23 Seconds (!K7)

It’s not an overstatement to call Cobblestone Jazz the biggest thing to come out of B.C. electronic music since Skinny Puppy. Composed of Tyger Dhula, Mathew Jonson, and Danuel Tate, the Victoria-born trio is that rarest of techno acts, more widely acclaimed for its live shows than for its recordings. Whether the artists are on-stage or in the studio, improvisation is their operative ethic, which lends their music a loose, responsive feel of the sort generally heard in freeform jazz and rock circles.

In both approach and sound, the trio’s members pay their respects to first-generation Detroit techno and Chicago house artists. But that’s not to call these guys simple throwbacks, for with this, their first full-length for Germany’s prestigious !K7 label, Dhula, Jonson, and Tate don’t so much shadow the pioneers as follow through on their promise, demonstrating what dance music sounds like when it’s made by musicians, not producers. Although 23 Seconds can’t sustain the hypnotic rapture of early singles “Dump Truck” and “India in Me”, it’s a landmark both for the local scene and for the notion that electronic music, like any genre, is best when it’s handmade.