celebrate coming this far and staying the course the label started putting out special, anniversary, monthly releases in March of this year. There will be ten in all and four have dropped already.

Dekmantel 10 Years 01 contains tracks by Italian, ambient legend Gigi Masin, highly prolific, Ukrainian producer and DJ, Vakula and German stalwart Roman Flügel. Masin opens proceedings with “Maja,” ten plus minutes of meditative spherical synths, skyward stretching strings, shuffling, brushed percussion and melancholy piano. It’s a beautiful piece and captivating from start to finish. Vakula is up next with “Robot Fuck The System” which, from its title, seems austere and cold but is actually a super fun, bouncy electro work out with the title being repeated through effects in an Eastern European accent. It’s funky, instantly danceable and very melodic.

Roman Flügel’s “Mice On Stick” is the last track on the EP. It’s a stark, stripped-down exercise in techno/house frugality composed of a resonant, thick, rolling bass line, sparse percussion and various synth textures that wheel around the mix and drift in and out of earshot. A great track to progress from techno to house and back again or as a transition from classic Murk or WARP tunes to newer material. It’s minimal but masterful in true Flügel style. Christopher Orr