Lowtec - Workshop 20 EP on Workshop

Track titles mean little in Lowtec’s world, where Jen Kuhn works with the fundamental elements of house and puts them through his condenser through which an agreeable distillation is reached. Workshop, the label he began in 2006 has hardly been prolific these past eight years, but that’s an obvious testament to Kuhn’s methodology and philosophy. Less is always more, his last EP for his own label having come in 2008 underlining this.

And in this way these pieces don’t surprise, but they still have the capacity to innovate and put much other similar output to shame. ‘A1’ is twice as long as the other two tracks here and also feels like a musical diptych, the first half relying on a simple kick, the muffled vocal incantation “want it... need it” and a spacey synth, a hammer hitting metal and an intermittently propulsive, choppy bass. This gives way to an almost beatless ambience throughout which a vaguer vocal snippet dominates.

‘B1’ feels like it was conceived in anti-gravity, its opulent synth line and undulating beat going through a sonic metamorphosis and peaking before returning from whence it came. ‘Compared to this ‘B2’ sounds intentionally primitive and laborious, like a glockenspiel being played underwater, but with great deliberation and care. It may not be as immediately attractive as ‘A1’ and ‘B1’, but it doesn’t lack substance.

Kuhn probably isn’t going to change his approach that much in the future, nor should he. The sounds within the grooves of this release may be too leftfield for most, but they encapsulate the essence of house and techno and offer a glimpse into a world of myriad possibilities.

Lowtec - Workshop 20 EP on Workshop

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Our rating: 8/10