Mike Parker – The Devil's Curators Vol. 1

  • Half-time mind-melters on Neel and Donato Dozzy's label.
  • Share
  • At some point in the past few years, Donato Dozzy decided to try something new behind the decks. He wanted to explore different genres and tempos in his sets, which meant finding music to bridge the gaps. He hit up Mike Parker, who loved the idea and fed him several tracks over the course of a couple years. Some of these are now coming out on Spazio Disponibile, the deep techno label run by Dozzy and Neel. The Devil's Curators Vol. 1, the 20th release on the label, is the first in a three-part series. Its best tracks are intensely hypnotic jams with a half-time pulse—the kind, you imagine, Dozzy relished mixing into jungle or drum & bass. (Of course, the Italian also has his own version.) The opener, "Chronogram," is a maelstrom of sunless synths and metronomic pulses, the musical equivalent of staring at one of those black-and-white-spiral GIFs. "The Demon's Platform" and "The Melting Mask" are more, for want of a better word, groovy, with bleepy flickers and warped tones forming dank, lurching rhythms that trap you like a spiderweb. Turned up loud, their effect is transcendental. The remaining two tracks are straighter, albeit hovering around 110 BPM. The better one, "Living Colossus," plods along just below, all ghostly grunting and chirpy ripples. The bass hangs thick. Very little happens—some fresh snares, the odd pause—but it sucks you in. "Grey Morph" is a tad faster and more direct, the only thing on here resembling a banger, which smudges its appeal. Still, it's extremely compelling techno. No wonder Dozzy was so keen.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Chronogram A2 The Demon's Platform A3 The Melting Mask B1 Living Colossus B2 Grey Morph
RA