fabric presents Palms Trax (2x12")

Description

An ambitious and thoughtfully curated contribution to one of electronic music’s best-respected series, fabric presents Palms Trax reflects the distinctive tastes of the UK-born, Berlin-based artist in fluid motion. Following more than a decade in control of the world’s best-respected clubs and festival stages, Jay Donaldson’s instincts and influence as both a DJ and producer coalesce seamlessly throughout an absorbing twenty-track mix. In accompaniment, a rewarding double-vinyl sampler collects new solo Palms Trax material, including collaborations with friends Mathew Jonson and Ogazón, alongside a number of prescient and personal selections, many reissued or available on vinyl for the first time. For dedicated followers of Palms Trax’s club-focused trips into the outer reaches of electronic music, fabric presents Palms Trax offers perhaps the most definitive recorded transmission from an individual suspicious of definitions full stop. Coaxing an undercurrent of emotion from his elemental sequencing, embracing a lifelong taste for “sentimental dance music”, the mix’s seamless flow nonetheless never sacrifices the dynamics of a heads-down dancefloor. Indeed, for all of Donaldson’s willingness to embrace form as much as function, a timeless 4/4 pulse was an essential guiding light in this process. Reengaging with the haze of house and techno that proved so intoxicating upon his haphazard arrival to Berlin in 2013, much of the inspiration for the mix arrived imported on CD and tape, physical artefacts that cultivated a more focused grasp of the sonic spells cast on Hiroshi Watanabe’s ‘Sounds Of Instruments_01’, or throughout ‘The Button Down Mind of Daniel Bell’. Minimal, yet rich and emotive in texture, these personal touchstones provided an inspiring template, as did much-celebrated fabric entries from Levon Vincent (fabric 63, 2012) and Mathew Jonson (fabric 84, 2015), each proving to be the catalyst for Donaldson to contribute a wealth of original material. Appropriately, Jonson himself became the project's first guest collaborator, co-helming its wide-eyed, escalating centrepiece, ‘Kaila’s Photos’, later joined by another fabric favourite, Ogazón. The result of a memorable B2B closing session at the club, in which Donaldson heard the Spanish-Luxembourgish producer “capture the sound of Room One in its very essence”, ‘Come Back Around’ delivers the mix’s penultimate high, a driving and spacious composition that reflects Donaldson’s guiding visual motif of “rising and falling light”. For those seeking the all-too-rare pleasures of solo Palms Trax outings, Donaldson’s induction into the fabric catalogue finally provides a bounty. Building on the luminescent grooves of previous fabric single ‘Soft Trance, Hard Gossip’, euphorically remixed here by Melatonin Man, ‘Microwerk’ unscrambles glitchy electro melodies to introduce irresistible pace, while ‘The Blue Highway’ furnishes a standout, wobbly-hearted finale; a frenetic yet graceful tete-a-tete of electronic and analogue arrangement, radiating catharsis for dancer and creator alike. Moving from studio to record library, the selections throughout fabric presents Palms Trax span eras and genres with ease. Exclusive, unreleased tracks from Dutch indie-dance polymath Meetsysteem as well as Sam Goku, Munich’s nu-school dub techno specialist, showcase the fertile creativity of the contemporary electronic underground, as do understated but charismatic cuts from Parris, Percunta and Dresvn. Following one of two vinyl discs largely dedicated to his own productions and collaborations, the second generously brings four devotional Palms Trax finds to wax. First heard in 2002, Mike v. d. Viven’s blissful deep house obscurity ‘The Excerpts’ blossoms with live horns and vocoded sensuality, complimented by Color Climax’s floating, feeling ‘Never Know’. Rediscovered via a rare Australian compilation CD circa 1995, and now deservedly pressed to vinyl for the first time, its Antipodean take on Francois K or Danny Tenaglia nonetheless feels achingly, beautifully familiar. On the flip, Germany’s much-respected Sebo K appears as Soopa-Fi, under which pseudonym his ‘Sunny Dayz’ basks appropriately, warm and truly old-school. Dating further back to 1999, The Y2Ks’ ‘Sydney Harbour Bridge’ completes the pressing, rediscovering a pre-millennial house love story, its minimal groove and open-hearted invitation somehow prophetic of the mix’s wistful vision. Embracing musical self-discovery, creative collaboration and the simple, regenerative pleasure of mixing great dance records, fabric presents Palms Trax finds a devoted DJ refining his sound in order to push further still.