Lately I’ve been fairly reclusive and moderately tired of my record collection. So I was pretty jazzed to find one of the best records I’ve heard all year in a music niche I've neglected over the years: house. Tin Man’s fourth release, “Wasteland,” harkens back to the most barren instances of classic Chicago house tracks, stretching the sound’s murkiest undercurrents into desolate, expansive drones that float beneath rhythmic throbs and deep, anesthetize vocals.
“Wasteland” is a dérive through the streets of a city’s seedy underbelly, lights streaming past while distant, shadowy decay drifts in and out of sight. Even without the dystopian evocations of the title and lyrics, the record’s soundscape signifies a world beyond redemption – cold, indifferent, entropic. The record occupies the same unsettling end times as Scott Walker’s The Drift without reveling in its dissonance or hellishness. The tracks are never convoluted or muddled by over indulgence. It’s textbook - the way creeps like myself hoped Deep house would sound the first time we heard it.
At its core, “Wasteland” is as much a rock and roll record as it is an electronic dirge or subversion of Chicago house. The spectacle, tension and attitude are all present; that’s likely what keeps me coming back for more. Like Kraftwerk’s best records, Tin Man never celebrates or condones the austere world his music evokes. It just is. He’s content there; he gets it. There are still drugs to take, sex to have, and music to dance to.
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