fabric presents Helena Hauff

Chronique

To say nothing of her magnificent discography as a producer, Helena Hauff's track record as a DJ has been unassailable. A mainstay at major festivals and clubs, she was the first woman to be awarded Essential Mix of the Year by the BBC, and her 2020 mix for Tresor (Kern, Vol. 5) was a double-CD tour de force that instantly became a fan favorite. Her 2023 mix for hallowed London club/label Fabric doesn't embrace hardcore and industrial techno as heavily as Kern, Vol. 5 did, but it's just as skillfully mixed and easy to recommend. The crisscrossing bass synth patterns of Hauff's thumping original "Turn Your Sights Inward" open the set, and they melt seamlessly into dynArec's "Sunken Park," continuing with Detroit electro from Clarence G (Drexciya's James Stinson) and Optic Nerve with Slam. A stretch of whip-cracking electro tracks lead into more cyberpunk territory, with distorted vocals growling on top of Ement's "Despite of Time," a 2021 track that sounds like it could've been made 30 years earlier. The decades are bridged with breakbeat-driven electro tracks from Radioactive Man (2001) and FJAAK & Tobi Neumann (2021). Magda Rot's exclusive track "Alter Simus" has a terror-inducing bassline that would be just as hair-raising in a techstep track from the early 2000s. The set ends with an unmixed Autechre rarity, their remix of "Crazy for Love" by obscure early-'90s act D-Breeze, which previously surfaced on a limited white label compilation issued by Skam in 1999. Much more accessible and danceable than most of Autechre's output, the track feels like their take on the types of '80s electro and freestyle they often include in their DJ sets, with floating melodies and vocoderized, stretched-out vocals expressing a sort of android sentimentality. Fabric Presents Helena Hauff is a surging mix of old and new confirming the DJ's status as a master.
© Paul Simpson /TiVo