Cratedigger Essentials: Matthew Styles

Cratedigger Essentials: Matthew Styles

14 May, 2010 | 10.08AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: cratedigger essentials, matthew styles

Given dance music’s focus on the new-new-new, a lot of older music can fall by the wayside. But there’s nothing like the feel of chancing across a forgotten track — a semi-obscurity, maybe, that never quite earned “classic” status — that never sounded as good as it does right now. (Who wants to play only new records all night long, anyway?)

Cratedigger Essentials is a new feature highlighting those forgotten gems, records that maybe were famous for only 15 minutes, or 15 people, that our guest selectors keep on hand for when something a little different is called for.

First up is Beatport’s own Matthew Styles, of Berlin’s Horizontal label, with some timely reissues of Icelandic techno, Chicago house and Norwegian weirdness.

Oz Artists, ‘Art Of Wrestling’ [Thule Records]

Active between 1997 and 2002, Thule records was run by Thors Skulason from Iceland; he had a few other labels like 66 Degrees and AE Recordings. As a member of the duo Sanasol, and recording under more than a dozen aliases, he had a hand in many of Thule’s relases. Influenced by Basic Channel and American house, it’s first-class deep techno to get lost in, with a very analogue sound. This one strikes me the most—it almost has an old Rednail (aka Derrick Carter and Chris Nazuka) feel to it.

Circulation, ‘Emotions Unknown’ [Vizual]

Lately, a lot of artists have been getting back the rights to their older catalogue and starting to re-release out-of-print titles. Like Heaven & Earth’s ‘Prescription Every Night’, recently reissued on Running Back, this is another classic Prescription-related cut, originally released in 1995 on Balance (a sublabel run by Chez Damier).

Rather than the U.K. tech-house duo, this Circulation was a pseudonym of Chicago’s Joshua Iz (aka C++), one of the great, unsung heroes of house. This was a great discovery, hearing Carl Craig play it many years ago — both mixes are prime examples of that Chicago/Detroit crossover which is so often imitated, and still sounds fresh today.

Ost & Kjex, ‘Have You Seen The Moon In Dallas (Maurice Fulton remix)’ [Planet Noise]

Ost & Kjex have been a staple of the Norwegian scene for many years, Ost most notably featuring his amazing vocals on Jamie Jones’ ‘Summertime’. They always douse their music in a large amount of humour, and their live show is something else! ‘Have You Seen the Moon in Dallas?’ was originally released on Planet Noise in 2004. Maurice Fulton is the master of his game and re-rubs this single into Balearic pop heaven, a song to fall in love with. It still never fails to brighten my day when I hear it.

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