- Motorcitysoul, the German duo of Matthias Vogt and C-Rock, face a fairly demanding challenge on Technique: How do you maintain quality control after a superlative single? Like the best of Motorcitysoul's productions, "Change You," which was released in September, is consummate—everything locks precisely into place, but not at the expense of the song's emotional contours. It does everything right, which is great over a ten-minute stretch, but hard to pull off over the course of an album. And, besides, too much rightness isn't necessarily a good thing anyway.
Technique's the right title for this album, though—Motorcitysoul excel at this kind of expertly paced deep house, where everything sits "just so" in the mix, the vocalists' delivery expressive without being excessive. But there's always a risk that this poise can descend into politeness, or platitude. Motorcitysoul come close twice here: "Solar" and "Hermelin" are pleasant enough, but lightweight. Tellingly, they're the two tracks that lose both the voices and the beats, which suggests Vogt and C-Rock need the pulse of four-to-the-floor and/or the character of the vocalist to gather their thoughts around. Decent but ineffectual, "Solar" and "Hermelin" at times float close to inconsequential, and it's only Motorcitysoul's deftness with texture and their natural reserve that keeps everything from sounding, well, wet.
That's about my only complaint, though: the rest of Technique is about the glide and strut of deep house, and the results are near-flawless. "Hatoay"'s rhythms are watertight, and there's some great attention to percussive tics—the love lavished on the entire "kit" results in a track that moves with kinetic logic. "Deliver Me" is yet another effortlessly designed track, where arpeggios pop out from in between the beats, and Vogt and C-Rock turn the vocalist, Ernesto, into an apparition, shrouding his harmonies in reverb just after the five-minute mark, then slowly bringing him back into focus. And "Change You" sits there in the middle, the nexus of the record, as brooding and flawless as the first time you experienced it.
Technique's restraint can sometimes have it sounding a bit nice—it's probably a good record to eat to, you know what I mean? But one of deep house's great victories is its balance of emotional intensity and outright loveliness—it's music that caresses the ear in private, even as its physical impact registers heavy in public, the vice-like grip of the four-to-the-floor clasping you around the waist. Motorcitysoul have done it better here than just about anyone else: You'll probably not hear a better deep house album this year.
Tracklist 01. The Start feat. Ernesto
02. Deliver Me feat. Ernesto
03. Space Katzle
04. Solar (Album Version)
05. Change You feat. Ovasoul 7
06. Kazan (707 Edit)
07. The City
08. Hermelin
09. Hatohay
10. Movement & Motion feat. Marlene Johnson
11. XYZ