Friday, October 18, 10 p.m.
Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
Chicago’s veteran DJ-producer Angel Alanis (a.k.a. A2) and techno selector-producer Maria Goetz visit Rozz-Tox on October 18, backed up by Chicago DJ Franktronic and the Quad Cities’ own Mike Derer and Higgy. The stacked Northern Parallels 037 bill highlights techno and house music, with a hint of acid and electro, in all of their varied forms.
With more than 100 individual releases credited to his name starting from the tender age of 14 in the mid-'90s, Alanis has built something of an empire for himself in the international scenes of techno and house. The globetrotting DJ and journeyman producer specializes in hard techno and bludgeoning house bangers. Cue up any of his productions on YouTube and you’ll immediately sink into a heavy four-on-the-floor groove that tends to sidestep the distorted trappings of industrial music in favor of unrelenting kick-drums and swirling synth patterns. As a track-maker, Alanis aligns himself with such legends as Chicago’s DJ Hyperactive. Both producers are unafraid to let one central beat develop for extended periods, while sliding in interchangeable amelodic rhythmic elements that subtly vary the template behind the all-consuming throb of the bass.
To survey Alanis' career is to wade through a vast sea of mixes dating back to the late '90s, presented as one-off mix-tapes that capture the energy of his live sets with all their tight transitions and constantly brooding energy. Take, for example, a cassette mix labeled “Handle With Care” and recorded in August of 2000. Even though it’s 20 years old, the mix gives an idea of what Alanis’ sets still sound like: committed to heavy bangers, echoed out vocal lines, and tremendous onsets of bass that consume the other elements in the mix in favor of pure body-moving energy.
Alanis’ own productions including “Ghetto Blaster” blur the lines between techno and some mutant form of disco, offering up classic floor-shaking grooves while stretching into the realms of atonal synth chaos. While these sorts of tracks might seem like “business techno” in the hands of lesser producers, Alanis keeps things interesting with his fine-tuned sense of narrative development. Individual passages never sit still for too long before being adorned with harsh textural scratches or jittering drum patterns. Over the course of any given eight-or-so-minute track, Alanis finds room for blaring, brass-like fanfares, wispy, alternating synth flourishes, and the occasional breakdown that strips everything away in favor of pure kick-drum ecstasy.
Maria Goetz branches off from Alanis' relatively more utilitarian styles with the inclusion of willfully darker, more obscure techno cuts in her sets. Her mixes regularly highlight asymmetrical bass lines, moments of acid squelch, and harsher industrial textures. Like Alanis, Goetz is a regular of European techno circles, and frequents legendary clubs such as Tresor in Berlin. In step with the more clinical, scientific techno flexed by Tresor and its various artists, Goetz’s sets include laboratory-esque electro excursions, slow-burning half-time meditations, and pure synth bleep-bloop workouts.
Check out her 2015 entry in the Dystopian Rhythm Podcast series to get an idea of what Goetz prefers to highlight in her sets. Her selections regularly include arhythmic alarm-like beeping tones, kinetic mazes of kick-drum patterns, and washes of distorted bass. At times, her mixes can veer into willfully queasy territories animated by caterwauling back-and-forth synth lines, or almost music-box-like lead tones. At other times, Goetz isn’t afraid to go into full-tilt banger territories, dropping tracks that sound like machines competing for airspace in the vast expanse of a factory.
Angel and Alanis and Maria Goetz play Rozz-Tox's Northern Parallels 037 set alongside Franktronic, Mike Derer, and Higgy, and admission is $5 before 10 p.m. and $8 after. For more information on the night, call (309)200-0978 or visit RozzTox.com.
