Last year the Queens-born, Berlin-based House music producer Fred Peterkin (often known as Fred P) rebooted his Black Jazz Consortium alias to deliver Evolution of Light, an album heavily influenced by the music and culture of South America. On the three-record long-player, Peterkin rewired Latin and Brazilian music through his own unique lens—acute chord progressions linking modal pathways of connectedness between jazz, house, funk, and techno.
“I’m a ’70s kid, so I’m used to the album format,” he told DJ MAG in 2013. “I was a huge Isley Brothers fan and every year they would come out with a new album, so when I think of a project, it’s in album terms.” The project lined up influences as sub-genres of soul, executed with a certain feel using acoustic and electric guitars, masterful bass playing, vocal scat-singing, exquisite piano chords, and heavy kick drums in service to Brazilian jazz-funk culture bearers.
So the straightforward “Enter The Dancefloor,” Fred P’s second take through DJ Cassy’s Kwench Records imprint, gets the New York artist back to the uptempo swelter of New Jersey Garage in four heavy and unapologetically spiritual, ripe-for-these-times sanctuary darts. A direct sojourn back to the sweat equity that breeds unification. Strangers at the beginning of an evening turn into brothers and sisters in sound when those 6am light come on. Remember that?
Ever the diligent producer, Peterkin has cultivated artistry for over two decades, seeing his first release pressed up on wax in 2007. Since then, a run of quality albums, EPs, and singles under his own name, Black Jazz Consortium, and FP-Oner has fashioned his ethos into that of a globetrotting entertainer. (He’s always a sure crowded bet whenever he spins in the Bay.) Gilles Peterson booked him for 2020’s We Out Here Fest in the UK, sharing billing with Archie Shepp, Ezra Collective, and Underground Resistance. That expressive, distinguished sound—featured with reputable labels Mule Musiq, Secretsundaze, !K7 Records and Rekids, as well as his own imprints Soul People Music and Perpetual Sound—speaks that talk.
So the lead track “Enter The Dancefloor’ performs its directive. Setting the table with vocals, mellow strings being stroked, high-test kick drum, color chords, female voices gathering strength from the foot-stomping bass. Sure, come on in. “Vibes” and “Feel,” the third and fourth tracks, add-on to the night. Straight jacking in the highest form, carrying out the demands of a loopy wandering bass aided by stunting keys, lace up your trainers.
“In The Mood” tho….that delivers the cultural bang.
Peterkin designates this moment to unleash the EP’s sermon. Deftly sampling two different speakers, the late rock n roll originator Little Richard and synthesizer innovator Bob Moog, identified by contrasting cadences, who approach the philosophy of community—one from book analysis and the other from peacocking preacher training—the bulletin comes abruptly clear. Collectivism has always been and remains conjoined with The Drum. Peterkin constructs, through harmony, a world we need now.
