Joel Alter - Soul Clap

Artist: Joel Alter

Title: Soul Clap

Label: Sweatshop

Catalog #: SWSH-03

Genre: Techno

Format: 12", Digital

Release Date: February 10, 2010

Rating: 6

I never thought a Swede could pull off a soul clap. If I were looking for prime sample fodder I would attend a service at Al Green’s Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis before Gothenburg Cathedral’s mass. “Soul Clap”, Joel Alter’s stab at Detroit-style techno is passable, as for the clap, he’s no Theo Parrish.  The most exciting element of the piece is the transformation of a raw noise sequence into a standard but ever-satisfying two-chord techno progression. The drums groove hard but the the other ingredients are predictable (short high-pass sweeps before the break, the “mindfuck” of bringing the chords back on a different beat). With a little development it could’ve risen above tool-status, instead it languishes between functional and listenable. 

“Mellan Raderna” is a deep, dubby affair. Layering grainy cymbals and a haunting lead atop a subterranean bass , Alter conjures a noirish vision of steamy sewer grates and alleyways leading nowhere. If you're into dub techno, it hits the spot, however, like "Soul Clap" there is a lack of structural nuance that is only compensated for by the timbres.

Savas Pascalidis, producer and owner of Sweatshop, offers an edit that feels like filler. Besides the addition of “house music” sample library grunts and moans towards the end, the edit is structurally indistinguishable from the original. The purpose of an edit is to extend a critical moment of the track overlooked by the creator, or at least to cut out what one deems as a problematic section, making the track “DJ friendly”. Pascalidis does neither and wastes an opportunity to give the track some much needed breathing room.

The third release on the recently founded Sweatshop label, “Soul Clap” is solid but Alter does little to distinguish himself from the throngs of Europeans producing Detroit-influenced techno. Alter's productions could benefit from a greater attention to form.

-Alex Talan

Tracks:

A1) Soul Clap

A2) Soul Clap (Savas Pascalidis Mix)

B) Mellan Raderna