Words and photos by Rafe Arnott, except where credited.
Heavy Rotation is a column focused on an LP in my collection. This month I’m discussing Kruder & Dorfmeister The K&D Sessions, !K7 Records, G-Stone Recordings-!K7073LP.
A gravity well of sleepy beats trades mystery with understanding for those listeners foolish enough to believe they possess the cipher to translating the 22 songs foundationally transformed by trip hop duo Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister in their 1998 downtempo compilation of remixes The K&D Sessions. The sprawling four-LP (2xCD) masterwork remains controversial, still igniting debate on whether the release of remixes can even be considered original work despite being widely acknowledged as one of the most influential albums in electronica of all time, often brought up in the same breath as DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing.
“The idea was always to deconstruct the original song as much as possible. Mostly, we just kept the vocals and composed a whole new song and feel around it.”
–Peter Kruder & Richard Dorfmeister
Photos above: Left – G-Stoned, the pair's self-published 1993 EP. Right – DJ-Kicks: Kruder & Dorfmeister, 1996.
Initially shunned by dance labels for a sounding too slow, the duo had released two EPs and two LPs in the five years prior to Sessions (their debut self-published G-Stoned/EP, 1993, Conversions: A K&D Selection – Spray/Shadow Records – 1996, DJ-Kicks: Kruder & Dorfmeister – Studio !K7 –1996, Black Baby/EP – !K7 – 1996), and established themselves as seminal to the birth of electronic lounge music in the early ‘90s. Accomplished musicians, writers and producers in their own right, they nonetheless exerted their most significant influence on the genre through their re-working, re-mixing and producing of other artist’s material.
Despite having their initial efforts panned, the duo persevered in their vision, ultimately producing some of the most sought-after, unique and exquisitely-crafted dub and chill out albums of the decade. But the music’s construct was so much more complex and layered than this simple description conveys – it’s unclassifiable, really. They were taking educated listeners on deep dives through histories of everything from Italian library music, rare grooves, new wave, experimental, dub, hip hop, lounge, jazz, and pop to rock, effortlessly weaving a tapestry of infused trip hop beats that created a cult following among DJs, producers, club goers, artful dodgers, stoners and those seeking their ultimate kick back album.
Photo below: The 2015 5xLP Bernie Grundman remaster of The K&D Sessions.
The ‘90s was the decade that electronica broke free of its stripped down, post-punk, synth-driven aesthetic, thriving instead on a new kind of nourishment with a steady influx of crossover reinventions and remixes. That this sonic bouillabaisse was able to creep across demarcated genres and into the consciousness of popular culture was due in no small part to the releases K&D helmed. Stereo MCs Massive Attack, Nightmares on Wax, and Portishead surged onto airwaves in the late ’80s (Portishead’s Dummy was a downtempo sentinel in ’91), and groups like Theivery Corporation, Hooverphonic and Morcheeba eased in to fill the narrowing vacuum in-between, but it was K&D who were more progenitor than party that resonated with serious beat fanatics.
Franz Schubert, Johan Strauss II, Mozart… classical music icons more likely to be thrown around in conversation when referencing Vienna, Austria than ‘90s downtempo pioneers, nonetheless the pair hail form the same capital. They started playing in bands and met in 1991 through friends in the local electronic and club music scenes. But though the city was a hub for a burgeoning techno pack, the two instead fused their tastes in eclectic music cultures with DJing, creating a style on their albums which has stood the test of decades gone by and doesn’t allow for an easy time stamp. Studio time was costly, so the two focused on electronic music production from home employing the first Atari computers and Akai samplers for creating the core loops they built their tracks around.
Photo above: The Audio Note UK all-valve M3 Phono preamplifier used for this article.
“The idea was always to deconstruct the original song as much as possible. Mostly, we just kept the vocals and composed a whole new song and feel around it.” – K&D (HitnMix, Nov.13, 2020) Not interested in being pigeonholed as trip hop artists, the pair deadpanned it was a moniker they felt compelled to not be associated with, preferring instead the more stylistically apt “downbeat fusion.” Kruder & Dorfmeister’s previous four outings to Sessions spanned the first six years of the ‘90s, it was a catalogue of their combined explorations not only into vinyl , but the contemporary music canon and a who’s who (from Alex Reece, Bomb the Bass, Count Basic, Depeche Mode, and Lamb to Rockers Hi-Fi and William Orbit), of electronic, ambient, dance, pop, dub, trip hop and downtempo artists through those years the pair sought to reinvent and remix in their own image.
Sessions took wildly disparate sonic flavours and distilled this vision into highly-complimentary base elements. Sharply bringing into focus a series of reimagined originals that plays more as trip hop concept album akin to Lou Reed’s Berlin, The Beatle’s Rubber Soul or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. It’s impossible to imagine a listen through the five slabs of 180-gram vinyl on the 2015 Bernie Grundman remaster without one of the cuts in place. The ebb and flow – the cadence – of the album is wholly dependent on the song order. I’ve listened to it enough times that if “Rollin’ on Chrome” didn’t follow “Bug Powder Dust” it’d be like “Suffragette City” not following “Ziggy Stardust.” This is a reflection of K&D as musical conjurors as much as musical alchemists – the aesthetic blueprint of Sessions is as much dark arts as hardware manipulation genius.
Photos above: Left – A vintage Shure M44G moving magnet cartridge with new Jico stylus. Right – Vintage Altec 1594B mono bloc.
For this instalment of Heavy Rotation I was running a vintage Shure M44G with new Jico stylus, a Technics SL1210GR, Audio Note UK M3 Phono all-valve preamplifier, vintage Altec 1594B solid state mono blocs (circa early '70s) and vintage Altec Valnecia 846B loudspeakers (circa early '70s). All AC cable was Audio Note UK ISIS copper, OJAS interconnects and Belden 9497 speaker cable. Clean power courtesy a Shindo Mr. T.
I first heard the album on CD a couple years after it was released and it created the lasting impression on me as the chill out album, the one that set the bar for all others. Several years ago, when I heard !K7 was going to offer a remastered version, I managed to make the pre-order cut. After receiving it I was immediately reminded how it managed to delicately balance a meaty early-‘70s bottom end, and tonal warmth with ethereal future-forward soundscapes floating high in the mix. This was the first time I’d had an opportunity to hear it in analogue form, as the OG pressings were (and still are) fetching more than $350 USD – far too dear for me to afford at the time. The level of production quality, pressing, lack of groove noise, jacket and printing is on par with the best Analogue Productions 45rpm remasters, which comes as no surprise as the version I have is the 2015 Bernie Grundman remaster, which spreads the original 4xLPs over five albums. From the deep beats of the opening track – a decay-laden and slowed-down bossa-vibed remix of the 1997 12-inch release of the Roni Size drum ’n bass stepper “Heroes,” it is apparent that this is a listen conceptualized to push you deeper into the sofa cushions.
Every cut spools off with far more depth and originality, I daresay, than the originals. Not just remixed, they’re reanimated. Imbued with new life, new breath, a new gestalt. Whether they touched the Aphrodelics, Count Basic or Depeche Mode, one hears, and is aware of an undeniable signature to their technique regardless of what the base material is. With 22 tracks on 10 sides of vinyl, don’t look at it as a marathon listening session, rather, lens the experience as a journey through not only a who’s-who of reimagined electronic music in the mid-to-early ‘90s, but as a doctorate-level deep dive into an hugely influential, and ever-changing vinyl collection that the duo pulled from. One which reflected the best of what these two crate diggers could offer up at the time, be it from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ’80s, or ‘90s. The K&D Sessions isn’t just a trip down memory lane for hardcore trip hop, downtempo and electronic diehards, nor is it a synth and computer-driven technical tour de force, it’s a state of mind, and you don’t need to know anything about the music or artists to appreciate what it ultimately does: chill out.
Photo below: 1973 vintage Altec Valencia 846B loudspeakers.
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