Artist: Bton
P: 2005
050147
LTD: 500
When Jonas Grossmann isn't co-running Source Records or issuing material as one-half of Deep Space Network (both endeavours undertaken with David Moufang), he's creating polished electronic soul tracks under the BTon guise, fifteen of which comprise his solo debut 4th Floor . Soul may be the predominating feel, but BTon's smoothly chilled tracks cross over into funk, hip-hop, blues, and drum & bass. Though Grossmann demonstrates a marked affection for warm analog synths and vocoders, other distinguishing details surface throughout: the low honk of a baritone sax in “Buzzerbeater,” synth glissandi darting about a vocal line in “Schieber,” and handclaps and voice patterns next to a sleepy drum machine groove in “Breit.” Vocals figure strongly in a couple of tracks: a lush bass bounce introduces the sensuous “Meanwhile” before a hypnotically mellow vocal (presumably Grossmann's) appears while kitschy lyrics in “Schieber” (“Oh, baby, let's get down tonight / Shake your booty, shake it right”) would be totally off-putting if the song's curious-sounding vocal hook and mellow soul weren't so irresistible. Elsewhere Grossmann offers analog synth funk (“Btonation”), spacey hip-hop splatter (“Stealth Tax”), bluesy rambling (“Nocturne,” heard previously on the opensource.code comp); it's entirely characteristic of BTon's sound that, when drum & bass patterns appear in “Down Home” and “In Space,” they do so understatedly. No matter the song, the common denominator in BTon's space-age leisure music is the sophistication of its crisp minimal style.
Weight:
0,105
kg per
piece