About

A TAV Curator's Pick.

Danilo Plessow was always incredibly young with things. He started producing at the age of eleven—“way too early” as he jokes—having his first release out just five years later: Inverse Cinematics’ “Slow Swing”, released on Pulver Records in 2002, and ended up finding its way into Ricardo Villalobos’ record bag as well as onto one of the first Fabric mix CDs. An album under the same name and a string of EPs followed. Dailo’s latest releases, the Motor City Drum Ensemble’s Raw Cuts series in 2010, had the house music world responding strongly to the charmingly fresh and dirty sounding tracks, all mixed down in spontaneous two-hour sessions. Danilo has also released on top labels ranging from 20:20 Vision to Rush Hour as well as his own MCDE and Four Roses imprints, produced for Ben Westbeech and Rainer Trüby and never ceased to amaze with his challenging remix work for artists like Caribou, Jazzanova, DJ Sprinkles and Zero 7.

His understanding of how the parts of a track can work has never been more apparent than on his DJ-Kicks mix. In 10 years, playing 80+ gigs a year, including such temples as Berghain, Fabric London, Rex and MOS, he’s absorbed dance history through hard and disciplined work behind the decks. Look at the opening selections of his DJ-Kicks mix to get a glimpse of his amazing ability to fuse totally disparate sound aesthetics into a coherent whole.

With the next months holding an extensive tour schedule for Danilo, dancers around the world will be able to experience his gift as a selector first hand. That is, before he gets back into the studio to start working on his first album as Motor City Drum Ensemble as well as a live act. All this will prove, just as his DJ-Kicks is doing now, that there is no such thing as stagnation in the ever-evolving cosmos of Danilo Plessow! – DJ Kicks

“While staying doggedly mid-tempo, whether it's techno's pulse or disco's boogie, Plessow proves himself a master of pace. And while there are no floor-filling anthems here from any era, it's all too busy and bustling to be called minimal. Like all deep house fans, Plessow chooses tracks in part because they sound so luscious, with every piano and snare drum sounding extra crisp, perfect headphone music. But the bass here is so uniformly rich and powerful and forward-charging that even at its most gentle you never forget this is still music designed to move bodies.

Plenty of DJs have wide-ranging record collections. Rare are the ones who can seamlessly mix between genres without sacrificing flow for eclecticism or excitement for a display of pure technical skill. MCDE's DJ-Kicks is one of those rare home-listening mixes that is stylistically all over the map but feels unified, that can mix records released three decades apart more because they feel right, because they produce sparks. If you're only a casual house and techno fan, this DJ-Kicks won't catch you up on dance music's cutting edge. But if you're looking for one of the best-mixed and most immersive sessions of the year, dance music that's both a head-trip in the dub tradition and unflaggingly funky, this is the mix for you.”  - Pitchfork

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