What better way to return to the blog than this peach from the mighty Glenn Underground, which I dug out to include on my new mix for Phuturelabs. Tucked away at the end of side B on his classic 1996 album Atmosfear – one of the best mid-90s Chicago deep house albums you’re likely to find – I’d forgotten about it for years until Dan Bell dropped it one night at Traxx in Glasgow in 2005.
As the oddly-spelled title implies, it’s a nod to the DX100-infused sound of the early Motor City techno pioneers, and like all the best tracks it’s deceptively simple – an earworming FM organ riff into which Glenn works progressively more demented harmonics, plus a single plaintive chord, a high string and some seriously slamming drums, with a siren-style pitch-bending synth that ramps up the intensity even further. It still sounds like it comes from the future and it still kicks some serious dancefloor arse.
Nothin' But Magic 