Michael Mayer & Reinhard Voigt: Time Is Running (Kompakt)

It’s been a while since the Kompakt bosses have teamed up for a release, and both tracks are solid. Mayer’s “The Stickler” is meaty and takes its time to evolve from a tentative tech house track to a heaving beast. It shows off his DJ knowhow well, arced just right for mixing and moving a floor. It seems less and less frequent that Herr Mayer serves up his original productions, and it’s tracks like this one that make me wish that was not the case.

Reinhard Voigt’s “The Buddy” is sort of the jovial companion to Mayer’s hefty cut, with dry, stripped down drums and a buzzing, droning bass synth that somehow feel harmless. Its subsequent leads share this sort of odd krautrock-gone-discotheque quality, dry and weird but almost goofy rather than menacing. Only occasionally does Voigt indulge in deep reverb, smart touches on what might have otherwise been a bit too dry of a track. It has some of the distinctly German pop overtones and 70s throwback traits that have sometimes characterized his brother Wolfgang Voigt’s material, or other Kompakt mainstay Justus Köhncke. As counterparts to one another, it’s a curious juxtaposition. The contrasts seem deliberate based on the timbre and titles, and each shows off some of Kompakt’s most revered’s talents in interesting ways.

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