Berlin-based electronic producer Dave DK (real name David Krasemann has a long heritage amongst that city’s techno and house scenes, having held down a DJ residency at the legendary (and now defunct) Tresor / Globus club at the tail end of the nineties. Over the last ten or so years he’s also been responsible for a steady flow of his own 12” productions on labels including Moodmusic and Playhouse. While he’s been prolific on the 12” front though, Kraseman’s albums have been beasts of a considerably longer gestation period. Indeed, this third album on Kompakt ‘Val Maira’ arrives eight years after its predecessor, 2007’s ‘Lights And Colours’. Whatever the case it’s certainly been worth the wait, with the link-up between Krasemann and Kompakt proving to be a perfect match. Indeed, this 65 minute long collection offers up one of the most potent takes on that label’s ‘pop ambient’ tag that I’ve heard in a long time, deftly fusing a overriding sense of delicate yet epic melancholy with a more visceral tech-house pulse.
Perhaps Krasemann’s own description “tragic melodies with kicking grooves” best sums up what’s going on here. The aptly titled ‘Fade In’ opens proceedings with a delicate glide through hazy melodic trails, subtle glitchy crackles and muted rolling rhythms that calls to mind a ‘fuller’ take on Pantha Du Prince’s glacial elegance perhaps more than anything else as sampled chimes flutter at the very edges of the mix. ‘Halma’ meanwhile sees the muscular rolling techno rhythms shifting to the forefront as ringing percussion locks in against the kickdrums and shuffling hi-hats against a woozily hypnotic backdrop of pitch-shifting synth drones and rattly DSP effects, while elsewhere ‘Smukke Lydde’ ushers in a gloriously epic tech-house wander through faded-out synth arpeggios, breathy vocal textures and jacking snare rolls that feels like the spectral afterlife of some ‘hands in the air’-style rave event of years past, now reduced to a warm nostalgic echo. As a gorgeously sculpted pop-ambient collection that lends itself equally to late night headphone listening and the dancefloor, ‘Val Maira’ is hard to beat.
