[Sex Tags UFO]

Unlike many of the most buzzed-over labels, the ephemera surrounding Sex Tags Mania appears more influential than the music they’ve put out. The vintage, graffiti-informed artwork adorning the labels, sleeves, and inserts of Sex Tags Mania/UFO/Amfibia and Wania has inspired legions of imprints attempting to emulate their esoteric style with varying degrees of success. But to try the same with the music made by DJ Sotofett, his brother DJ Fett Burger, and their myriad crew is a much taller task, which makes their labels’ vinyl-only releases all the more coveted. Speckbass by DJ Fett Burger and DJ Speckgürtel is certainly worth hunting down wherever it can be found — a special 12″ that integrates many of the signatures of the label family to which it belongs.

“Speckbass” is a remarkably straightforward and melodic house tune, its dusty chords, cooing pads, and cheerfully tinkling marimba patterns pulling few punches from listeners’ pleasure centers. An undercurrent of deliberate chaos that allows percussion to slip, slide, and splash from time to time reminds us we’re in Sex Tags territory, as does the aggressively syncopated slap-bass riff. This sense of play extends to the break, as the melodies are briefly swept away with all the caprice of a stiff wind gust before blowing back into frame. Its more introspective, swinging sibling, “Deepspeck” is built on a similarly blurry set of synth chords that are shaped throughout the tune, leaving the rhythmic intricacies of snare/hi-hat interplay to provide the greatest sense of development. Bobbing midi sax and a one-note string drone add to the 90s flavor profile, but are ultimately secondary to the focused central riff. It’s an excellent complement to the spunkier A-side, but ultimately the title track is the main attraction and, in this critic’s opinion, one of the year’s best.