Steve Summers Always

Jason Letkiewicz isn't some fashionista. His efforts predate whatever you want to call the current wave of interest in club music. Through releases under various aliases on labels like L.I.E.S., Future Times, and his own label Confused House, he has established unimpeachable credibility as he explores and stretches the traditions of techno and house with scholastic dedication. For his first release on Valcrond Video he offers two tracks as Steve Summers. "Always" builds up as a web of metallic syncopation pulsing with threat. A dangerous motif swerves in like pissed-off porpoises, slick with black grime after an oil spill. Vocals show up: they sound like somebody kidnapped a larynx and forced it to MC at the center of a badass board game. A disembodied voice box in the middle of a cardboard landscape. On "Resist" that same captive voice rings through a metal hockey mask, as the instrumental elements seem to narrate an assault in progress. We're taping you down to the table, don't bother to resist. On the B side a Torn Hawk remix takes "Always" to never-never land; the malice of the original track gets dressed up with puffy orange clouds (Cheetos). Traditions go in the toilet, return to the fundamental river, only to wash up in the reeds, fresh again . A melodic explosion hides at the center of the progression under hospital-grade gauze; C-4 strapped to the chest of a stuffed bunny suicide bomber.