Staying fairly true to his habit of making better singles than albums, Christopher Rau’s final 12″ for 2012 shows off some of his less common facets.
christopher rau
Christopher Rau, Two
Arriving just a year after Christopher Rau’s debut LP, Two follows its predecessor in breeziness, but with markedly less success.
Little White Earbuds October Charts 2012
01. SLG, “Blurry” [Studio Barnhus]
02. Morning Factory, “Anna Logue’s Sleepover”
[Clone Jack For Daze Series]
03. Christopher Rau, “New Stuff” [Never Learnt]
04. Steven-J Aka Wobblejay, “Let Me Know”
[City Fly Records]
05. Ripperton, “It’s Time” (Agnès Thursday Take 1b) [Sthmlaudio Recordings]
06. NeferTT, “Blue Skies Red Soil”
[Hotflush Recordings]
07. Francis Inferno Orchestra, “Here’s To Always Feeling Good” [Fina Records]
08. Juju & Jordash, “Track David Would Play” [Dekmantel]
09. Maxxi Soundsystem feat. Name One, “Regrets We Have No Use For” [Hypercolour]
10. Carlos Nilmmns, “N’oublions Pas”
[The Smuggler’s Inn]
Roaming, Believe In Reflecting
Moomin joins forces with Christopher Rau under the moniker Roaming; and while expectedly deep, the result doesn’t quite bear the same weight that either has plied as of late.
Bon & Rau, Morning Funk
Rau & Bon return to Hamburg’s Smallville for their second collaborative EP, Morning Funk, but make few advancements in their sound together.
Christopher Rau, Just Love Baby…
For his first Stateside outing, courtesy of Brooklyn outfit Thema Recordings, Christopher Rau sticks to his tried and true method of delicate repetition.
Christopher Rau & Tilman Tausendfreund, Pea Gravel
Newcomer Tilman Tausendfreund teams up with Christopher Rau for his debut single, which arrives on enterprising UK imprint Hypercolour.
Various Artists, Twentyfour Ways
Smallville’s Twentyfour Ways largely finds its cohort avoiding the pitfalls of following too close to their sources of inspiration. Christopher Rau, Smallpeople, C-Beams and Benjamin Brunn feature.
Various Artists, Sun Avenue
Sun Avenue compiles tracks by prior contributors and new faces alike, and solidly furthers Aim’s aesthetic.
LWE Podcast 56: Christopher Rau is archived this week
For LWE’s 56th podcast, Christopher Rau extended the bluesy, calm atmosphere that is his metier over a selection of tracks from STL, Efdemin, Break SL and more. Be sure to add it to your collection before it’s archived this Friday, July 29.
LWE Podcast 56: Christopher Rau
With Christopher Rau’s debut album due to arrive on Smallville this fall, LWE wanted to shed a little light on the man behind the music and present an exclusive podcast exploring the “bluesy, calm atmosphere” that is his metier.
Bon & Rau, Cloverleaf Days
Smallville has long maintained a low key approach to releasing music, even when a critically adored album (Move D & Benjamin Brunn’s Songs From the Beehive) and gargantuan 12″ (STL’s Silent State, our top track of 2009) propelled the Hamburg-based label into the uncomfortable position of being the label for reduced house music. Not carried away with big names, one of Smallville’s charms has been their equal treatment of established producers as well as newcomers. Following a solid label compilation released last fall comes their eighteenth record from the team of newcomer and Smallville Paris clerk Jacques Bon and relative newcomer Christopher Rau.
Various Artists, Laid006
In only a handful of months the still fresh Laid imprint has made quite a name for itself. Despite being born in the shadow of its older brother label, Dial, Laid has quickly established its own area of expertise, pummeling record buyers with five solid singles of dance floor-primed house music while Dial vascilates between floor friendly and leftfield sounds. The sixth record to don a lux Laid sleeve is the first showcasing multiple artists’ originals, for which they’ve collected some of the freshest names around for a survey of the current state of deep house on both sides of the Atlantic. Hamburger Christopher Rau and New Yorker-cum-Berliner John Roberts are both members of the extended Dial family while New Yorker Fred P. has earned well deserved heaps of praise for his work as Black Jazz Consortium. It’s perhaps no surprise that Laid006 is about as solid a record as you can get, throwing three distinctive and in vogue sounds on one wax slab.