DJ Zhao presents: CLUB DECONSTRUCTION (Jersey, London, Luanda)

The music here strongly emphasize abrupt cuts, stop-and-switch dynamics, which to me seems to reflect social fragmentation in urban life, and the often talked about compartmentalization of our lives into work/leisure/rest boxes. The music here is often tense, in my mind undoubtedly related to the pervasive class antagonism on the streets of NYC or London, and economic disparity which implements segregation. Violence is a constant theme: All of these new-ish music styles embody Gangsta Rap as much as Ghetto Tech, Booty Bass: pure sublimated aggression and commodified anger. The music here makes intensive use of manic repetition, often in a more radically rigid way than in traditional House or Techno, mirroring the reality of large sections of the underclasses, in whose culture this music is rooted, being locked into monotonous schedules of menial labor. So it is no surprise that *work* becomes a metaphor for the dance in Afro-American music, in a culture deeply shaped by both the historical legacy (No Drums Allowed) and present day reality of (wage) slavery.

Club Deconstruction represents fresh musical ideas in the “first world”, the former colonial centers, informed by recent internet enabled exposure to far away cultures (surely the only good effect of globalization). Track 5 - *Facta - Tungsten*, for instance, takes unmistakable rhythmic cues from Afro-House. While the periphery has always had access to Western culture (an effect of N. American cultural hegemony) - Kuduro from the Angolan ghettos has always assimilated the aesthetics of Techno and HipHop. Simultaneously, much of this music also draw on diasporic rhythm traditions in US and UK: Afro-Latin percussion on Track 03 - *Teeth - Black Thigh Shakes* is a good example.

Well that’s me breaking down this Mutant Club mix: 21st Century expressions of ancient rhythm heritage, shaped by colonial history, mirroring everyday realities of life, in the context of global capitalism.

“Transcendent beauty is possible during both the renaissance and golden-age of a culture, as it is during the decline of empire.” — Anonymous