March 5, 2021 - shebco sounds
Madison, Wisconsin based DJ and producer Dylan Bryne is here with a new collection of tracks for the journey through the last few moments of winter. The seasoned artist has worked their way through the furrows of the midwest, across the ocean to the lands of Lisbon, Portugal’s Naive Records, bringing sharp dance sensibility, no-nonsense grooves, and a direct do-it-yourself mentality.
Bryne wastes no time with two cuts of ‘Ass Shaking As Praxis.’ A heavy kick pulses through the room as bright, funky jazz snippets float behind, teasing their way up arms and legs and necks. A strong voice calls out “work,” bringing different definitions to mind with its light ambiguity: work the body, work the mind, work the job, work the floor. Context is brought in soon after, as more words flow in with the beat: a snippet from Janet Mock’s keynote speech at the 2017 Women’s March of Washington. The inspirational feelings continue on with the Unity Dub version of the track, which picks up the intensity of the original with sharper percussive elements and a downright infectious bassline. Mock’s speech snippet comes in around the same time and as effectively as on the original, bookended by a playful melodic line.
Bryne dims the lights on ‘Back Stabbers,’ setting a chugging rhythm loose amongst a room full of chopped piano samples and sweeping mechanical chords. A breathy synthesized instrument calls out into the night; a noise pulled both from the distant future and the past. The tension breaks with this melodic line, like a deep, warm exhale. Bryne doesn’t hasten the track back to full speed, rather letting things pick up their own pace to establish the groove. The effect is effortless; a timeless dance track that expertly transports listeners to a long forgotten place that doesn’t actually exist.
‘95 Red Line’ starts off a little more firmly in the past, with a frequency-boosted sample laying the groundwork for the beat and bassline. The hi-hats clash with the higher frequencies of the samples, at times coming off tinny and abrasive, but not too distracting. A more organic vocal-sounding sample chimes in along with some stretched chord lines but the core of the track doesn’t deviate from its raw-groove-dance parameters.
All in, “Different Name, Same Groove” soundtracks the path from winter to spring quite well. The days grow, the evenings lengthen, and the outdoor spaces call out once again to be filled with dancing, sweaty bodies, in moderately-sized, properly-vaccinated and acceptably-distanced groups. Bryne’s work calls back to the Age of Dance Feelings Past with sharp, modern production and great use of new sounds and samples. The wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented to enjoy taking a new set out for a spin. 🍍