There are at least a few people in this thing determined to Keep House Music Weird. Chicago’s Alinka is one of them. She debuts an EP for Get Up that is destined to become a “What the hell is that record?” record – the kind of thing DJs and dancers make a beeline to the booth to ask about at the end of a set.
“You’re Basic”, as in bitch, is going to get most of the attention here. Alinka tosses some chum in the water and baits a line for all of the “basic” producers churning out Traxsource One Week Wonders with a sense of overblown pride and unwarranted self-importance. “Just because you made a record/doesn’t mean you get a prize. Not a gold star, not a cookie/you’re still boring to our eyes.” If you’ve ever had to nurse a drink while someone you’ve never met before begins loading up their Beatport label page on their phone and swiping you through their last 17 releases, this boot in the face to all “boring thoughts from boring people” is gonna be your anthem. It seems almost daft to describe the music after that, but it really does have a great tone and Lauren Flax preserves this in her remix.
But I can go on about the music without sounding like a nerd with “Reaching”, my cult track this month. It sounds like the clash and collision of ’90s rave tracks and Deep House, but it’s way too freaky for DJ Manfred Mannheim and his Beatport Deep Dudes to claim. The vocal has a deliberately formal manner, like a cassette tape of a krautrock Ulrike Meinhof reading a statement about the imminent breakdown of the pig system by rote.