Artist: Various Artists
Album: Movement Torino 2011 Edition
Label: Movement
Release Date: 12/12/2011
Often compilations don't need critical analysis. We've heard the tunes and artists before, so if they appeal buy the release, if not step away from the counter or online shopping cart.
Not so for the Movement Torino 2011 Edition though. Admittedly, the tracklist doesn't introduce anyone new to those with an ounce of electronic music knowledge. But to write-off this double disc effort as an editorial waste of time is negligent, as we have a responsibility to the public, meaning it's our duty to highlight strong releases. Cutting to the chase then, this one is very, very strong indeed.
Considering the eponymous Italian festival is all about big guns on big stages, where better to start proving the album's worth than with a trans-continental A-list collaboration? Probably nowhere. So Henrik Schwarz, Ame, Dixon, and Derrick Carter's offering, Where We At (Version 2), is our first reason to buy.
Using their now well recognised, deeper remix of the Chicago pioneer's legendary cut as a starting point, the lyrics get lost while tracking percussion, and wide-load bass stabs are applied. Soon refrained synths begin to dominate, by which point it's quite likely you'll be visualising the kind of five-minute-build mayhem this would impact in a club.
But the highlights on this release are certainly not confined to these heavy, or at least brooding late night bombs. Ray Mang and Nathan D'troit's Off Side is perhaps the strangest curve-ball, proudly sticking to something of an e-funk framework with squelching low ends and fret guitars abound; fans of Chicken Lips take note.
And, similarly, Soulwax's Another Excuse (here given a DFA re-rub) joins in on this genre-straddling tip. Meanwhile, non-4AM fodder can be found in the uplifting steel drum filled Nova, a Kompakt pop-style Sunday morning in the sunshine courtesy of Federico Grazzini.
That said, the tougher, or more straight up sounds will no doubt define this release for many. Such dancefloor offerings appear throughout, but the second disc is probably the most stranded in peak time scenarios. And, thankfully, it's well up to the task of navigating. Springlove from Vath + Rother is as filthy, fresh, and baritone led as anyone needs for a sudden twilight re-awakening, and the solid tribal drums ensure it will always be a go to track for a change of tact within harder edged sets.
Further down the line Greg Gow's disco stabs and chugging, mainroom beats deliver even bigger moments, Robert Hood provides the fastest, and most stripped cut with And Then We Planned Our Escape, before the Montage Mix of Icon from Mayday leaves us on something of a nostalgic, ravey high, forgetting about kick drums and instead focusing on emotive acid house atmospherics. And all of this is really scraping the surface, so we shouldn't need to say any more.
