Legowelt - The Teac Life (2011)

Legowelt is the working name of Dutchman Danny Wolfers (AKA Danny Blanco). He has released six full length albums and thirteen EPs as Legowelt since 2000 as well as many more under a dozen or so pseudonyms.

I heard a track from his 2011 album - The Teac Life which he was giving away via his website and not long after grabbed a copy of the full album. I was extremely impressed by it all, his updating of the classic sounds of Detroit and Chicago via AFX and Drexciya was beautifully done without a hint of pastiche. There seems to be quite a bit of this particular strain of analogue audio around at the moment so i'm sure more blog posts related to this sound will follow.

After playing this album several times I decided to go on the hunt for more releases and ended up tracking down pretty much all of the Legowelt discography plus associated albums and EPs.

Every piece is brilliantly done, lots of classic raw Detroit / Chicago house sounds and electro techno sensibilities - all recorded to tape in varying degrees of fidelity using analogue equipment. One of the standout things about The Teac Life is it's permeating sheen of tape hiss which gives the whole album a kind of soft-focus, organic feel.

As the man himself states on his website..."Fuck that, I am talking about: Raw as fuck autistic Star Trek, 1987- Misty Forests- X-FILES,- DETROIT unicorn futurism made on cheap ass digital & analog crap synthesizers recorded in a ragtag bedroom studio on a TEAC VHX cassette deck in DOLBY C with an unintelligible yet soulful vivacity"...

Indeed!

Play 'Forest Conditioner' by Legowelt;