You’ve been there, on an endless death scroll through the bowels of Spotify, and this time you’ve done it. You’ve finally scrolled enough to hit upon the playlists you’re the last to know about and you haven’t any idea what the fuck is going on. Deep house was never supposed to be boring, techno was never supposed to be music you could hear in a mall over the muffled sound of foodcourts and strollers and people trying to sell you snapback caps and Cinnabons.
A few years ago we could blame this on British music critics and to be frank about it that pretentious muppet Paul Morley had it coming. But the homogenization has spread everywhere. All rooms in all houses on AirBNB look like all other rooms in all houses on AirBNB. Pizza is the same flatbread bullshit that tastes like ketchup on a Ritz cracker no matter where you live now. Big tech has single-handedly drained the funkiness out of life — the stink of it, the weirdness of it, a wall with a mural of Doc Ellis throwing a no-hitter while blazed out of his fucking mind on LSD replaced by a framed poster reminding you in a lively script that You Are, in fact, Beautiful.
You wouldn’t think this Global Blah would infect music so quickly but it did and it’s got a stranglehold over deep house and techno right now. At some point they steam-cleaned the funk out of everything and guys who look like unswervingly heterosexual Eagle Scouts began “banging” deep house and techno that most assuredly does not fucking bang. I’m always going to be on the side of records that move, records that are fun, records that are funky and make people claw the walls and claw themselves and claw at each other and I don’t really give a shit if you spent 16 years studying at the Berlin Verschlimmbesserung Institute of Sound Design learning how to do it. Sample some shit, make it jack or bang or whatever you want to say and I’m there for it.
Like that, I’m here for this one. I had no idea who Freudenthaler is, I’ve never heard of Brombért Records but they came together to make and share a fun, funky record that moves the needle and moves people and does all of it well. There are a bunch of little micro-genres over the years that the four tracks on Bar Rescue could have fit into — swing house, some of the jazzier i! Records releases and, with some added tropes (which Freudenthaler mercifully left out), even jackin’ house. It’s got some dope samples with some funky drums and a heavy latin jazz influence (or more accurately, it’s probably influenced by some records that were influenced by it). “The Swingers” shows just how effective this still is with a classy roll on the keys, some Max Roach style drumming breakdowns and the piped-in sounds of a speakeasy or jump house ready to blow.
Deeper than this is “Worthy,” which plunges into subterranean climes raised up by a bubbling piano sample that’s deliberately old timey in tone. The four track EP feels like Freudenthaler teasing the dancefloor — “Lingerie” almost fucks with your ears as it fucks with your body, starting and stopping and getting you ready for a payoff like a wind-up toy bobbing on the edge and about to fall off or fall over.
Records like Bar Rescue are the absolute core of our scene — DJs need them, they absolutely need them more than they know. Years ago I remember asking Chez Damier why he thought minimal took off. He told me: “What minimal was giving the people and what made it so prominent was the energy. When you look at it like that, rather than disparaging it, you suddenly understand why it was so prominent. And it makes people [read: DJs and producers] uncomfortable that this music was giving them something they were lacking.”
That’s what I’m trying to say here. There are, no doubt, many people who want deep house beats for their study sessions, and they have no problem finding it. But there are still people who are looking for joy, for ecstasy, for release. They want to scream and they’re looking for music that makes them scream, and they’ll keep looking until they find it. Hopefully they find something like this, if not this, that brings a little bit of oblivion into their lives.
Freudenthaler: Bar Rescue (Brombért Records / 12″ Vinyl & Digital)
A1 Freudenthaler – The Swingers (05:15)
A2 Freudenthaler – Worthy (05:12)
B1 Freudenthaler – Lingerie (06:17)
B2 Freudenthaler – Overseas Phonenumber (06:14)
⚪️ Disclosure Statement: This record was submitted as a promo.
