Those who bet on microhouse in the 2003 microgenre deathpool can officially kiss their wagers goodbye. The top of this year’s class — Audision’s “First Contact,” Luomo’s “What Good,” Ricardo Villalobos’ “Easy Lee,” Ada’s “Believer,” Anders Ilar’s “Coastline,” Luciano & Quenem’s “Orange Mistake,” Mikkel Metal’s “Lowfour Rmx,” Jonas Bering’s “Normandie 1,” Mathew Jonson’s “Typerope,” the Modernist’s “Silicon Minor,” Dimbiman’s “V,” Sten’s “Part Three,” Benjamin Wild’s “You Never,” Rod Modell’s “Solar Cross,” Horror Inc’s “The Sentinel,” Krikor’s “Peeping Tom,” Robag Wruhme’s “Beatkutter,” M.I.A.’s “Milchreiter,” Pleite’s “Pleite,” Jabberjaw’s “Girlfriend” – has been just as terrific and lingering as any other, if not more so. The lack of stagnation, along with the fact that we’re at least five years away from ‘Do You Remember Microhouse?,’ means that the engine isn’t likely to sputter any time soon. Just as important: Every couple weeks or so, something has squeaked out from the woodwork that has stuck out from everything else. The majority of those responsible are also DJs, and you can sense that they are studying and revering their peers’ releases while being pushed into new directions.
Take Matthew Dear’s ‘Dog Days,’ a single off Leave Luck to Heaven, my album of the year thus far. None of the other tracks primed for the definitive microhouse box are quite as singsongy and springboard-buoyant as this one. There’s a steady loose-limbed swing and a periodic Moodymann-gone-teutonic jack to it that might put it somewhere between Herbert and Perlon, if it must be placed somewhere for context’s sake. Dear’s baritone, tightly tailgated by Dear’s near-falsetto, rides the contours of a mass of wriggling keyboard tendrils, stabs of synthetic trumpet and a clipped vocal sample (more like an attenuated millisyllable ground into hiccups). Dear’s voices repeat a four-line nursery rhyme of his own making several times over, and I couldn’t extract it from my head if I wanted to. It’s as contagious as “Hark Hark the Dogs Go Bark,” and the music accompanying it provides enough of a unique thrill alone.