Artwork: Gabriel Coutu-Dumont
True to his name, the Montreal DJ and producer known as
the Mole burrows deep into his material, digging dirty
furrows in layer after layer of musical substrata – disco,
house, soul, acid, minimal techno - that have been building
up for decades.
The Mole travels in the wake of fellow subterraneans like
Moodymann, Arthur Russell, Thomas Brinkmann, Theo
Parrish, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, and Recloose, but every
time he noses through to the surface, his mark is
unmistakably his own. In singles, tracks, and loops for
labels like Itiswhatitis, Starbass, Tuning Spork, Complot,
Telegraph, Mutek, Textone, and Epsilonlab, the Mole has
progressively fashioned a signature sound of impossibly
deep bass, gritty loops, battered vocal hooks, and
psychedelic filtering. Until now, however, his sound has
been best heard in a live context, where the Mole
manipulates laptop loops and vinyl scratching to lead
dancefloors deep underground.
Until now: because One foot on either side of the ladder
brings his method to life on vinyl, igniting a slow-burning
firestorm of funk across four equally strong tracks. Clocking
in at over six minutes of dirty disco fury apiece, each one
piles up gloriously messy mountains of loops upon loops
upon loops, cut with deft edits, diamond-sharp drums, and
biodegraded soul vocals that rise Phoenix-like from the
ashen soil.
Are you picking up what he's pushing up?
Tracklist