Hard and technically-driving dark room cuts feature heavily on this week’s new release “Fast Focus” from Kwartz who’s guesting on Setaoc Mass’ Sk_Eleven label’s X series. Turn the lights down; it’s gonna get wicked.
Spanish heavyweight Kwartz has always featured this low-driven sound, and “Fast Focus” is a perfect fit for the breed of Techno that SK_Eleven has been pushing for the last few years. Adding to it, the sound quality is just top-notch and has a classic Techno feel since it’s passed through the mastering desk of Simon at the exchange for that real deal, needle bumping around in the groove feel. Yet, if you want to listen to the bass-heavy cuts that the label’s known for, it’s always a slight tension of what can be physically laid down on wax versus the ever-present need for the label and its artists to push the dynamic and proverbial envelope on what’s possible on vinyl.
The release is straightforward, and if you’re just catching up with this label, you have a lot of digging to do, since every release is quite remarkable. “Fast Focus” is a solid bastion of deep, hard grooving cuts that will add the right amount of bottom end to any set. No different here is Kwartz providing the dark distorted and easy grooving cuts to put the bass face on any audience to stomp it out at the party. And that’s really the meat of the EP—4 solid weapons you can count on to make blends work in the best possible way to provide a strong, reliable mood that as a DJ, you’re just going to see this result time and again.
The most interesting and forward-thinking parts of the tracks are the top end where there are little FM synth bells to contrast the bass-heavy bottom groove. It’s just enough contrast to make the tracks push forward. The real standout on the release is “Haram”, where it’s the dissonant chords, droning chords, and filtered sample chops that set up a sinister groove, and the standard deep groove has just a little more bounce than the other 3 tracks on the EP.
The dissonance and the atmosphere on this track sets this song way ahead of most Techno and as a focus for the other tracks to lead up to, this track is killer and very memorable. One can imagine dropping the needle on the flip of this record on “Impulse” and then, after blending that with another record, plowing into “Haram” to mess with people’s minds a little bit. One could then blend that with another track before coming back to the solid slamming groove again on the A-side with “Climax”. Before you know it, you’ve gotten a tidy little set to make the dancefloor move.
SK_Eleven and Kwartz as a combination just make this “Fast Focus” EP a can’t-miss. If you’re into Techno at all, you’ve already bought it, and the record is coming in the mail off Bandcamp. If you’ve been sleeping under a rock or are just getting into Techno, and we mean the real deal Techno, then this is one of the finest benchmarks of the genre.
-Sean Ocean
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