Tijuana, Mexico-based producer Pepe Mogt is easily one of the most influential and prolific figures currently operating amongst that city’s electronic music scene, having had a pivotal involvement since the late eighties that’s seen him act as a founding member of both Nortec Collective and Fussible. Four years on from the release of Mogt’s debut album as Latinsizer on MIL Records ‘Ritmo55’ and in the wake of Mogt’s recent involvement alongside local boys The Presets on Absolut Vodka’s ‘Absolut Kravitz’ Lenny Kravitz remix tie-in (don’t ask), this second album on Static Discos ‘110’ (named in homage to the Boss DR110 drum machine, which features generously amongst these 11 tracks) sees his obsessive love for vintage electronic gear firmly intact. Indeed, the accompanying sleeve notes go to considerable lengths to list all of the various articles of EMU, Oberheim, Linn and Roland gear pressed into service here, while Mogt’s shout-out to the likes Sparks, Gershon Kingley and Daft Punk clearly indicate where this album’s heart lies.
If the opening intro track suggests comparatively midtempo waters ahead with its lazy fusion of vaguely Kraftwerkian electro rhythms and blocky-sounding analogue synths, ‘The Servants’ could easily slot in amongst the tracklisting of Kitsune’s next label compilation, its propulsive Moroder-esque basslines, handclap programming and vocoded chorus placing it in close kinship with the trendy likes of Digitalism. That said however, tracks such as the elastic-sounding ‘Nodisco’ manage to carry a visceral sense of rhythmic funk that’s often missing from much of the current electro-house mafia’s day-glo fetishism, and by the time ‘Shermanology’s massed, delayed-out female psyche-disco vocal swoops kick in, as well as ‘Trisine’s descent into hammering tech-house rhythms and red-lining synth squeals, you’re unlikely to be picking faults. Invigorating stuff that’s well worth investigating.
