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| Pitchfork |
 Of all the great hubs for forward-thinking bass music the past half decade (see: Hotflush, Hyperdub, Punchdrunk, Hessle), Belgian-born, London-based R&S Records has the deepest roots. Since its founding in 1984, artists like Model 500, Joey Beltram and Aphex Twin have roosted there; its logo was parodied by London's queer disco party Horse Meat Disco. When the label returned from an absence in 2006 and set up shop in London, bass music was a natural focus. Concentrating on singles and EPs, the label has since released some of the most adventurous material by James Blake, Untold, and Lone. IOTDXI is a 2xCD/3xLP compilation that collects highlights from the past 18 months and, as is the custom these days, presents 10 exclusive tracks as well.Everyone (including myself) has pontificated about the spreading tendrils of bass music, but sometimes it feels less like evolution and more like insects scattering after a rock's been lifted. The fervor with which the bass community has adopted deep Chicago house, Berlin minimal, and Detroit techno has begun to feel like an abandonment of purpose. What's most refreshing about IOTDXI is listening to a group of artists who have largely clung to quick syncopation, mildly aggressive bass, and arrested vocal samples. High praise: The highlights disc contains a handful of songs so familiar they threaten tedium. Blake's "CMYK", Lone's "Coreshine Voodoo", and Pariah's "Orpheus" form a potent trio in the middle of the first disc; anyone who hasn't worn their bytes thin on mixes and DJ sets the past two years is encouraged to do so here. The disc is better, perhaps, at reminding us of the young talent R&S has put to wax. Cloud Boat offers sighing dubstep heartbreak on "Lions on the Beach" (and is noticeably absent from the exclusives disc), while the lightly whipped synth-pop of Vondelpark's "Camels" feels refreshing at the close of the first disc. Appending an exclusives disc to a retrospective has become common practice for electronic music labels, but I wonder if a game-theory course or two wouldn't help them better incentivize their artists. Knowing that the label will be judged, not the artists, seems like a surefire way to collect the fourth-best track sitting on every producer's hard drive. (Another problem, of course, is that these exclusives sit opposite the producers' best by design.) R&S has enough talent on the roster to remain appealing. Lone places piano house in a blender on "Cobra". Blawan returns to form after his disappointing "What You Do With What You Have" single, offering aggressive, hoofed dubstep. The curious Space Dimension Controller apply lush, lounge-y tempos to analog video game patter....full text |
| Bbc |
| Throughout the 1990s the rearing black stallion of Belgium’s R&S Records graced the centre label of a stream of great techno records, from Golden Girls’ Kinetic and Aphex Twin’s Didgeridoo to Model 500’s classic Deep Space album. At the turn of the millennium, however, releases on the label had slowed to a trickle, and ceased entirely between 2001 and 2006. Since then R&S, now based in London, has been building a new identity, chiefly on the porous borders between dubstep and techno, while attempting to preserve some links to its past, including the continuation of the In Order to Dance compilation series. CD one features previously released tracks from current and recent members of the roster, while CD two presents 10 exclusive tracks. The two discs comprise an impressive array of production talent and musicianship, with the best-known name here being that of recent Mercury prize nominee James Blake. R&S has been home to the best music of his career so far, 2010’s CMYK and Klavierwerke EPs. His Kelis-sampling CMYK and the lulling I Only Know (What I Know Now) are the most ingeniously arranged things on IOTDXI by some distance. Untold (whose Hemlock label released Blake’s first EP) also impresses with the caustic techno strut of Stereo Freeze and new track U-29. John Updike once wrote about the "gleaming economy and aggressive minimalism" of Ernest Hemingway’s early stories, which will also do nicely for this sparse but intricately layered track. It’s uncanny, clever, and floor-shredding all at once. Elsewhere there is a lot of proficiency but a lack of innovation. Belfast’s much-praised Space Dimension Controller makes lush, intricate, but ultimately retrograde deep house; Lone’s two contributions feature elements of UK funky and dubstep-indebted sub-bass that are overwhelmed by unreconstructed rave stabs and whistle samples; The Chain’s Suffer for Your Art is pastiche Detroit techno that would have generated serious excitement if it had come out 15 years ago. Quoting from the past is an artistic manoeuvre with a long and justifiable history, but doing it in as wholesale a fashion as this is cultural conservatism....full text |
| Artswrap |
| IOTDXI is the newest instalment in the classic R&S compilation series. Previous instalments have been responsible for rounding up the labels roster at the time and presenting their finest tracks to a wider audience, and have gone onto become classics in their own rights. With R&S again re-positioned as one of the most forward thinking and musically diverse electronic labels around, this offering raises the bar in the compilation stakes. They have been waiting for the right moment to re-launch the series and now having built an enviable roster of cutting edge young talent it makes perfect sense to return with IOTDXI, a true showcase of the label’s distinct identity and varying sounds....full text |
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