Derrick May & Jimmy Edgar/Various

We Love Detroit

BY Daniel SylvesterPublished Dec 4, 2012

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Much like this year's release of the J Dilla-affiliated Dillatroit compilation, We Love Detroit works both as a love letter to the underdog city and an exhibition of its musical heights. Co-complied by techno architect Derrick May and funktronic raconteur Jimmy Edgar, We Love Detroit splits its time between new talent showcasing and techno origin storytelling. On disc one, May assembles a wet dream of Clinton-era-indebted electro, highlighted by Carl Craig late career bass-boomer "Sandstorms," John Beltran's second-wave classic "Synaptic Transmission" and KiNK's brilliant dub mix of Rachel Row sample-fest "Hand Made." On disc two, Jimmy Edgar takes a more futurist slant, as Magda's "Late Night Woodward" looks towards Berlin for inspiration, while Magic Touch and N. Dawson's "Niks Groove" employ a Brainfeeder-esque low-end groove. But it's Edgar's two submissions — "Let Yrself Be" and "Semierotic" — that pull We Love Detroit together, demonstrating that blend of icy German experimentalism and bear-hugging American funk that made Detroit techno such a force to begin with.
(We Love)

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