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Most Loved Tracks4 users
John Roberts - Ever or Not4 users
John Roberts - Lesser4 users
John Roberts - Navy Blue4 users
John Roberts - Pruned1 users
John Roberts - Interlude (Telephone)
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John Roberts isn't mysterious so much as inconspicuous. The Berlin-based, Ohio-born producer would be the great young hope of any scene that didn't chew through great young hopes like goldfish crackers. So instead, after four 12"'s and on the heels of his first full-length album, he's the kid with the no-name name who's really good at deep house.
"Good at deep house" and not "techno wunderkind" because, well, Roberts' skills often seem less like those of a musician than those of an athlete-- a disciplined participant playing a varying but finite game. What was notable about Roberts' early 12"'s was not their singularity or adherence to a breaking style, but their studied execution. Roberts wasn't just dropping house music layups like piano chords and dubby textures; he was performing all manner of subtle and difficult moves, like budding noir atmosphere, pitch-shifted vocals-as-percussion, tension-massing tweaks. Roberts' productions are spellbindingly clear, crystal in their intent and focus.
There is something, then, almost inevitable about Glass Eights, Roberts' debut album for his Dial records. It opens with a shattered piano note and a pattering drum; one minute later, when a tiny vocal sample and electric keyboards drop "Lesser" into a well-paced groove, Roberts provides that rare moment in which both bobbing your head and shrugging your shoulders are appropriate reactions. Simultaneously: "This is excellent," and, "We knew he could do this." Roberts chose to emphasize his compositional skills on Glass Eights. Pianos, violins, and lithe beats rule the tracks, which never seem to stir with overeager rhythms or combust into white noise. There are times when the whole can seem less than the sum of its parts. "Porcelain" features bright, ordered drum patterns, a funny little modular synth melody, and an out-of-nowhere steel drum interlude; the total is passable techno. Six minutes of it.
Still, there are only a handful of producers capable of Glass Eights. Sometimes Roberts seems like he's trying to stimulate his tracks solely via the overtones of his chords; call it harmonic house. On cuts like "Pruned" and "Ever or Not" he searches for the midway point between Carl Craig and Philip Glass, the variety provided by listening to determine on which side he errs. Elsewhere he delights in dispensing with one of deep house's go-to signifers-- "warm"-- and sends his tracks out to shiver until they seem austere ("Interlude [Telephone]" and "Navy Blue").
Dance music enthusiasts are really good at asking one question ("Can [hot artist X] possibly keep this up?!") but predictably poor at asking another: "What will it mean if he does?" Glass Eights shyly defers by focusing on a slightly more musically nuanced type of electronic music than Roberts' previous work. It is impossible to call a failure and equally difficult to pinpoint its vigor.
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