- Mehdi Rouchiche's striking artwork for D'Marc Cantu's debut longplayer, Fallen, invites questions beloved by the sort of people who read too much into album covers. Ahem. Simple queries such as "Who's the corpse?" and "Why is he having chunks torn off him by Matthew Herbert in cosplay?" give way to more serious matters, like the possibility that said corpse might start walking the Earth and eat the cast and crew of a John Carpenter movie. On first listen, Fallen rather does give pause to the notion that the Ann Arbor native's collection of 707-assisted psychoactive dread inhabits another world (or, for the sake of context, dance floor) altogether: one where Chicago house is the soundtrack to Thriller extras gyrating until the break of dawn (after which they all melt and die).
Joshing aside, there's a good deal to admire about a record that sets about proving that a danceable groove and mild terror need not be mutually exclusive. Anyone with a passing familiarity with recent Pearson Sound releases will recognise the rolling rat-a-tat snares that perforate "Transmogrification" and "Fallen"—opening salvos that establish the album's agenda with impressive alacrity—but these percussive tropes are the least interesting aspect of a record foregrounded by inexhaustible, snarling synth workouts. "Stand Up," the most boisterous of these, is less like a house record than a Fat Joe crack rap anthem circa 2002 that happens to be at the right tempo.
Lest it be said that Fallen indulges in this trick once too often, "Oh My" marks the point at which the album splinters beyond being a straightforward, jacking house record. A violent spasm of gouged loops and grisled noise, "Oh My" is Fallen's thematic apotheosis: few house records twine viscera and 4-on-the-floor with such matter-of-fact efficiency. Fallen's other diversions are of a similar quality; "I Want to Ride" (and, to a lesser extent, album closer "Fractal") is an always-welcome nod to Drexciya at their most glacial.
If 2012 sees any sort of revival of Chicago house records, then Cantu has already anticipated the subsequent fallout: a dark, twisted 11 track monster that gorges on the body of Chicago house, transmogrifying it into something exquisite in the process.
トラックリスト A1 Transmogrification
A2 Fallen
A3 The Power
B1 Stand Up
B2 Oh My
C1 A New Night
C2 I Want to Ride
C3 Shoot the Fish
D1 Say It and It Is Time
D2 Evil Motion
D3 Fractal