Raw Tones

Joaquin ‘Joe’ Claussell has spent the best part of three decades as one of house music’s most spiritual presences — a New York DJ, producer and percussionist whose Body & Soul residency alongside François Kevorkian and Danny Krivit became the stuff of legend. On his Sacred Rhythm imprint he has cultivated a deeply devotional strain of house, all gospel organs, congas and ecstatic vocal chants. Raw Tones, his new album on Rekids, finds him stripping that sound right back — nine tracks of raw, unpolished drum-machine music that feel less like a departure and more like a homecoming.

Make no mistake, this is Claussell in his most skeletal mode. Where Sacred Rhythm releases often arrive draped in lush arrangements, Raw Tones is built from little more than a drum machine, a handful of percussion and some inspired knob-twiddling. The kick drums sit proud and slightly overdriven, the congas and shakers pushed high in the mix, and every track carries that slightly dangerous, unpolished quality of a machine being played live rather than programmed. It’s the sound of Claussell alone in the room, letting the rhythm take over.

That it lands on Rekids — the label run by Matt Edwards, better known as Radio Slave, and a home of sleek, functional techno — is the record’s most intriguing twist. Edwards has long cited the New York deep-house era as a touchstone, and with Raw Tones he hands his young audience a direct line to the roots of the sound: messy, human and absolutely alive.

The highlights are the ones that stretch out. The Blame Game (Table Top Idea) locks a rolling, off-kilter groove and lets it breathe across seven-and-a-half minutes, Break Free pairs a rubbery bassline with percussion that shimmers and snaps, while You Mutha Fuka is a rude, three-minute slice of mutated funk. The most tender moment arrives with Air We Breathe (Revisited Cassette Demo) — seven minutes of spectral pads and soft hand percussion that feel like the spiritual core of the record made flesh, the hiss of the cassette adding an intimacy the cleaner takes can’t touch. Closer Hallucination Ejaculation finishes things in appropriately heady fashion.

Raw Tones won’t win over anyone who needs their spiritual house wrapped in polish — but that’s rather the point. By stripping his sound back to its bones, Claussell reminds us that the ecstasy was always in the rhythm itself. It’s a document of process as much as result, and for a label built on the future of the dance floor, it’s a powerful reminder of where it all began.