[Meakusma]

Dynamics. Unless you spent your youth taking piano lessons, you might have to consult Wikipedia to know what I’m talking about. Thanks to excruciating overuse of compression and the never-ending quest for loudness in mastering, it’s the veritable endangered species of music expression in recorded music these days. (Read Nick Southall’s treatise on the subject on the late, great Stylus website and weep.) In dance music, tracks exhibit variations in volume so rarely that I hardly give it any thought anymore. If I made a fuss every time a track pumped it out at the same volume for six or seven minutes, I’d be making a hell of a lot of fuss.

So when I got my hands on Room 310, veteran Detroit new-waver Terrence Dixon’s new 12″ for Belgium’s fledgling Meakusma label, its dynamics absolutely set it apart. The two new Dixon productions on the A-side, the title track and “Who Is That,” are both excellently crafted slices of Detroit minimal techno in the tradition of Robert Hood and Jeff Mills. But Dixon’s synthetic bells, nauseous bass lines, and herky-jerky rhythms form a whole more distinctive than the sum of its parts, in large part due to the track’s wonderful use of dynamics. The effect is perhaps more apparent on the B-side, which Dixon and Meakusma have turned over to the Upperground Orchestra. The Morphine-affiliated Italian electronic jazz combo doesn’t so much remix “Room 310” as riff on it, and the result is pretty thrilling. Though the side technically splits into two remixes, the “Supreme Present Mix” and “Sci Fi Mix,” the former flows right into the other to form one ultimately epic piece. Moving from quiet rumblings featuring Dixon’s narration from the original to a full-band, full-volume free-for-all, the suite feels like an entire night of techno energy distilled into fifteen minutes. While Dixon and the Upperground Orchestra both deserve credit for savvy musicianship, Dubplates & Mastering’s Rashad Becker should get props as well for maintaining the subtleties of both sides’ dynamic ranges. It’s one of the most musical 12″s I’ve heard in a minute. Hopefully Terrence Dixon’s techno peers are listening.