Despite the odds 2002 has turned out to be a great year for music in general and dance in particular and, if this and other forthcoming releases are anything to go by, it looks as if 2003 is going to be no different.
Frankman's, aka Andreas Greiner, debut is a textural, string laden, dub laced deep house meets down beat conundrum.
In common with a number of Germanic producers, such as Burnt Friedman, Peter Kruder, Basic Channel/ Maurizio and Stereotyp, Frankman is fascinated by dub music.
But whereas his compatriots have been applying dub to broken beats, techno, electro-dub and other nu jazz excursions, Frankman has taken bass line tech-trickery into the heart of ambient deep house.
Case in point is the laid back mid-tempo of the appropriately entitled 'Joshua's Dream', which floats breathlessly despite being shot through by a highly squelchy electronic dub bass.
Sparse vocals on the album are provided by Patricia 'Zita' Sonntag, who soars to almost Bjork-like siren tones on songs such as 'Never Forget'. But in other places, such as on 'One Wish To You's meandering melody line, she is perhaps over ambitious and consequently less accomplished.
Tracks such as 'A Sentimental Moment', 'Two On The Dancefloor' and 'Night Drive' inhabit the same planes of deep digital disco wig outs that Morgan Giest, Rarshan Jesrani (of Metro Area) and J Walk stalk.
While at other times, such as 'Lied Fantasy', Andreas adopts down beat hip hop drum patterns or, on 'Gimme More', takes up a broken beat/ nu-jazz kick and splutter.
And this is where Frankman has the edge over similar production outfits.
His music is every bit as sensual and sensitively produced as, say, Metro Area, but he goes one step further by marrying the already not disparate elements of jazz and broken beat to deep house. All of which makes this a corker of a debut.
