Eine Kleine Nacht Musik: Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Wednesday, 09 Jul 2008 11:13
Eine Kleine Nacht Musik: Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Modular, out July 14th.
In a nutshell...
Laid back Kraftwerk-indebted electronica
What's it all about?
The mouthful that is Eine Kleine Nacht Music (literally meaning 'a little night music' and nabbed from that dance floor behemoth Mozart) is a tribute to the stylised synth-inflected grooves of krautrock.
Riton has name checked 1970s acts Kraftwerk, Neu and Can as influences for the nine-track instrumental record. All were mainstays of a mechanical musical movement that was responsible for the first blooming of dance music and whose influence over the genre is still present.
Who's it by
Henry Smithson has been a key player in the ever burgeoning electro scene in the UK. While his first long-player Beats du Jour drew on his love of broken beats and soul garnered from working behind the counter of legendary beat emporium Fat City, he's made his name as a producer of wonky digitalisms and an acidic electro-house dj par excellence.
The man's dance music pedigree is impeccable. While remixing the likes of New Young Pony Club and Hercules & Love Affair, he's a resident at We Love Space in Ibiza while finding time to produce with tunes with studio and djing partner, Ben Rymer, a burly Sheffielder who used to be a member of electroclashers, the Fat Truckers.
Most recently Riton featured as a DJ on electro-rockers Soulwax's Part of the Weekend Never Dies tour. He is rumoured to have formed a krautrock band with the Belgian dance fiends under the moniker of Die Verboten.
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
Strictly for dance music obsessives. Those who love the atmospherics and machine music of this period should be interested. Those who know Riton for his more dancfloor-friendly outings may want him to stick to the club-friendly sounds that he's turned out before.
So is it any good?
Paying tribute to Kraftwerk is a difficult and ambitious trick to pull off but one that Mr Smithson makes a decent fist of. Sitars, strings and synths rub up against a broken motorised funk that is reminiscent of Domino's Four Tet and the output of Mancunian label Twisted Nerve.
While true aficionados of the genre will questioning the point of making a record so totally in thrall to the past, the album does show another string to Riton's musical bow that marks him out from the flood of electro producers plying their wares.
It is not glowingly original but then again that isn't really the point...
7/10
Jim Ottewill
Agree with this review? Have a different opinion? Let us know your thoughts (without being too abusive to our poor reviewers please) and we'll post the best ones on the site.
Write your comments below: