Matthew Dear

Let's get one thing out of the way immediately: Matthew Dear is a freakishly talented musician.

Whether it's under his own name, as Audion or any of the other alias he releases music under, his production is simultaneously deep, danceable, and, perhaps the most elusive when operating within electronica’s confines, musical. He often lends his own voice to his production, without ever crossing into gratuitous, Green Velvet-territory. And he has also found success touring with two bandmates as Matthew Dear's Big Hands, fusing his soulful minimalist vibe with a live aesthetic.

In Body Language Vol. 7, the latest release with Dear's name attached to it, it's the man's DJ skills that are on full display. Subtle, complex, full of lusciously funky minimalist texture, this mix has it all. It’s not a peaks-and-valleys mix. It doesn't build to any overwrought crescendo. What it does is offer a silky palette of outrageously solid tracks mixed together with such alarming fluidity that even the most seasoned DJ will miss a few of the transitions.

Dear floats effortlessly between the stripped down techno of Dinamoe's "The Green French One" and the chunky, mechanical bass of Kalabrese's "Cityblues" and Samuel Davis’s remix of Sascha Dive's "Street Life." We hear from Diz, Radio Slave, Prompt and DJ Koze twice, as the mix sublimely pulsates its spaced-out disco-dub rhythms through your cortex. Honestly, though, no strung-together list of genre nuances can accurately describe the programming behind this mix; it’s just good music.

That German techno tycoons Booka Shade chose an American DJ in his late '20s to represent their über label Get Physical in their hallowed Body Language mix series speaks volumes about Matthew Dear's abilities. If you buy one dance mix this year, make it this one.

—Chris Nelson
12.01.08