Human After All

I love it when a producer insinuates himself into your collection, by stealth rather than by brute force, and Orgue Electronique falls into the former category. To my eternal shame, the first time I heard some of Brian Chinetti’s music was on 2004’s ‘Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven’ Ep for Crème Organization. He had been active since 1999 – admittedly, his first release was on Bunker, not always an easy label to track down – and sometimes works with Legowelt (as Chicago Slags and Macho Cat Garage). However, it’s under his Orgue alias that I’ve become a fan. What sets his work apart from many of the artists producing music influenced by Chicago house and old school electro is that his drums, claps, basslines are loose and imperfect, that there is a sense that it could all fall apart at any stage but that it just about doesn’t. This search for perfection but the fact that he never quite gets there, this is what makes for compelling listening. Has it anything to do with whether he records everything using hardware and not digitally? I’m not sure, but all I know is the end result, like ‘On A String’, the flipside to Legowelt’s ‘DX Days’ on Clone or last year’s ‘The Garden’ five-tracker for Crème - which I only caught up with recently - combine sub-bass otherworldliness, raw drums with a tangible, human touch. It’s rare to hear that there’s a beating heart behind the robot music…