Label: Comatonse Recordings – C.013.CD.R1
Format: CD, Album, Reissue
Country: Japan
Released: 23 Feb 2024
Genre: Electronic
Style: Deep House
Lesser mentioned, conceptual deep house masterpiece ‘Routes Not Roots’ from Terre Thaemlitz under her K-S.H.E alias, the logical precursor / stepping stone to the seminal Midtown 120 Blues that would come two years later. Naturally growing out Thaemlitz’s fabled Deeperama nights at Tokyo’s module club, Routes Not Routes deals in a particular unique strain of flawlessly produced yet misery stricken deep house, but as ever, Thaemlitz uses the music as a Trojan horse to address the issues of sexual identity, gender politics, race, the AIDS epidemic and more, ensuring that the true ‘roots’ and undiluted history of house music remain at the forefront. Tracks such as ‘B2B’, ‘Double Secret Dub’ and ‘Down Home Kami-Sakunobe’ stand firm as some of the slickest, flawlessly produced house tracks in the sprawling Comatonse back-catalogue, stricken the signature (and surely more accurate) anti-rose-tinted view of the early days of house music, but it’s the pieces in between that project the album into a category of its own - interluding interviews with Japanese transgendered guest ‘Saki Chan’ and the 6 minute stand up comedy sketch where Thaemlitz retells the story of being beaten up and abandoned on the NYC subway, these moments grounding the work and working the sounds back into their original context. It’s a cultural critique that asks more questions than it answers, perfectly sequenced into peaks and troughs, from the blue-hued meditative electro-acoustic ‘fagjazz’ musings of ‘Black Is The Colour Of My True Love’s Hair’ to the rugged / ecstatic EPIC of ‘Crosstown’ where the festival atmosphere is challenged by unforgettable and explicit vocals relating to the underpinning gender politics. A rare perfect album. (Mint / New)
Tracklist
1 Down Home Kami-Sakunobe 7:07
2 Saki-Chan (Pt.1) 2:44
3 Hobo Train 12:50
4 Fuck The Down-Low 2:04
5 B2B 9:50
6 Stand Up 6:03
7 Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair 2:47
8 Double Secret 6:21
9 Saki-Chan (Pt.2) 1:41
10 Crosstown 13:39
11 Head (In My Private Lounge, My Pad) 6:09
12 Infected 8:34
