Speicher 137

Michael Mayer returns to the Speicher series for his first release since last years brain-bursting The Floor Is Lava album. And yes, the floor is indeed lava when Mayer is on peak form, as he is here, with three tracks that oscillate, effortlessly, between the twin poles of Mayers music: dancefloor detonation and heart-wrenching beauty. To be fair, theres more of the former here, but theres beauty in generous discipline, too, and the unrelenting Cry Me A Raver feels, somehow, like it brings together decades of Kompakt pleasure in six giddy minutes  disco-fied arpeggios, glistening and hand-burnished textures, abstruse patterns that fall in and out of step. Dont Sync With My Tag stomps with destructive glee, a beat as undeniable as the shaker cross-rhythms are silkily sexy. Theres always been something practical, functional, and utilitarian about Speicher, but it doesnt get more everyday DJ-life than this: Mayer tells us the title is a super-annoying message that pops up every time you open Rekordbox. Nobody knows what it means. Its a DJ mystery. But who needs answers, anyway? By the time youve started to get close to solving the riddle, Mayers taken you to Detroit via Cologne with It Isnt What It Isnt, a little doffing of the cap to Rhythim Is Rhythim. Youre May, Im Mayer, I used to tell him, Michael chuckles. This made one of our cats almost jump out of its skin, with its stealthy slyness  creeping, amorphous electro noise; percussives that just wont quit; the whole thing flooded with twitchy strip-light energy and silver-machine flare-outs.