Keep Up Appearances, by Berkson & What

Keep Up Appearances

by Berkson & What

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Full Digital Discography

12

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Get all 12 James What releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Curfew, About Love / A Target For The Scene, Follicle, Going Back, Framing Device, Energy Systems feat. JoJo De Freq, Keep Up Appearances, Worship feat. Qzen, and 4 more. , and , .

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1.	Quiet Life 02:20	buy track
2.	Keep Up Appearances 04:31	buy track
3.	We Search For Answers 06:39	buy track
4.	Worship feat. Qzen 06:00	buy track
5.	Shadow Theory 06:37	buy track
6.	Seraphim 06:58	buy track
7.	Make It True feat. JoJo de Freq 06:12	buy track
8.	Feel Free 06:35	buy track
9.	Logan Five 03:43	buy track

about

Long-established house and techno twosome Dan Berkson & James What are proud to announce the arrival of their debut album, Keep Up Appearances, on their own recently minted Modelmaker label. To be released in December on beautiful double gatefold vinyl and CD, with reworked woodcut artwork by Conrad Felixmüller, it has been a long time in the making but the wait has more than been worth it.

Before now, Berskon & What have become synonymous with raw, machine made house and techno with no frills but plenty of heft on labels like Poker Flat and Crosstown Rebels. Their music engages dancers in the head, heart and heel in equal measure and this considered new album proves that once again.

Keep Up Appearances was written over the course of 18 months and has been whittled down from over 20 tracks, all made using mostly analogue gear with the usual Roland and Moog boy’s toys, whilst the trusty Fender Rhodes, Space Echoes and Moogerfooger pedals are featured on many of the tracks. “At first we had a much more eclectic approach to making the album,” says the pair. “But as time went on we found it worked better if we presented only the more electronic tracks together. It’s not a straight up home listening album, but it still has a beginning, an end, and a couple of slower tracks that hint at our wider tastes away from the dancefloor.”

Opening up with the deep space atmospherics of ‘Quiet Life’ the album immediately transports you to another world. The title track is then a melodically lush and uplifting affair with curious synth patterns ebbing and flowing beneath crisp percussion. Tracks like ‘We Search For Answers’ combine organic, wooden textures with more synthetic and trippy synth sounds that are as far away from your standard sample packs as can be imagined.

Across the course of the album there are dark, moody and emotive pieces like ‘Worship’ (previously released in extended form on the MDL02 single) featuring Qzen who reads a poem by Patience Agbabi in tantalising fashion as well as heavyweight, dubbed out techno groovers like ‘Shadow Theory.’ ‘Make It True’ (of which Seth Troxler will be releasing an extended edit on his Play it Say it label, complete with high profile remixes) is another great collab featuring the vocals of JoJo de Freq, and the track itself is a harmonious, radiant house jam that is humid and human in equal measure. The otherworldly, snaking ‘Feel Free’ again showcases Berkson & What’s ability to coax alluring emotions out of their machines and closer ‘Logan Five’ wraps things up in suitably spangled, textural fashion.

Despite the fact much of this album will work on a dancefloor in the hands of the right DJ, there’s an invention and musicality to it that renders the whole thing hugely listenable away from the club. A testament to Berkson & What’s analogue invention and fluid ideas, Keep Up Appearances really is a master electronic oeuvre.

credits

released June 21, 2020

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about

James What London, UK

James What has long been making his mark on electronic music with releases on labels such as Poker Flat, Crosstown Rebels, Play It Say It, Dessous and his own imprint Modelmaker...