Much of Song for Alpha is surprisingly understated, at least compared to Drone Logic. Only “Diminuendo” delivers similarly druggy, hard-tumbling techno, albeit with an added sense of tension and release that serves the banger well. These new approaches are present across the tracklist, and yet a clear musical direction fails to emerge.īoth “Sensation” and “Clear,” two early singles from 2015, are featured in the album’s first half, and they’re the least interesting wrinkles in the producer’s habitual approach. Somewhere along the line, perhaps during his extended stay on the touring circuit, Avery’s music began changing.įive years after Drone Logic, Song for Alpha, Avery’s second album, is mostly an inversion of the music he became known for its swaggering electro beats smoothed into unchallenging techno precision, its chunky 303 sequences muted and slowed down, and its trampled pads brought into the foreground and given a thick wash of reverb. There was an ambient collaboration with synth artist and sometime Nine Inch Nails member Alessandro Cortini a duo with the London producer Volte-Face, called Rote, offered dyed-in-the-wool European techno. “I like weirdness and oddness,” Avery said in a 2012 interview, with one caveat: “I still want to be able to dance to what I make.” Drone Logic for the most part struck that balance eloquently, and the following years found Avery experimenting. It presented a powerful yet idiosyncratic amalgam of acid house, techno, and electro, a style Andrew Weatherall once described as “gimmick-free machine-funk of the highest order.” On the back of those two releases, Avery was soon appearing on stages around the world. In 2013, Avery’s debut album, Drone Logic, doubled down on that approach.
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Featuring crowdpleasers like Miss Kittin and Simian Mobile Disco along with underground stalwarts Kassem Mosse and Call Super (under his given name, JR Seaton), the mix reveled in Avery’s taste for big-room energy accentuated by more outré sounds. Fabriclive 66 struck a chord in the dance-music community with its omnivorous, no-nonsense selections.
A lot has changed for Daniel Avery since 2012, when his mix album for Fabric pushed him beyond his residency at the London club.