[Out To Lunch]

With Workshop’s thin run of singular tech-house releases really blossoming into something special over the last couple years, I suspect I wasn’t the only person who hit up the Discogs and MySpace info pools to figure out just how long Lowtec had been so weird sounding, precisely who Da Halz was and how much more Move D the hard drive could hold. Fortunately, Leipzig’s now-dormant Out To Lunch offers insight on all those inquiries and more. Effectively a “pre-Workshop,” there’s a sizable overlap in roster, which might be because they happen to be operated by the same dudes. In this discography, you’ll find records by the likes of Lowtec, Even Tuell, Alex Cortex, and Seidensticker, as well as a handful star-studded compilations. The most invaluable of these is 1999’s Airbag Craftworks Compilation, so named for Paul-David Rollmann’s line of bags and shirts.

A handful of names from the Playhouse roster immediately jump from the tracklist. There’s a mesmerizing ambient contribution from Soylent Green and an excellent jazzy house track from Don Disco (aka LoSoul). A rare pre-Rest track from Isolée, “Meanwhile”‘s use of a news broadcast makes for an uncharacteristic sonic backdrop, while its wandering plaints of guitar signal an early interest in the instrument that’s continued all the way up to last month’s “Albacares.” My personal favorite, though, is Lowtec’s “Cat Root,” as bent and enchanting as anything this artist has done. Its untethered UFO melodies float skyward until a simple, plodding beat gradually asserts itself to pull the woozy track down to the earthly demands of rhythm.

Much of the CD nestles into a downtempo mood, occasional verging on deep house. On several occasions I’ve mistaken Freestyle Man and Corrado Izzo’s shimmering “Editha” for a Black Jazz Consortium track. One of several sterling nods to electro, “Ekosweeps,” by the newly reactivated Memory Foundation, surges with splashing percussion and burrowing worms of raw, brooding bass. More of a stylistic outlier, a slow-burner from Da Halz gently evolves from whirring sci-fi zaps to methodical, silvery pad melodies. A ten-year-old snapshot of an already robust scene that would go on to do remarkable things, this CD serves both as an unsung preview of the idiosyncratic tech-house to come, and a collection of strong cuts from artist’s we always want to hear more from. It’s remarkable how many key elements were already in place in these artists’ repertoires, but also a treat to examine what they’ve shed over the course of the decade.