The Jan Diaries — A Future Classic: Gene Hunt on Burek

Red Bull Hrvatska · The Jan Diaries · 20 July 2020

Records that deserve to be called classics turn up rarely, which is why Jan Kinčl spends a whole column defending the title for one. Gene Hunt’s Reborn Rhythms EP came out on Burek, and Kinčl offers a test for the word that has nothing to do with critical vocabulary: in the two and a half years since its release, he has played something from it at every club gig but one or two.

What the piece covers

The label context comes first. Burek-Barba-Pomalo, the family of labels run by Mario Kolonić — better known as Pytzek — and Mislav Bobić, has spent close to a decade putting out techno, house and electro by internationally established artists, with the occasional excursion outside those lines. The roster Kinčl lists is the argument: Amp Fiddler, DJ Stingray, Aubrey, Claude Young, Terrence Dixon, Kink, Two Thou, Cygnus, Javonntte, John Heckle and Boyd Jarvis. Kolonić mentioned the Gene Hunt signing in early 2018. Hunt himself has been producing in Chicago since the end of the eighties, with a catalogue that runs through Djax-Up-Beats, Svek, Moods & Grooves and Rush Hour.

Then the record. Four pieces across thirty-odd minutes, each of them past the eight-minute mark and using the length rather than filling it, sitting where house, disco and Detroit techno overlap. That interdisciplinarity, Kinčl argues, is the actual criterion for a classic, and it is why he cannot picture a future moment at which this EP sounds spent. Deep House Thang exists in an instrumental and a full vocal version with Laffeyette Parker, and he prefers the vocal one because the restraint, the content, the timing and the sheer quantity of singing are all judged perfectly — a Latin-tinged rhythm, a lead synth line, cascading effects and a hymn-like vocal that he has never seen fail on a dancefloor. Get Down, built on a sample from Azoto’s San Salvador, takes about twenty seconds to lock a bassline that bites like a bulldog, then spends eight minutes working male and female vocals against each other. The Message is the most restrained of the four and still peak-time material, moving between house and Detroit techno on piano, FM choir, synth leads and strings.

The part that stayed

The verdict on The Message is the neatest summary of the whole case: it could plausibly have been made in the early nineties or in 2029, and nothing about it would give the date away. That is what timeless means in practice, as opposed to as a compliment. Kinčl’s own line on Get Down — “Ovako zvuči prava house glazba” — and his one-word close, klasik, do the rest of the work.

Read the full piece

The full review, in Croatian, is on Red Bull Croatia. Four minutes.

The Jan Diaries | Budući klasik: Gene Huntov Reborn Rhythms EP na Bureku → redbull.com