Jacob Korn

With Uncanny Valley’s second release, the label’s name makes perfect sense: this crew of musicians from the Dresden Elbe Valley has a truly uncanny knack for the particulars of American house. You could figure that much out even without Kelli Hand’s guest vocal on Jacob Korn’s „Dance Away,“ in which the veteran Detroit producer and DJ sends shout-outs to „Dresden house heads“ alongside Motor City figures like Omar-S, Mike Huckaby and Detroit itself, repeatedly. Detroit, Detroit, Detroit: it’s easy to get hung up in hagiography, but when the homage is…read more

Jacob Korn again brings the fruits of his audio-visual experiments to bear on Panorama Bar Steffi’s label. Korn, who is an artist in residence at Dresden’s Transmedia Lab, focuses his work there on the interaction between the audience and the performer, and as “Sundaysun” shows, the results are characterised by contrasts. This is especially audible on the title track, where heavy, raw beats provide the backing for airy, floaty melodies and epic string sequences. The unpredictable nature of the interaction means that midway through, “Sundaysun” morphs into an acid-heavy workout,…read more

I must admit I didn’t really get Jacob Korn at first. His debut 12-inch on Running Back, for instance, bore grizzly beats and melodies that seemed haphazardly slapdash given their prominence. What I failed to realise at the time was that Korn was peddling music from a new scale that brought with it a new kind of funk. His palette of tunes and timbre is markedly his own and that’s why he’s interesting. None find him more so than Panorama Bar’s Steffi, whose Dolly imprint has devoted two of its…read more

The first release from Dresden’s Uncanny Valley label is a showcase of four local talents of varying renown—Break SL and Jacob Korn are the best known, Cuthead and Thomas Frohlich less so—who all bring their own take on moody, downbeat house. With all four cuts running between 110 and 120 BPM, heavy on acoustic samples and classic drum machines, it’s a familiar sound in contemporary house, but all four cuts are really rather excellent. For all the similarity in vibe, each track has its own signature. Frolich’s is the most…read more