Hugo Ball launches with Kyle Hall B2B Jay Daniel
Kyle Hall has been making music since his earliest teenage years, when he was palling around Detroit with Rick Whilite, Mike Huckaby, and Omar-S; not bad mentors to have. There has been a definite hype surrounding Hall since he appeard on the scene with a single-sided 12″ on Omar-S’s FXHE Label.
People unsurprisingly took notice at his work, seemingly inspired by jazz and hip-hop as much as classic house and disco, and at the sophistication and staying power his tracks had for an artist who was barely out of high school. He’s since honed in on perfecting a style that, an interesting turn on UK Bass label Hyperdub aside, showcases complex percussion and rhythm patters and simple melodies by way of richly-textured, hard-hitting synths.
His B2B sets with Jay Daniel are, quite simply, what good house music is supposed to sound like. Deep, synthetic, raw, emotional; the work of an artist but the aesthetic of a machine. Real percussion, soulful vocals, moody atmosphere; sounds of dance music’s past and future. Kyle and Jay played an evening B2B set at this year’s DEMF; Jay’s solo sets reveal an equally informed appreciation for proper house music.
And perhaps most fittingly, Kyle and Jay are the perfect guests to launch Smartbar’s newest monthly party, Hugo Ball. The all-vinyl night, curated by familiar faces Justin Long and Nathan Drew Larsen, aims to showcase international and local djs who “are experimentalists, unrestrained by fashion and form, who play a wild mix of diverse music recontextualized in the tradition of Chicago’s finest expressive turntablists… The sanitized techno dance party is dead, long live HUGO BALL!”