In the last ten years and under the name of Strategy Paul Dickow has activated all genres of electronic music: The producer from Portland, Oregon, has tinkered with ambient, dub, house, krautrock, noise and basically any musical challenge. It’s because his affinity doesn’t focus on a certain style, but rather on the machines themselves. Hence, Strategy’s music never originates from a computer program, but instead comes into being when he is turning the buttons of his old synthesizers. He isn’t one to just buy a drum machine and then work with it; instead, he buys the equipment necessary, solders cables and thereby creates a sound that sounds like a drum machine. He’s more of an experimental artist – and for a musician of that squad, he’s surprisingly enthusiastic for groove. Therefore, it’s not that surprising that »Return From The Stars«, his single for the British label Idle Hands is basically a house-track. But it’s a house-track that sounds a bit behind the times, considering that it would fit perfectly into the early 1980s. Strategy’s house is charming as it is, but the longer it plays on, the more prefixes need to be added to the style: »balearic-«, »dub-« and »reggae-« would fit quite well, also found in combination with one another. Unfortunately, for me, two of those three terms evoke quite a strong indisposition. On the b-side, Peverelist tries to polish up the sound with a remix by turning it into dubstep. This version sounds out of time, too, but rather unintentionally – there, the charm is gone and instead brings us pretty blunt six and a half minutes.
Return From The Stars
