Sydney-based electronic producer Peret Mako (real name Peret von Sturmer) has maintained a significant presence amongst that city’ deep house and techno scenes over the last few years, having supported the likes of Charles Webster, Chris “Swag’ Duckenfield and Theo Parrish on their recent Australian tours, as well as playing saxophone for Jamie Lidell’ Sydney live date. With von Sturmer’ productions receiving praise from some of the world’ most respected deep house producers, this debut album on Future Classic “The Devil’s In The Detail’ arrives amidst considerable anticipation, but curiously enough it’s by no means a purely dancefloor-based affair, instead preferring to showcase the many disparate sides of von Sturmer’ musical personality. Opening track “The Plot Thickens’ is certainly indicative of this aesthetic approach, slowly unfurling from slow, sparse IDM-electro rhythms and glacial melodic synth tones into a warm, lush slice of downbeat electronics that sits somewhere between Plaid’ understated minimalism and one of Luke Vibert’s more lounge/soul-centred explorations.
From there, “Air A Dime’ sees von Sturmer making a return to the sorts of minimal tech-house atmospheres he’ built his live reputation on, with pin-prick snares and whirring electronics providing a spectral backdrop for jaunty, jazz-inflected melodic tones and warm-sounding bass pads, shortly before the downbeat “Export’s takes the tempo down a few notches, sending sparse, clicking hiphop rhythms gliding out beneath Tania Bowra’ lush, soul-drenched vocals and the distant trail of treated vocal samples. “Sandshoe’ meanwhile shifts gears down into streamlined electro-soul with a snapping IDM/hiphop edge that calls to mind Jamie Lidell’ blue-eyed soul given a Prince meets Funkstorung twist, a trajectory that’s nicely followed up by “Lost In This’ side-trip into stuttery, DSP-heavy liquid RNB/soul stylings. It’s the 13 and a half minute long “Scenic Route’, respectively divided into three sections titled “People, Places & Things That Will Not Appear In My Next Novel’, “Well Rolled, Well Bowled’, and “Downloads’ that forms the real centrepiece of this collection however, smoothly shifting from tentative, jazzy melodic keys into a gliding deep, minimal tech-house journey that nimbly traverses both floaty, Herbie Hancock-esque keys and eerie, theremin-like off-key electronics, resulting in what’s easily one of the most “haunted’ house listens I’ve enjoyed in recent times. An eclectic and impressive debut album from von Sturmer under his Peret Mako guise that’s well worth picking up.
