Tech-no-Jazz

Henrik Schwarz - Imagination Limitation (Mix 1, Part B)

The latest in the long-running successful DJ Kicks series by the K7 label is presented by Henrik Schwarz, and this track is an MFR-exclusive version of the new, made-just-for-K7 track that each DJ Kicks mix always contains. Schwarz, a twenty-something from Germany, has been involved in music a long time: he has been a DJ since he was in school, and he has been producing his own songs for the last four or five years.

His background is split between Jazz, and house and techno music - in an interview, he says Jeff Mills is his biggest influence, as he was able to connect improvisational Jazz and techno music together. From this new DJ Kicks mix, you can tell his musical lineage stretches back quite a bit, as it encompasses artists as diverse as Arthur Russell, Drexciya and Moondog, and covers jazz and funk-workouts, disco, electro, soul, techno and a couple of his own original songs (which, by no coincidence, pull from the same pool of influences and styles). In fact, Schwarz's original songs would fit in nicely with this robot's favorite Norwegians, Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas.

For the mix, Schwarz picked many of his favorite songs - music that he loves and is inspired by. In an interview about the record, he says he purposefully didn't include any "just hot this year" tracks. He says that although there "will surely be classic songs released" this year, since he doesn't yet know what they will be, he instead aimed for longevity and classical appeal. Schwarz made the mix itself on Ableton Live - he added effects and extra, bigger-sounding kick-drums for more dance floor appeal, and did other re-edits in the process. However, the main reason for doing a computer-based mix was to be able to do "impossible" things in the mix, such as combining two (or more) songs that are of such different tempo or timbre that they just can't be mixed together on turntables. All in all, the mix is pretty great and covers a huge amount of ground - I'd recommend it to forward-thinking soul heads, just as soon as I'd recommend it for fans of techno.

Henrik Schwarz's DJ Kicks is released by K7 on October 31st - the "Imagination Limitation" 12" (that contains two other versions of the track) is available now. You can get all of this direct from K7, or via the usual suspects (ie: Insound, Forced Exposure, Amazon (pre-order), iTunes, eMusic etc.)