Decontextualising Club Music: DJ Fett Burger Releases His Debut Solo Album, And It’s Phenomenal

‘Thank U 4 Letting Me Live My Life (B.G.F.D.F.R)’ is biting, transcendental, sexy and whimsical. Everything we hoped for and more.

‘Thank U 4 Letting Me Live My Life (B.G.F.D.F.R)’ LP Cover

“Action Shadow! Roll it Caballero!”
- DJ Fett Burger’s Press Statement

After nearly a decade of intensive releasing, collaborations, side projects and remixes, the Norwegian producer/DJ released his first solo album: ‘Thank U 4 Letting Me Live My Life (B.G.F.D.F.R)’. We were delighted by the wholeness and inventiveness of this work, cleverly presenting an outside-of-the-box yet coherent style with bold production choices, in line to what we are used to from the artist.

The album rarely is purely club-oriented, yet in every track we hear stylistic references to club music, particularly to the sounds of early dance music genres concerning the end of 80s and beginning of 90s: to put it in the artist’s words: ‘always looking back to move forward!’

Like an underwater dive into the variety of influences that the producer touched during his fruitful career, Fett Burger puts together a free flow of impressions from house to breakbeat to disco and much more, all merged with a left-field touch to them. Although it would be erroneous to define the music on this record solely as ‘club/dance music’, we feel like that the elements and style of the work are certainly and consistently pointing at it. It is an album referencing club music, but not necessarily made to be played in a club environment.

Frequently what is most interesting in this LP are the elements left out of the tracks, and not what’s added to them. The record starts with a static intro of one minute, featuring a pure and powerful ‘ravey’ synth loop with a voice talking about the power of dancefloors in a very ‘classic house music’ fashion. This introductory recording introduces us perfectly to the peculiar and deconstructed style of the album: the sound choices, repeatedly decontextualised, become compelling and detach from their referential nature, shaping the combination of elements into something distinct and new in each track.

“I think about dance-floors being just a living, breathing organism.
So everyone is kind of like fluidly moving,
and you don’t have to be going crazy, flaring your arms, stomping your feet,
but your energy is somehow moving with the music.
It works.”
Vocal in the opening track ‘Intro’

In its production, the record features a fantastic and pivotal work on the percussions. In tracks like ‘This Game The World’ or ‘411 Esperanza (Vocal Dream Mix)’, the rhythm is built around the way the percussions are composed and mixed, with no big kicks/claps plots covering the rest at any time. The result is very invigorating and snazzy in the context of dance music. In some tracks Fett Burger doesn’t push for extreme exhaustiveness in the same way a lot of club-destined productions are delivered. We loved the suspension of ‘Atmospheree 2 Emo-Tion (Subtle Future Mix)’, for example, an atmospheric piece which the playful bassline and sludgy percussive instrumental make very transporting, with an odd yet fascinating combination of sound choices. There are some cases though where the sound gets intense and moving, such as the dark and energetic rave trip of ‘Breathing Grounds’. You will not be able to predict what’s coming next on this record.

“It is an album referencing club music, but not necessarily made to be played in a club environment”

DJ Fett Burger - ‘Disco Fem’

And some tracks are just fun to discover: ‘In This Moment’ features a charming, dreamy and catchy synth motif over a straight kick for the most of the track, playfully referencing to a vague idea of timeless dance-floor anthems in a minimalistic fashion. The final track ‘Disco Fem’ (definitely one of our favourites from the LP) intermixes a deliciously satisfying disco loop into its upbeat dance tempo, funky guitars and neat laser sounds. ‘XTC T.W.Y.H.T.S.’, found right in the middle of the LP, expels any kind of rhythmic detail to focus on a combination of progressive synths with a nearly ‘trancey’ arpeggio crescendo at its core (there’s also a genuine emotional vibe coming out of some tracks).

We loved how the tracks seem to follow a narrative (at least stylistic one) despite the uniqueness of each. In its whole, ‘Thank U 4 Letting Me Live My Life (B.G.F.D.F.R)’ is fun and unpretentious, yet laboured, inventive and impressively well-produced. A combination of features which make it irresistible.

For the readers that are adjusted to Fett Burger and his style - get your hands on this record, we are sure you will love it. For the others: give it a go. Don’t be prejudiced and we’re sure you’ll have fun diving into it.

BUY THE RECORD HERE

DJ Fett Burger - ‘Breathing Ground’

DJ Fett Burger - eclectic underground DJ and producer from Moss, Norway. One half of the duo behind the Norwegian labels Sex Tags Mania and Sex Tags Amfibia. He also runs the record label Sex Tags UFO and the taste maker mix series - Trushmix and now puts his efforts into his leftfield experimental label Mongo Fett. DJ Fett Burger always has new material being released in a constant unpredictable flow.

We highly recommend exploring DJ Fett Burger’s catalogue as well as his hot and moving mixes. Check out his channels and stay up to date, he delivers his unpredictable work at an amazingly rapid rate: 

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