Glenn Astro

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=476

From the first bar to the last, Glenn Astro's RA podcast drips with the sort of honeyed funk that sounds best with the sun on your face. He begins with Lucas Arruda's delicious "Rio Afternoon," and keeps things bumping, hazy and soulful for 60 more blissful minutes. As he swerves between house, disco, funk, hip-hop and jazz, you may also notice something that's uncommon among DJs these days: he's throwing the crossfader around. The mix is littered with unfussy bits of flair, giving it give an old-school flavour that feels refreshing in today's world of streamlined mixing. 

It shouldn't be a surprise that Astro plays this way. The German artist comes from a school of house music production that's informed as much by early '90s hip-hop and jazz as it is contemporary club sounds—think Floating Points, Motor City Drum Ensemble and Session Victim. Astro's vibe is best exemplified by Throwback, his recently released debut album. The way we described his RA podcast above can pretty much be applied wholesale to Throwback: it's an album that revels in the past while exploring fresh angles on classic sounds. The record is reminiscent of Max Graef's Rivers Of The Red Planet, and indeed, the two young Germans are close collaborators, with Graef appearing a handful of times on Throwback, and the pair both forming part of the OYE Records crew in Berlin. Earlier this year, they started the subtly titled Money $ex Records with Delfonic, and put out an untitled EP together. That was followed by a killer seven-tracker from IMYRMiND, another frequent collaborator of Astro's who never heard a Rhodes line he didn't like.