- Kassem Mosse steps out from the shadows on his first solo release in six years with two discs of loopy and kaleidoscopic club music.
- Gunnar Wendel's 2014 album as Kassem Mosse, Workshop 19, was a masterpiece. Amidst the glut of fuzzy and wonky off-rhythms that defined the outsider house bubble, this was something else. Although Wendel laid a blueprint for so many YouTube-bating house producers of that period, his own productions offered a refined palette of strangeness, more deep than lo-fi. That album's intricate sound design underlined that dance floor weirdness was as much about vocational perfection as amateur experimentation.
Wendel's latest LP, Workshop 32, feels like a long-awaited, spiritual sequel to Workshop 19. In the almost decade that has passed, Wendel's path started to fork. His two real follow-up LPs, 2016's Disclosure and 2017's Chilazon Gaiden, held some great club cuts, but he was entering murky new depths. His once hectic release schedule also slowed. For the past six years, we've only heard collaborations trickling out. Don't get me wrong—some of his best tracks have come out during this period, but his releases also became uneven as he neared an aesthetic loose end. And fair enough. When you perfect music this singular and strange, where do you go next? Workshop 32 answers that question. Wendel hits a career high across two discs where rhythms and melodies shift into unexpected constellations of nocturnal beauty.
There are two noticeable changes in this record. First, these tracks are surprisingly delicate without losing their dance floor heft. The drums on the first disc are wafer-thin, meandering into different patterns and tempos. On album opener "A1," for example, he casually alternates between mechanical snares and hand drum fills, as if lost in contemplation. The "B2" is built around what sounds like a saw cutting wood, but he keeps the whole thing glued together by a kick drum that doesn't hit as much as it pirouettes across the low-end. Even working with a breakbeat on closer "Provide Those Ends," the drum programming is so gentle, it feels like it might disappear at any moment.
The other big shift on Workshop 32 is just how clear everything sounds. There's hardly any vinyl hiss or tape feedback anywhere. Take the liquidy "A3," where Wendel plays with his usual bag of tricks: slowing down a groovy house loop, running one of his synth lines backwards. It's like underwater deep house, but he's upgraded the foggy snorkel mask for full scuba gear as the xylophone melody bursts into view. This is even more pronounced on the second disc, which boasts some of Wendel's best club tracks ever. The "C2" alternates between soulful chord stabs and a rubbery bassline on the one hand, and a minor-key techno chill on the other. The "D2" is one of the best tracks he's ever written as he layers sighing chords and piano keys over staggered and stuttered drums, making it sound like a Disintegration Loops version of a Ron Trent record.
Keeping the record glued together are the voices that weave in and out. While it's tempting to try and find a narrative thread in just about any one of these samples, I keep coming back to "C1." "Are my eyes, like, dilated or whatever?" we hear someone ask. "Not really that dilated, but you look like you've taken something," another voice responds. It's hard to put your finger on, but there is something magical (and/or chemical) here, even if not all that much actually happens in the course of any one given track. Wendel has no problem writing proper songs, but on Workshop 32 he's more interested in the art of perfecting weird loops that could go on in perpetuity. It's an album singular and crystalline and I'd be happy with any one of the loops I could never get sick of hearing.
TracklistA1 A1
A2 A2
A3 A3
B1 B1
B2 B2
C1 C1
C2 C2
D1 D1
D2 D2
E1 Provide Those Ends