Pitchfork

It was the week before Sónar and I was sitting in the front room of my flat in Barcelona when I heard a familiar sound wafting up from the street, four stories below. It was only someone whistling, but the refrain easily cut through the bustle and clatter of the cars and tourists and drunks and hookers on the ground. Wheep, wheep, wheep, wheep-wheep-wheep wheep WHEE... It was the hook from Roman Flügel's "Gehts Noch?" and it would have been impossible not to recognize it if you'd set foot in a club in the last six months. Burrowing deep into your brain in the manner of those awful earwig-like creatures in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, "Gehts Noch?" announced a sea change of sorts in Miami this March, when it blared from every sound system in town, from the minimal techno types to the prog housers to the circuit party DJs: Everyone, it seemed, had gotten hooked on the hook. The fact that someone was walking down the street whistling it, and that it still managed to eclipse the subwoofers booming with the strains of Daddy Yankee as they rolled by, only served to confirm that techno has entered a newly anthemic phase.

Call it the "'Rocker' Effect." "Rocker", a tune by veteran techno duo Alter Ego-- of which Flügel, not coincidentally, is one half-- dominated 2004 with its garish, anthem-on-overdrive riffage, which offset heavy metal boogie with the shrieking of a teakettle boiling over with homebrewed meth. Originally released on Frankfurt's none-too-overground Klang label, the tune was soon picked up by London's Skint, of Fatboy Slim fame, remixed in styles varying from progressive house to dubstep to proper metal, and absolutely ubiquitous. For a time, it was even rumored that P. Diddy, of all people, wanted to license it.

All of which brings us to the summer of 2005. In the wake of "Rocker" and "Gehts Noch?"-- tunes caned harder than an Indonesian prisoner's back, and today rendered all but unplayable for most discerning DJs-- techno producers the world over are aiming to ape the success of those tracks by juicing their riffs until they bulge like Barry Bonds' biceps. No definitive hit has emerged, but it's certainly not for the lack of trying.

Einmusik's "Jittery Heritage" [Italic] may be too soft to fill the steel-toed boots of "Rocker" or "Gehts Noch?" but it stands a good chance of being played to death just as quickly-- if not faster. The track huffs and puffs along pleasingly, much in the vein of other techno-trance tunes the Hamburg trio has recorded for Cologne's Italic label-- and then that damn riff comes in, a harpsichord-like figure that flutters as brightly as a peacock's tail-- and perhaps as vainly. It smacks of ice cream trucks, circuses, pageantry. The first time you hear it, you may well think, "This is the bomb!" The 10th time, I promise, you'll be seeking shelter. Thus are the risks of making riff techno: you may well collapse under the weight of your own arpeggios. (Sort of makes you long for the days of dubplates, when a track couldn't get overplayed; the acetate would wear out before the tune's welcome could.)

Mathew Jonson is no stranger to the hook; his tracks like "Decompression" and "Love Letter to the Enemy" rode to acclaim on cresting melodic waves that held back just enough to weather their success on the floor. Now, on the goofily named "Return of the Zombie Bikers" [Wagon Repair] he puts a snake charmer's horn to his lips, the better to entrance the world's clubbers. The track gets its momentum from one of his trademark, staccato bass lines and an almost breakbeat sensibility (and in his live sets, he's mixing it up with a breaks-flavored rework of "Decompression"), but its recognition factor comes from a reedy, Asian-influenced tremolo riff that's as stickily addictive as cough syrup. (Chopped and screwed Mathew Jonson? Now there's a thought.)

Motiivi:Tuntematon's "1939" [Freundinnen] rides its riff as hard and high in the saddle as the best of them, but it's far too slow-- and dark-- to achieve "Rocker"-like status. There can't be much guesswork behind the title: the guts of the track smolder like Dresden as divebombing sirens rain hellfire from above. It creeps along at an injured 110 or so BPM, engulfed in static and wobbling atop an unsteady triplet figure, and then just when you've lost all sense of your bearings, the aerial bombardment begins anew, prompting hands in the air and knots in the stomach. There can't possibly be a more massive tune this summer.

For happier fare, though-- and even more idiosyncratic-- the unheralded summer hits are surely Egg's "Floating Mind" [Karat] and Morane's "Living on a Traffic Island" [More Down Than Out], two slabs of Balearic bliss and barmey, respectively. "Floating Mind," on the Montreal duo's Jackalope EP, came out in March, but oddly it doesn't seem to have generated the kind of response that a slab of its stature ought to. It's an understated track, tossing about a woman's voice, a frilly guitar figure, and a handful of bleeps and plunks like so many agates in a tumbler. The way it builds, though, you can never really be sure if it's coming or going, and you remain transfixed by the tension. It's a bit like a hammock-- strung taut, but perfect for crawling inside and letting go.

Morane is a project of Markus Nikolai, Theo Krieger, and Annika Mueller De Vries, and their new 12" for More Down Than Out-- complete with a gorgeous, caprese salad-colored cover by Double Standards, the masterminds behind Perlon's designs-- is as weird a bird as'll fly into your hands this season. "Living on a Traffic Island (Club Version)" would be a summer smash even if it didn't feature De Vries singing blissfully, "Oh well it's summer." The Brazilian-inspired guitar, a dead ringer for the riff in Nikolai's monster hit, "Bushes", practically begs you to take off your shoes and run for the nearest stretch of sand, and the breezy synthesized strings sound like God's just grabbed the world and rubbed it like a balloon-- a kind of universal noogie, if you will, a little uncomfortable, but affectionate as all get-out. By the time De Vries launches into the chorus of the title, making the nonsensical sound strangely appealing, there's no doubt that if you can't find freedom within these few minutes of music, you might as well quit looking.

Philip Sherburne's writing and photographs can be found at www.philipsherburne.com

Next week: Jess Harvell on the month in drum'n'bass.