Chants & Dave Schoepke - Speleogenesis (2024)

Wisconsin-based producer and drummer Chants (The Trilogy Tapes, Maximum Airtime, Astral Plane Recordings) meets master drummer Dave Schoepke on this all-drums LP for Brussels-based Maloca Records. ‘Speleogenesis’ blends live drumming with dub techniques and dancefloor-informed production, guided by imagery of a subterranean world. It’s a full-circle moment, as the two met when Chants (aka Jordan Cohen) took drum lessons from Schoepke during his teenage years.

The recording process began with Chants creating skeletal demos for Dave Schoepke to improvise on. Schoepke recorded many layers of drums and percussion, running some of them through his hardware synthesizers. Chants then shaped these recordings, resulting in the cavernous dub techno track ‘Pressure Slide’, the Brazilian-influenced ‘Ritmo Crudo’ and ‘Ritmo Puro’, and the uptempo, slippery dancehall dub of ‘The Quickstepper’.

Chants then assembled a new palette of samples from this core and constructed dancefloor-focused bangers like the hyperactive ‘Cyclone Rhythm’ and minimal 170 bpm ‘Rafter’, adding his own homegrown breakbeats. As the album took shape, the music kept evoking mental images of caves, tunnels, and underwater caverns that in turn influenced the final pieces. ‘Notes from Underground’ and ‘Speleogenesis’ present a more unfiltered view of Schoepke’s nuanced drumming. ‘Airbell Dub’ was also created using material from one of Schoepke’s meditative solo performances. Finally, ‘Cavernicole’ features both drummers in full duet mode, trading phrases over an insistent kick drum pulse.