Skylines – City Lights

Present on all fronts, Germany’s Cinthie impresses. In addition to being a DJ and producer, she runs her own label, 803 Crystal Grooves (the 803 Crystal Grooves Collective Cuts subdivision) and the We_R_House project. She’s the moderator of the Facebook group The Worst Techno Meme Ever (which, as a joke, inspired the closing track of the album, “803 The Meme Queen”). As if that wasn’t enough, she opened a vinyl shop in Berlin, where she lives. The reputation of this 40-year-old, who’s been active since the mid-1990s, is well established. Those who heard her during her most recent visit to Montreal at the invitation of collective The Ants will tell you that she’s mastered the art of the DJ set perfectly. And the art of production. The quality of her discography will confirm it. The synthetic waves of the opening track here, “Skylines”, sound like a caress on the cheek, a sunrise atmosphere. The contrast with the dynamism of “Houze Muzik” indicates that night has fallen. The tracks, each more than five minutes long, give the listener time to soak up and then be absorbed by the musical material – and vice versa. This is also one of the side effects of repetitive music. You lose track of time. A fan of vintage synthesizers and drum machines (Roland TR-808 and 909), of the TB303 (she used a clone, the TT303, for the acid touch on “Horizon”), Cinthie owns a studio that would make analog fiends shiver with envy. This equipment allows her to compose tracks with the greatest respect for the traditions of electronic dance music, as evidenced by “Concentrate” and “2kGarage”, a tribute, as its title indicates, to U.K. garage, or “Bassline”, a real house showcase for Gilli.jpg’s voice. Cinthie doesn’t beat around the bush, in other words, no frills here. Particularly refined sounds, cleverly dosed and incorporated with accuracy. With headphones on, it’s enough to close one’s eyes to imagine oneself in the middle of the dancefloor, or lost in the lights of the city.