Themes From Repeat

Earlier this year, Stephan Schwander released an album as Rhythm Maker on ATC’s sister label Background. While ‘Landing’ looked too minimal, stripped down club grooves, Schwander’s Repeat Orchestra guise is all about re-discovering the soul of early Chicago house and interpreting it in a modern techno context.

On paper it might sound like Schwander is plundering the past, but his use of bouncy basslines and Detroit-tinged orchestral manoeuvres as well as his own Euro-centric touch – check ‘Springtime’ and ‘Private Life’ – afford the old skool piano lines and evocative Chicago grooves a new, fresh and often quite infectious context.