After a first succesful venture last year with a stage on Dimensions Festival featuring top-shelf acts such as Underground Resistance live, Paranoid London and Surgeon, we’re back to present you an official Dimensions Festival Preparty with none other than Marcel Dettmann, Gene Hunt and Dimensions Soundsystem. This is also Ampere’s summer closing, the last night before we go open air and return in September.
MARCEL DETTMANN (MDR, Ostgut Ton), DE
DJ and producer Marcel Dettmann is recognised as one of the most influential proponents of contemporary techno.
Widely associated with iconic trademarks including Berlin, Berghain, Ostgut Ton and Hard Wax, Dettmann stays true to his roots by consistently innovating his interpretation of electronic music, integrating art with the scene.
Ruff, rugged and raw. Mentioning Marcel Dettmann as well as his feeling for and vision of electronic music, his way of dealing with it, is impossible without these attributes. Whether you take his DJ sets (Marcel has been made a resident DJ at the old Ostgut and also at Berghain from the very start), Dettmann’s productions for the self-conducted MDR label, his remixes for the likes of Fever Ray, Junior Boys, Modeselektor as well as Scuba, or if nothing else his debut long player for Ostgut Ton into account, all the various contrasts and distinctions that come with it are manifested in these qualities.
Techno as Marcel Dettmann defines it, is neither a movement without history nor wistful nostalgia. In the hands of the Berliner, the well-known game of hi-hats, bass lines and kick drums draws its tension and mo- mentum from a historically grown tradition and the conscious decision to break the rules.
Reformation and solid construction outplays the use of any gimmicks. Dettmann pours Detroit’s oil into European engines, puts British bass music under the control of Chicago’s very own Jack, cuts classics with abstract nuances and connects yesterday with tomorrow and today. In the unrelenting manner of a great DJ, he generates moods and connections that are age- and classless, but never irrelevant or tasteless. Marcel Dettmann links up the art of improvisation with careful preparation and finally gives techno some of its often painfully missed serious physical constitution back.
GENE HUNT (Trax Records, Rush Hour) US
On any given night in Chicago, it’s more likely than not that Gene Hunt is somewhere, crouched over the decks and working his magic. One of the true representatives of Chicago House Music, Gene is one of the top artists to emerge from the city, with a career spanning back to the initial wave in the early 1980s. As a teenager, he played at many of the key touchstones of the first generation of House Music spots, including the Warehouse, The Playground and The Music Box; he’s been best known in the last few years for a series of tracks made then with the legendary Ron Hardy.
As a producer, Gene Hunt’s first EP was Living in a Land, released on Chicago’s Trax Records and co-produced and shepherded by Armando Gallop. From an early age, Gene imprinted his stamp on his musical style with an alteration between soulful, vocal recordings and harder, rough tech-y tracks. (And sometimes both in the same release – see, for instance, “Twilight People” featuring Robert Owens on vocals). By 1999 he had more than enough releases on his belt for a “Greatest Hits” double LP (Gene Hunt Classics, Dust Traxx).
In the years following, Gene Hunt released some of his best records on labels including Dope Wax, Track Mode, Got Soul and Unified, and delivered a tour de force in 2011 when noted Dutch label Rush Hour released Gene Hunt Presents Chicago Dance Tracks, a collection of some sixteen unreleased records from the likes of Larry Heard & Marshall Jefferson, Steve “Silk” Hurley, Farley Jackmaster Funk, Lil Louis and Ron Hardy. As a follow up, in early 2012 Gene released an original two track EP, May The Funk Be With You, also on Rush Hour, with a remix from Theo Parrish. (written by Terry Matthew)
DIMENSIONS SOUNDSYSTEM (Dimensions Festival) UK
Offering continuity and a true understanding of what the festival is all about, the Dimensions Soundsystem is a quartet of DJs who are intrinsically linked to its very foundations. David Martin, Andy Lemay, Noah Ball and Simon Scott span a vibrant soundscape of underground beats from the past 4 decades. This ranges from deep disco and house through to funk, soul, techno and soaking in the flavours of Chicago, Detroit and more exotic climates with a few curve balls in the mix too.