Grei Anatomy
Kerri Chandler's Back with a Slew of New Releases + a New Tour

by Terry Matthew | Published November 2007 | Features Archives

I'm going to apologize in advance for framing it like this, but Kerri Chandler is going to be the one to really bring sexy back. Lesser artists talk; true artists will show you how it's done. That's at least the line I'm taking in describing one of the strangest but most beautiful releases to come out in 2007, A Night with Dick: The Dick Dickler EP.

One of the Deep House originators, Kerri Chandler's always followed the tune of his own drummer, and A Night with Dick keeps stride. Whether it was his intention or not (and I honestly doubt it was), this release should become something of a landmark, bringing Deep House a needed injection of adrenaline. "Deep" doesn't just mean a danceable track with congas or Afropop influence, and there's an straight-in-your-face sensuality to these four tracks that seems to have been in short supply in the industry lately.

A Night with Dick (mp3s on traxsource.com, vinyl from Topplers France and CDs distributed exclusively by Downtown 161) also comes from so far out of left field that it has the unique ability to make you laugh out loud as well as groove. It's the latest release on Kerri's own Max Trax imprint, which joins the better-known Grei Matter and Lost Tribes of Ibadan in his family of labels), and sets the tone with the label packaging: a blurry shot of stacks of DVDs through an adult entertainment boutique's window. Yet there's nothing terribly lurid about this: just some spoken word intros (in the first three cases, in the guise of phone messages left by women for the elusive Dick Dickler) followed by some of the dirtiest beats and floor grinders in my collection. The sound is fairly stripped down, but despite the tracky nature, never imitative of others. You'd expect as much from Kerri; after all, this is an artist with a well-known reputation for tweaking his equipment with power tools to get the sound just right.

As for the artist behind Dick, Kerri is launching the European leg of his latest tour, starting off with the Southport Weekender on November 3rd where, we're told, he'll be closing out Sunday morning with 3 reel-to-reel decks and "a few other surprises." Keep up with the man and the many labels at his website, simplycoolmusic.com

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