Marc Houle - Undercover
- Written by Tom Belte
Marc Houle clearly knows his synths and drum machines. Marc Houle also knows how to make these machines work in such a distinct and unwavering style whilst also presenting the militant laws of techno music. After last years LP Drift we have Undercover which is an eight track album that demonstrates an artist who can clearly reference the history of dance and its intricate relationship in today’s modern electronic world.
Undercover kicks off with 'Hearing', a track which provides a militant kick drum in concord with a back massaging groovy bassline, imagine Kraftwerk speeding on the autobahn in a 4/4 approach. It’s a great opener for the album, cunningly simple but providing a creative warning to the listener.
The second track, 'Undercover' is the first main single from the album; jacking drums sit alongside clinical robot voices, the break of the track melts down to a chip tune melody straight out of a vintage Sega game, followed by that ever present archetypal Houle bassline. It’s a track which is parts retro Chi-Town house music modernised into a sweaty dance floor work out for the creepier moments in club world.
What follows afterwards is a selection of records which are more of the same, 'Juno' has an undeniable '90s weirdness reminiscent of LFO: Frequencies – it’s techno as much as it is breaking go-go music from New York, this shows Houle and his love for his machines, placing vintage synths into plunging baselines and 1980 melodies into industrial drums. This makes an unusual set of album pieces that sit together nicely but are ultimately indistinguishable as the record goes on.
As an album Undercover is inopportunely an example of the ever lurking conception that electronic artists who go to task with an album can be seen to be maintaining their own identity rather than taking risks in their music. Houle’s much debated 2008 track 'Techno Voices' was a brilliantly entertaining release which caused techno fans to wax lyrical about the ideas of contemporary techno. It would have been more exciting for Undercover if Houle had adopted this approach, as this is when he is at his finest.
That said, artists should not always try and improve on something that unmistakably works, it would have been even more interesting nevertheless if we could hear more of the efforts of 'Techno Voices' which was electronically rooted and meticulously ubiquitous at referencing the finest parts in techno as a genre as well as an art form.
As the album concludes with 'Under The Neath' we hear some heavily emotional Detroit Techno chords - it's somewhat crucial to conclude with and it ends as solid proof that although the music heard may take the risk of being repetitive, it's still eight tracks which are composed by an artist who clearly knows his method. More of the same please Marc, but we would really be keen on hearing more so of those wacky inner techno voices next time.