[CD Review] Carl Craig, Sessions (!K7)

Carl Craig should have been nominated for that Grammy a long time ago. Although his haunted, pulsating rework of Junior Boys' “Like a Child” certainly deserved this year's establishment nod, it hardly captures his impact; his career stands out even among fellow Detroit producers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, who are credited with such minor achievements as, um, inventing techno.

Although Craig is best-known as an innovator in that genre, his influence has reached into every other section of the record store—most notably his 1992 single “Bug in the Bassbin,” which U.K. drum-and-bass DJs played at the wrong speed, thus pushing the style into abstract new directions, and the epic mutant disco of 1994's “Throw” offered some warped ideas to a generation of house producers. Add to that a few dozen classics produced under his Psyche/BFC, Paperclip People and 69 aliases, and you have an impressive—and imposing—discography.

For those without the time or patience to track it all down, the two-disc Sessions mix offers a good introductory course, collecting Craig's must-have tracks alongside newer productions that find him revisiting the energy of the mid-'90s through the lens of modern minimalism. The latter is best heard on his 2006 remix of Rhythm N Sound's “Poor People Must Work”—which sustains an epic tension by dissecting and inverting the song's eerie lead vocal—as well as a few key cuts from his recent Tres Demented alias, which one online reviewer could only describe as “loony caveman house.”

Although the compilation jumps around a bit (Craig's diverse catalog doesn't lend itself to smooth, clinical mixing), it still captures the few things his productions have in common: an unerring feel for the dance floor, an undercurrent of funk and soul in even the most experimental tracks, and a truly bizarre vision for what techno could be.

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