Album Review: Caltrop - Potluck Tracks out on AGYINI
Album Review: Caltrop - Potluck Tracks out on label AGYINI
December 8, 2020
Brennan Ko
Cover art for Potluck Tracks out on AGYINI
The News
If you don’t know about San Francisco producer Christoph Caominh aka Caltrop you’re probably not alone. Despite a string of releases on labels such as Tigerbeat6, Nude Photo, Jacktone, Run The Length of Your Wildness, In The Dark Again, and remix work for Massflow, Caltrop is media shy and content to make music without the congratulatory self-promotion expected of all artists in an age of personal branding and clickbait.
And who can blame them? Making good music is already an exhaustive effort in itself. But I’m here to tell you readers to do yourself a favor and consider taking a trip through Caltrop’s discography starting with their latest - Potluck Tracks out on AGYINI.
Potluck Tracks
San Francisco label AGYINI is headed by DJ and producer Roche, who also lends some remixing to Potluck Tracks. Released November 6, 2020, the music was originally recorded and performed at a live show called The Beat Potluck and all of the tracks were made entirely using the Electribe ESX-1. In terms of sound, the tracks vary from pad soaked tripped out steppers to funky jacking dance music - the third track “Rolling Thunder” being the key example of the former or both depending on your our definitions.
Here’s what AGYINI had to say about the release:
“Potluck Tracks is as fun as it is heady, tracks that seem simple leave you glued to the speakers, build very naturally and feel very familiar, even though this is the first time they are being released. The vibe of the early days of Chicago and Detroit dance music and the bones that carried dance music through to its resurgence and to this day are channeled through Caltrop's jacking and ethereal beat making formats.”
Recommendation
If you like some quirky dub techno, funky synth steppers, or music that feels like they were made on a foggy summer afternoon in the Bay Area, then you can’t go wrong with Potluck Tracks. It’s not going to be for you crazy DJs looking for the next 130+ bpm peak time destroyer or listeners purely interested in a track’s shock value. It’s more likely that the slower dance tempos are going to fit into opening or after party sets where people need a bit more coaxing to dance rather than simply a phat kick drum. Arguably, it’s the kind of music that you want to hear mixed by DJs with an ear for long blends and invisible transitions, but then again, I secretly harbor the desire of hearing BMX Kid being slammed in just as the train hits full groove ahead.
Favorite track: BMX Kid
Brennan Ko is the Editor for Fault Radio and member of the Oakland photo collective &TheOthers. He enjoys collecting records, being on the dancefloor, reading and writing about art and its sub-cultures, and playing video games.
