- Spellbinding house, with a twist.
- Whodat and Viola Klein's "Funeral Song" is so simple, sunny and arresting that it might be one of the house tracks of the year. It also helps that it features a small but distinctive twist: every once in a while its tempo changes. The track's warm, four-on-the-floor chug drops into a broken beat that's roughly ten BPM slower. Not a significant switch, you might conclude, but it will be enough to create some fun and awkward dancing this summer. Whodat, AKA the Detroit artist Terri McQueen, and Viola Klein, a German artist who also works as a filmmaker and writer, have collaborated before, including a release on the impressive Belgian label Meakusma. But "Funeral Song" is the most club-focussed track they've made together.
"Reprise AoUFC," this record's B-side, is more typical of the terrain they have so far explored together. It's terrain that fans of Terre Thaemlitz and her many projects may identify with. The trio share a fondness for classic deep house tropes, repetition, gently subverted rhythms and social commentary that addresses gender, religion and oppressed peoples. (Klein is the namesake of an Austrian-born 20th century sociologist who advanced the theory that femininity was largely a cultural construct.)
"Reprise AoUFC" is powered by the kind of skewed-but-soulful beat that Theo Parrish does so well, and a spoken-word vocal that sounds like a recording of a sermon, something Klein actually did on one of her first records in 2014. "I don't have time to wait till we get to heaven for it to be alright," a woman insists, before making a plea for universal equality: "Everybody has a place in God's kingdom. In this kingdom everybody belongs." The voice of another African-American woman, quoting the Bible—"With loving kindness have I drawn thee"—is looped and layered. The weight of its message may be lost in many clubs, but when absorbed at home, it's this standout record's emotional counterpoint.
Lista de títulosA Funeral Song
B Reprise AoUFC