- The Detroit DJ's T4T LUV NRG mixtape is a devotional hymn to the salvational powers of house.
- Describing house music as a religion is as old as house music itself. Using ecclesiastical metaphors borders on the cliché, so the name of Detroit DJ Beige's new mixtape, AMEN! Vol. 1, made me a tad skeptical. According to the release notes, the mix is meant to evoke, "Genesis and Revelation, the Good News and the Flood, the dark night of the soul and the moment of salvation." But within the first few minutes of hitting play it's clear that Beige was not working with those same old, tired templates. Across the tape's two halves, AMEN! Vol. 1 is a bit more agnostic about the cosmic powers of house. Beige cleverly subverts and reworks these religious tropes into a 70-minute workout as spiritual as it is corporeal.
To get a sense of how Beige rethinks house's transcendence here, listen to the way they deploy Li'l Louis's classic "Blackout" across the tape. Beige starts off with the 1989 original, a picture of devotional house at its purest. After mixing out into two percussive workouts, Beige returns to the track via 2000's "4 Horsemen" refix, which is drawn out with more space and tension than the original. The feeling becomes trippier as the vocal intonations of salvation turn sinister, more pool shark than preacher, a mood compounded by the vocal version from the Hydrogen Rockers we hear later (that's an alias of the brothers behind Dirty Vegas of "Days Go By" fame). Beige starts off the mix's second half by coming to the track again with "Blackout Phase II," where the signature vocal and plucked chords stutter and wobble into place before reaching Floorplan heights thanks to DJ 3000's 2016 remix that fills the track out with pounding drums. The progression of "Blackout" here presents the hero's journey in miniature: from call to arms to venturing into the unknown, before ending in redemption.
These five different versions of "Blackout"—spanning nearly 30 years—underline how Beige can move fluidly across genres and eras. There's Euro, breakbeat, tech, progressive and garage house spanning from the '90s (1996 is a particularly favorite vintage) til now. What's surprising about the selection is how many cuts there are from the '00s. While we've been inundated with trance and tech house revivalism, Beige focuses on American house and electro from this era. We've got Julian Shamou working under his DJ Nasty alias on the driving and dubby "King of Kings," and two tracks from the criminally underrated Baltimore legend, DJ Spen. These selections hold their own against both the classics and modern weaponry, proof that there are plenty of overlooked gems from this underrated period of clubbing.
The 71-minute mix has so many peaks and valleys that just listening makes you feel like you've reached your daily step count goal. But it's the mixing and pacing that steals the show. AMEN! Vol. 1 starts in medias res, absolutely hammering it out with ferocious kick drums. Beige also knows when to slow things down. My favorite moment is around 25 minutes in, when Tony G's "Pianoman"—a track as subtle as the guy who double-dropped and is gurning beside the subwoofer—drops out entirely as the claustrophobic techno and gospel vocals of DJ Omega's "My Name Is The Lord" fades in. It marks a major vibe shift, moving from deliverance to something a bit more vengeful. Rather than keep us in purgatory, Beige gives us an ethereal finish on the A-side with a dollar-bin East Side Wind track filled with Spanish guitar and a "set you free" vocal.
The flipside is even more complex, zeroing on the subtle and crafty possibilities of the CDJ. There's a dexterity to how Beige breaks down tracks into their component parts to solder them into their larger narrative. I'm still scratching my head at how they figured out that the vocal and tech house wiggle of Meat Katie's "Next Life" (which they keep in the mix for all of 40 seconds) would set up the perfect contrast with the psalm recitations and stuttering amen break of Fanatix & Assurance. This nimble touch is how they move from vintage deep house into Dave Quam's footworky breakbeat, before the nearly hokey organ bounce of Byron Stingily hits, in just a matter of minutes.
AMEN! Vol. 1 is an old-school mixtape through-and-through. Beige grounds the mix with a few key tracks and keeps returning to a number of motifs and themes, whether it's the proto-trance arpeggio of Those Guys' classic "Love Love Love" or the constant spiritually-inflected vocal snippets. But the mix also sounds undeniably contemporary, a love letter to three decades of American dance music that cements Beige as a force of Detroit's new school.