Snarkattack

I’ve been a fan of Herr Dorfmeister for quite some time now: back in the day when life was attending uni and raucous parties graced by sophisticated, marijuana-obsessed Europeans, the masters of ‘stoner dub’ were introduced to me via a recording simply titled The K & D Sessions. It turned out that this was a DJ set spread over 2 compact discs put together by two Austrian fellows – Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister.

From that point on, no summertime outdoor barbeque seemed complete with at least one of these tracks grooving on out from the stereo. Further exploration of these individuals’ work led to the discovery of Tosca, a project involving Dorfmeister, and Rupert Huber – not unknown to the Europe experimental electronic scene.

A few years ago, Kruder and Dorfmeister made it out to Australia for a tour, and Tosca were slated to do the same earlier this year but unexpectedly cancelled soon after the tour had been announced. Who knew when they’d make it out here, if ever. Oh, to still live in Europe and catch them whenever I pleased.

When the opportunity came to review this latest title, I leapt up at the chance. Dorfmeister I knew, but the duo he’d teamed up with were not familiar to me. Madrid de los Austrias is a Viennese production duo comprising Sunshine Enterprises label front man Heinz Tronigger and multi-instrumentalist Michael Kreiner, affectionately nicknamed ‘Pogo’.

So what exactly does the title Grand Slam have to do with three Austrian music producers? Not exactly Grand Slam season in their area of the world at the moment, is it? Apparently these fellows are quite the tennis enthusiasts. Also, this debut mix album is supposed to be a personal ‘grand slam’ of sorts – Dorfmeister vs. Madrid de los Austrias. Two against one hardly seems fair but it’s all in fun.

Most of the tracks are put together from scratch (of existing material) by the trio but there are a few very well known remixes of other artists’ tracks on this compilation like Zero 7’s ‘In the Waiting Line’ and Groove Armada’s ‘My Friend’. The standout track on has to be the remix of Willie Bobo’s ‘Spanish Grease’ with its Latin flavour (de los Austrias’ signature sound) which was the also the very first track on the debut recording in the Verve Remixed series.

This is bound to be a favourite this summer (thankfully not too far away for us Southern Hemisphere dwellers). It has the right balance of Dorfmeister’s smooth, laidback grooves and Madrid de Los Austrias’ Latin jazz leanings. However it would have been nice if this compilation had’ve been longer – one can’t help but feel that just as you’re getting into it, it finishes. Surely it would not have been a problem for the lads to serve up a 2CD/4LP release? Perhaps we’ll just have to wait for the next time these guys decide to put out the fruits of future collaborations. They’d better do it quickly.

This article first appeared on Blogcritics at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/02/132640.php viewable here. It also appears on Literary Illusions at http://literaryillusions.com/LIreviews/2007/02/27/cd-review-grand-slam-by-richard-dorfmeister-vs-madrid-de-los-austrias/, viewable here.