Album excerpts:

"Minimal Scarf Fuckers Drown!"

"Circle Jerk"

"Forsberg Loves the Acid"

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Various Artists : Omnidance
released on Turbo Recordings
reviewed by Gaspar Oliveira for GBH.tv

I have it on good authority that Omnidance is supposed to be a lot of things. As the first compilation CD that Tiga's label has released in almost six years, it acts as a refresher course for fans who haven't been able to keep up with every Turbo 12" that's come out. It's also a repository of previously unreleased goodies, stuff that even the DJs never managed to get their mitts on.

For Tiga, his brother Thomas Von Party and their label partner the Dove, the process of figuring Omnidance out took a long time. But in the end, the three of them wanted to make something that summed Turbo up easily. In Tiga's own words, "Eventually, the idea became, if you met someone at the gym and you were like, 'This is what my label's about,' and you could just hand them something, what would you hand them?"

It turns out you would hand that person one of the strongest label compilations to come out in years. Omnidance makes plain for casual fans something that techno obsessives have known for a few years now: Turbo is one of the best in the game today, the one label that can bridge the gap between scuzzy, rambunctious electro house and blipping, menacing tech-house.

And the fact is, they do it with style. For all the disgusting, stomach-liquefying bass compression to be found here (D.I.M.'s "Sysiphos", Tiga's "Mind Dimension"), there are tracks that evoke classic styles even while being undeniably current: Rainer Werner Bassfinder's "Minimal Scarf Fuckers Drown!" updates the drama of early electro; Popof's "The Chomper" features the same delirious qualities as a lot of late 90's house; Unit 4's remix of Lazersonic and Zak Frost's "Aquaplane" is deep as deep gets.

This appealing hybrid quality can probably be attributed to the embarrassment of veteran talent that Turbo houses, and for the most part, the old hands outperform the newbies. Dahlbäck & Dahlbäck's "Forsberg Loves the Acid", a track made by two guys who have almost 30 years of techno production experience between them, is one of the strongest things here, and veterans like Mr. James Barth ("Workin' the Truth") and Kolombo ("Sniff") offer superior arrangements and mixing.

Then there are the extras. The previously unreleased goodies that dot Omnidance are kind of a mixed bag - Crookers' mix of Proxy's "The Raven", a banging, chanting, show-stopper, is just as good as it should be, while Boys Noize's fritzing, blurping "Gezahlt" is really just an interlude - but in a weird way, they make Omnidance a lot stronger. Turbo has been in business for 11 years, and that kind of longevity produces a strange, unique sensibility. It comes from living in techno's trenches, and along with Omnidance's bizarre, funny, intimate liner notes, they fill this compilation with a life of its own. Here's hoping that they last at least 11 more years.

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