4: REKID - Made in Menorca

If Carl Craig is not the artist of the year, he might as well have been through his influence. REKID, Andy Stott, Âme: many people who made it big in House in 2006 owe a lot to Carl Craig. In techno 2006 was without any doubt the year of Craig's most avid disciple, Matt Edwards, who, not unsurprisingly, on Made in Menorca, even names a track after one of Carl Craig's labels.

As REKID (slomo house) and as Radio Slave (pumping and dark techno) and as part of Quiet Village (slowa-than-slomo psychedelic house) and with his countless remixes, he and only he was the producer of the year. Ricardo Villalobos went for length, Edwards went for hyperactivity. And with Made in Menorca he reached unheard of heights.

Edwards found out, though he was hardly the first to realize this, that slowing your beats to sub-Theo Parrish tempos can do the trick just as well to make people move. And of course Dub was it this year. Apart from the Dubstep posse, REKID, too, on this fabulously immaculate record, infuses a lot of dub into his music. But you easily can discern the echoes of minimalism, electro, disco, Italo, EBM and kosmische musik just as well. Mostly to the effect that REKID sounds a lot like a Clone 12-inch slowed down to half-speed. Do not think 45! Think 33!

If you would ever decide to coin a phrase like "Detroit Dub", with all the good things that both those styles combine, this would probably be the first record fitting the genre. Considering the time he takes to get where he needs to go, you cannot possibly go deeper than Rekid on this rekod.