Album of the Week: Mark Broom, ‘Acid House’

Album of the Week: Mark Broom, ‘Acid House’

13 August, 2010 | 5.25AM

• Written by: Alex Hughes
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, mark broom, saved

Given Mark Broom‘s longevity, it’s hard to believe that ‘Acid House’, on Nic Fanciulli’s Saved Records label, is only his second proper album. (The first was 1996’s ‘Angie Is a Shoplifter’, on his late, great Pure Plastic label.)

Even ‘Acid House’ feels less like an album than a collection of tracks, but that’s no slight: at 15 tracks long (plus a continuous DJ mix of all of them), consider it a triple- or quadruple-pack EP, thick with A-sides. (For those who only want the mix, for whatever reason, it’s also available separately.)

I suspect that the record’s raw functionality may be part of the reason behind the (literally) generic title, which gestures towards a genre (without, I have to say, ever sounding much like actual acid house). It’s like a strategy for throwing you off guard, before knocking you off your feet with powerful, purposeful grooves. Just because this flies under the flag of an “artist album” doesn’t mean that Broom has gone all fluffy on us. True to his name, Broom has made ‘Acid House’ all about sweeping up the floor.

The most immediately striking thing about the record is how much it owes to disco: virtually every track is chock-a-block with looped pianos, guitars, percussions and voice, with Broom leaning hard on the EQ, sculpting his raw material into forceful configurations.

He gets plenty of mileage out of his techniques. Tracks like ‘Gap’, ‘Lemon’ and ‘Can’t Wait’ recall the glory days of ‘90s house, swollen with souful tone. ‘Jerk Out’ is more restrained, with a skip reminiscent of Thomas Melchior. ‘Fire’, ‘Feathered’, ‘Freedom’, ‘New’, and ‘Trees’ bear a more stripped-down signature, digging into timeless, loop-centric tech house that occasionally reminds me of Mr. G‘s insistent grooves.

For still heavier occasions, Broom busts out edgy, nerve-wracking techno cuts like ‘Give It To Me’, ‘260’, and ‘Loose Ends’, with strident oscillations cycling like hurricane sirens over storming beats. And ‘Raincheck’ takes techno back into deeper dub territory, with dusky chords lined in silvery synth leads.

It’s an unapologetically—indeed, righteously—functional album, aimed squarely at dancefloors that like their house and techno spirited, uncompromising, and classic.

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