Motor City Drum Ensemble - Raw Cuts #2

A solo outing here from Stuttgart's Danilo Plessow of Inverse Cinematics fame who has produced an incredible record that is, as promised, raw as fuck and is guaranteed to take the roof off some of the more discerning dancefloors around the world.


As Inverse Cinematics, Danilo and partner Joachim Tobias were the more electronic end of the broken beat spectrum and had a lot more to do with the sound of record labels such as Soul City and Prescription than the West London flavas coming from labels such as Bitasweet and 2000 Black, and as a result their records have held up a lot more over time for me than anything Bugz-related. What I really like about Danilio's work is that he's always got that swing that is needed to get people bouncing around on the dancefloor. Check Detroit Jazzin', Slow Swing and Create My u-Inverse for more rolling cuts that will still work in clubs today. For a deeper more esoteric cut check the superb Shoot The Pianist, which you could easily file next to your Pepe Bradock records, it really is that good.


Under his Motor City Drum Ensemble guise, Danilo is giving respect to his influences such as KDJ, Mike Huckaby, Larry Heard and Chez Damier all while at the same time adding his own distinct style to the Mid-West house and techno blueprint set by those great producers. With EPs out on Compost Black Label and his own Four Roses imprint and with support from everyone from Gilles Peterson to Laurent Garnier it looks like we're going to be treated to a few years of deep electronic Detroit-inspired house music and I, for one, am not upset by that at all. Raw Cuts #2 is almost certainly going to be in my end of the chart and hopefully I won't have worn out the grooves by then, it's all about the progression through the groove with the keys and live bass adding to it and then some. I'm not sure what the sample source is but I'm almost certain I've got it in the collection somewhere - when I have a bit of a dig over the weekend and if I find it then I'll add it to the post.


Motor City Drum Ensemble - Raw Cuts #2