DJ Sprinkles

Nominally a house album, Midtown flirts with the dance floor only on a few songs, though it’s quite satisfying each time it does. “Midtown 120 Blues” is simple and effective, colored by two massive piano chords that decay slowly, as alacrative percussion carves out the groove.

​Joined by pulverizing sub-bass, depth-plumbing bass notes and a disembodied diva’s single-word refrain, the track’s subtle tweaks keep it continuously compelling. “Grand Central, Pt. I (Deep Into The Bowel Of House)” and “House Music Is A Controllable Desire You Can Own” have fuller sounds and rest at the dance floor’s edge. Thick with sub-bass and gently modulating pads, Thaemlitz’s use of limber bass tones, catchy little progressions and endlessly refined percussion patterns draw listeners through their bountiful lengths.

Thaemlitz left the American Midwest in 1986 for New York City, where he DJed in midtown Manhattan transsexual clubs as DJ Sprinkles and witnessed the first bloom of deep-house. Roughly twenty years later, as the sound and definition of deep-house has expanded immeasurably, Midtown 120 Blues serves as an elegy for the scene as she knew it and a kiss off to its current de-contextualized form. Although countless tracks and dozens of artists vocally revere the roots of house music, few offer more than platitudes about its origins. By pointing out its blanched, commercialized trajectory in a series of no-punches-pulled monologues and samples, Thaemlitz bravely confronts listeners with oft glossed over issues and participants in history. Given the scarcity of house tracks which address any sort of social issues, an entire album cast in such a light is a rare, engrossing treat.