Perfectly Deep Weekly #49:
Miret, Frantzvaag, Zvrra

Frantzvaag - Solo Super (2022)
Fuck Reality

Tags: #deephouse #dubbyhouse

There is not much information available on the guy behind the Frantzvaag moniker, Mats Frantzvaag. He is based in Oslo, Norway, and this is his debut album. Before that came a couple of EPs on various labels, including Prins Thomas' imprint, the disco-house label Full Pupp.

Frantzvaag's sound is quintessential deep house with disco and dub leanings. It starts with 'Become,' which ticks all the deep disco house boxes with low pass filters, vocal snippets, and a compelling groove that makes it hard to sit still. 

'Anyone Everybody' is the follow-up track, and here we lose the disco to dive further into minimal, deep house. It sports a delightful, delicate synth motif that gives it a feel of melancholy.

Other highlights include '2001,' another deep house track with lots of dubby reverb and echo. Also, it features scratching, which is rare in deep electronic music. But it works. 'Dose' also works well. It's a full-on deep disco house. Like Daft Punk meeting Sylvester, without the vocals. Lastly, 'Going Away' is an excellent, synth pad-driven deep house track with disco leanings in the bassline.

It is also worth noting 'Come Later' because it sports a 303 acid bassline which, quite honestly, also always gives points in my book.

The album comes out on the Fuck Reality label, a sub-label of Smallville Records. Fuck Reality has only released seven records since its initiation in 2015, and this is the first full-length album. Its parent label, Smallville Records, is based in Hamburg and was founded by Julius Steinhoff & Just von Ahlefeld (thought now run by Steinhoff and Stefan Marx) used to be both a label and a record store. Since 2021, however, it is only the former.

Zvrra - Solace (2022)
Zvrra/self-released

Tags: #experimentaltechno #experimentalelectronica

Chicago-based producer Raven Mazique (aka Zvrra, pronounced "zuh-varra") is a rising star on the global experimental techno scene. While seemingly a new name to emerge, she has been grinding her teeth as a producer for over 15 years, building a reputation first on the Chi-town circuit and later earning her merits globally.

Being a former game developer, she has shared that this job has helped shape her approach to composing music. The tracks she makes are often a soundtrack to her imagining a visual setting, like a dark room, and then making music that fits that setting. It is not an incident that one review I found described her music as "swirling, atmospheric worlds in the form of techno." Game developers are, in essence, world builders.

The album is a highly eclectic collection of tracks that twists and turns constantly. The trio of opening tracks, 'Solace Intro,' 'Fossilized,' and 'Chithe Palace,' are all highly experimental works of art that feature shuffly drum programming, asymmetrical loops, and noise-driven samples.

'Noble 1,' 'Noble 2,' and 'Redland Dunes' then take us into minimal techno, though never in a strictly conventional sense. Zvrra plays with tempo, styles, and, overall, the genre's norms. 'Redland Dunes,' by the way, reminds me of the stellar Traktor series of EPs by Torsten Pröfrock on the DIN label back in the mid-1990s.

My favorite is 'Metallus Ruins (Past),' a super-deep techno belter, preceded by the dark ambient track 'Metallus Ruins (Future).' I take it from the title and musical kindship that they belong together like a mini techno symphony.

The album is self-released, as far as I could dig out. It doesn't feature on Discogs yet, which is often the case for self-released records. Such DIY ethos is clearly woven into Zvrra's artistic practice. She is also a member of EAT DIS, a "Chicago-based netlabel carving their path in electronic music that is specifically a space for nonbinary and trans producers to push the boundaries of sound," as it is elegantly described in a Zvrra-feature on Bandcamp. Other members in that collective include Twofold, Alptrack, and DJ Girl.