#jichael mackson

My lovely sister found this at a local thrift shop! I was so ecstatic when she handed it to me, ughhh I love her.

Ge's just a shirl who claims wat I am the thun

jichael mackson - space

I can't even remember how I got to hear his last EP "Bob's Your Uncle", it might be after listening to Scuba's DJ-Kicks, the best compilation to broaden your taste... but back to Jichael, the question was always: Why such a name? Logically, an artist is building his credibility on the scene by picking up relevant names and producing quality tracks. With Jichael Mackson, we got only served by the latter.

Anyway. That's what's important at the end, right? When asking my buddy Discogs, we get to know his name his Boris Steffen and he's from Munich. That's all. Oh no, wait, also that he's a Techno/Tech House producer. Fair enough. He has been producing EP from 2004 until 2011, and you might remember (if you read the previous article) that mid 00's are not the most interesting period for electronic music. Cheap Tech House, cheesy Deep House, Over Minimal and the French Touch 2.0.

Luckily some islands of good music provided fresh air for the people in need of it and Boris Steffen released 1 to 2 EPs per year with names like "The Blowjob", "... Wasn't Me" or "Fluff In The Bellybutton". Like I've said, what matters is the music. So let's take a deeper look at his stuff.

Breitling Orbiter 8 (2005)

For a difficult exercise of releasing in 2005 and trying to confirm his talent after the first EP, Boris Steffen totally breaks the rules of electronic dance music by putting an almost 20min. A-side! While on the B-side "Used" brushes a portrait of Border Community's minimal style and "O.T." serves an oppressing and slow tech house machine, that A-side track puts the EP at another level.

It's obvious, when you produce a 20min. track, that all the danger focuses on it being boring for the audience, or falling into the experimental traverse, which is here even NOT the case. The tension is kept using the dub techniques in a genuine way. The track is also itself split into 3 movements, the first one setting up a progressive ambience, while the second is far more oppressive, to end onto a blend of the two styles. The way the codes of all those genres are applied, with a final sauce of dub is very clever, the same way the title is chosen, totally in contradiction with the spirit of the track! What would you do drinking tea in your comfy/cosy living-room having such an atmosphere! Jichael Mackson stroke again.

...Wasn't Me (2007)

The tone is clear when you release your EP on a label called "Musique Risquée", but you've got now that this guy is never afraid of going further. On that one, vocals are taking a predominant place, often used and put in the foreground of the tracks. "The Grass Is Always Greener..." is a crowd-killer, sampling "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak in a very interesting dubby way à la Maurizio. The blend sounds funny but once again, so well produced that it will be effective for everybody.

Well, I'm not fan of those kind of sampling usually, so I'll focus more on "Freitag Abend" which is for me the highlight of this EP.

Concentrate of tech house and funny vocals, again, a basic crowd-killer method but damn effective! Vocals and drums are carefully placed to give the whole track a great dynamism. On that one, you can't help but dance.

The final track "Snuff" is much more a techno experiment, difficult to access in comparison with the A-side, but we had already enough good stuff.

Bob's Your Uncle (2011)

Last but not least, the expression fits way too well for Jichael Mackson, as his last EP is a concentrate of his own style, crafted the best way! What do we have here? The best progressive dub house simply, and several club-bangers.

The A-side contains only one track, "Gedöns", lasting almost 15min. as expected from Boris Steffen. Divided into 3 main parts, we start as usual on some progressive 'positive mood' dub house, while going down to some more serious dub house that are just gonna bring you high on mind (such nice dreamy vocals!), and finishing endlessly on some other dub house pattern. Much more dynamic than "Tee Trinken...", this A-side sets the dancing atmosphere the best way possible!

The B1 "GTI (Zimbabwe Mix)" is once again a funny title coupled with a huge straight house banger, spreading a little bit of acid and dub (oh, really?!). It won't disappoint anybody, for sure.

Finally, the B2 "Venga (Lo Que Venga)" demonstrates the power of Jichael's progressive dub, as a last stroke before getting mute. Setting a great dub mood and letting those wonderful pads in. Mindblowing.

No better production possible for that one, that's why Boris Steffen nailed it 'til 2011.