Kassem Mosse – Workshop 12 review

German producer Kassem Mosse pretty much owned 2010, consistently releasing records that touched on the raw, thumping end of house and techno. His remix of Commix was a particularly fine moment – indeed we here at Juno Plus crowned it our number one track of the year. His 12″ for Dial sub-label Laid was a melodic shuffling delight, while his remix of Braiden’s auspicious debut on Joy Orbison’s Doldrums imprint turned the mutant house original into a sublime piece of raw, dusky techno.

His influence should not be underestimated in the UK – he’s widely revered by dubstep and bass music producers as well as house and techno heads, and his sound appears to be what a lot of British dubstep-cum-house producers – most notably the aforementioned Joy O – are currently striving for.

Here Mosse (real name Gunnar Wendel) returns to the excellent Berlin based Workshop imprint, with “Track 1” hogging the A Side, characterised by a tense mechanical rhythym and a looped up female vocal which remains central to the track as Mosse adds deft analogue tweaks which create a cavernous sonic landscape. The real heat, however, is on the flip; first Mosse takes things unfeasibly deep on “Track 2” with chords that on first inspection appear to emanate from beneath the speakers, before the EP’s true gem, the all too short “Track 3”, brings the EP to a bruising finale with scorched kick drums juxtaposed against a gently undulating synth progression.

Aaron Coultate