Young Marco, Aardvarck and Awanto 3 are among the artists to feature on the collaboration between the Dutch label and clothing brand.
The collaborative project continues with a fourth release on their joint Night Voyage label.
London meets Amsterdam as the pair continue their collaborative endeavours for the first in a new series of 12″ releases.
For a man whose work has gravitated around the words ‘Voyage Direct’ (the name of his 2009 debut LP on Rush Hour, and later, the name of his personally curated label), the trajectory of Tom Trago’s productions has been anything but straightforward. Instead, the quiet, affable Amsterdam workaholic’s output has been difficult one to pin down – certainly there are common threads running throughout his work, most distinctively, an ode to looped rhythms and soulful vocals, but Trago has achieved longevity by stretching those elements throughout a broad range of tempos, genres and emotions.
Stream the producer’s forthcoming EP for Rush Hour, featuring collaborations from Steffi and Breach for Rush Hour in full.
“There has to be soul in it, even if it’s ugly, fast and loud”. It’s a line pulled from Awanto 3’s bio, and an integral part of the ethos of the Amsterdam artist raised as Steven van Hulle, whose releases on Dekmantel, Kindred Spirits and Rush Hour have a knack for intertwining smooth and uncomfortable sounds in a prickly and pleasurable way. For every track that packs a feel-good block party neighbourhood funk, like 2010’s “I’m Cumming Baby” from Hulle’s For Five EP on Rush Hour, there’s a moodier other side, like the distortion-laden collaborations with Tom Trago as Alfabet that sounds like a lone bongo drum being led into the dark woods to be torn to bits by frothing distortion.
Tom Trago readies his third album The Light Fantastic with a three-track sampler to be released on Rush Hour.
London’s premier celebration of all things house, Tief, are hosting a Voyage Direct party at Corsica Studios on Sunday August 26, and we have a pair of tickets to give away.
Keep an eagle eye on the Rush Hour release schedule and you’ll be rewarded with some illuminating news – the latest example being Planet E boss Carl Craig turning in a remix of Tom Trago’s classic “Use Me Again”.
The new Crossover Series from the Sound Pellegrino crew makes for a canny and eye opening endeavour, offering like-minded producers from different paths the chance to collaborate together with the aim of “crossing the invisible bridges of the great house music archipelago”. The standard for the series is set truly high on the inaugural release that sees Alex Bok Bok Sushon team up with Tom Trago for the Night Voyage Tool Kit EP.
If you’d paid keen attention to recent interviews with either the Night Slugs founder or the Rush Hour regular, you might have noted subtle whispers of mutual appreciation – something that was clearly not lost on Sound Pellegrino figurehead Teki Latex, who approached the two to open proceedings on the Crossover Series. In broader terms, this project is just one aspect of a growing bond between the emergent powers of the UK underground and the Dutch standard bearers. (Blawan and Untold surfacing soon on Clone and Dexter indulging in some Bristol loving sounds for the recent Great Northern Driver 12″ are further examples for those who require them.)
Musically, Night Voyage Tool Kit is the result of a four day recording session at Trago’s studio in East Amsterdam earlier this summer, with the help of a Sequential Drumtraks 400 analogue drum machine newly gleaned from the aforementioned Dexter. The six tracks see Trago and Sushon deliver heavily, stripped down drum trax informed by a love of Dancemania era Chicago House. At times the results are playful; see the opening track “Pathfinder” – little more than the duo checking out how pliable the rubbery analogue tone at the core is, with drums stripped down to a hissing undercurrent. More structure is evident on the skeletal “White Type R”, which slowly unfurls into compressed head jack material, though that playful sense of melody creeps through intermittently.
The midway point here is perhaps the release’s strong point, with both “Vector” and Pom Clash” heavily pressurised club workouts. The former contains some brilliant usage of space, dropping into just the birdlike sonic swivels before a wave of percussion takes hold. The latter is even more thrilling, utilising the sort of Funky rhythms that Bok Bok knows all too well and marrying them with vocal stabs that veer the scale of dementia as the track bumps along.
As the EP progresses, the overarching feeling you get from this release is two producers becoming increasingly comfortable working together – see how the vocoder led “Time Master” unexpectedly bursts into a percolating 23rd century p-funk out. It’s obviously just the start of much more from the duo, with Trago revealing the duo will continue their Night Voyage endeavours in some shape or form.
Tony Poland
The ever bubbling release schedule at Rush Hour Records sees the Amsterdam based label return to Tom Trago’s masterful and multi-faceted second album Iris, commissioning the producer to rework a number of the tracks for a Iris In Dub release.
French imprint Sound Pellegrino has announced a new collaborative series aimed at “crossing the invisible bridges of the great house music archipelago”, with Rush Hour stalwart Tom Trago and Night Slugs chief Bok Bok teaming up for the first release.
A bit of light entertainment for you courtesy of the guys at Rush Hour, who have just released the video for “Steppin Out” – Tom Trago’s killer collaboration with house legend Romanthony.
Those of us who expected Tom Trago’s second album to follow the same trajectory as his first opus, 2009’s Voyage Direct, were sorely mistaken. The sample based Detroit-meets-disco vibe is largely non-existent on Iris, replaced by a diverse stew of styles that range from vocal hip-house workouts to ambient interludes, via a spot of garage and late night electro-funk. The end result shows a producer clearly comfortable in his own skin, prepared to experiment and challenge himself musically. While Voyage Direct had no original vocal contributions, Iris has six – including Chicago house legend Tyree Cooper, Romanthony (the man behind the vocals on Daft Punk’s “One More Time”), and emerging star Olivier Daysoul. There’s even room for an unexpected vocal debut from well loved Amsterdam producer San Proper.
Perhaps the biggest legacy from Voyage Direct exists not in sound but name; the Rush Hour-backed Voyage Direct series has seen Trago turn his hand to the world of A&R, curating releases from the incredibly deep pool of Amsterdam based talent. Trago’s close working relationship with the Rush Hour empire is obvious – all of his original 12″s and albums thus far have been released on the Amsterdam based imprint or labels directly affiliated with it. Indeed he is arguably now just as entrenched in the city’s music scene as the label itself, acting as a linchpin for the city’s network of emerging producers and DJs. Juno Plus called on Trago to dissect the making of Iris, and discuss the Amsterdam electronic music community and what the future holds as DJ, producer and label chief.
If Tom Trago’s debut album, Voyage Direct, was an impressive exercise in developing a signature style, then this sophomore set has clearly been designed to show the sheer scale of the Dutchman’s growing ambition. Where that album was sharply focused in its promotion of a thick, floor-friendly sound that neatly fused synth-heavy disco with rock-solid European deep house, Iris takes a far broader musical approach. It’s almost as if Trago is setting out his stall: he’s not just a simple disco/house fusionist, but a musical alchemist with more strings to his bow than a twelve-string player with an impressive collection of lutes, mandarins and sitars. It may be a tortured metaphor, but it has a ring of truth.
The 15 tracks that make up Iris include forays into noughties hip-house (Tyree Cooper collaboration “What You Do”), crisp, late night electro-funk (“Suckers For Fools”, with Olivier Day Soul), ambient soundscapes (“Soon In A Cinema”), rush-inducing Joy Orbison-ish future garage (“Joys Of Choice”) and, curiously, hooky, radio-friendly pop-house. Of course, there are some typical Trago moments (“Scent Of Heaven”, the Dam Funk-does-deep house vibes of “Space Balloon”), but these are sandwiched between a kaleidoscopic array of rainbow-tinted songs and collaborations (Romanthony, Meikbar and San Proper also feature). In the wrong hands it could have been a misjudged mess, but it’s nothing of the sort. If anything, Iris feels like an impressive step on a much longer a journey; a very good album, yes, but merely a taster for future Trago full-lengths that will no doubt eclipse this. Think of it as a calling card from a producer still on the rise.
Matt Anniss
Three of Amsterdam’s brightest producers – Tom Trago, Young Marco and Awanto 3 – have collaborated on an upcoming 12″ release for Studio Soulrock, with Swedish starlets Axel Boman and Genius Of Time chipping in with remixes.
The new Kojak Sounds twelve from Maxxi Soundsystem proved there was still plenty of life in the edit yet, spending less than twenty fours in the Juno warehouse before completely selling out – who would have thought Alexander O Neal would prove to be so popular?
