Soul Control 015: Damiano Von Erckert & D.Vyzor

It is retro that underpins Soul Control’s return to the Bussey Building on Friday 13th November, when they bring ava. Records boss and self-styled groove pedlar Damiano von Erckert to SE15.

Von Erckert possesses a confident, canny ability to dip into the music of the past and build something new, something that loosely leaves an initial impression of house, but is in fact something more original, more undefinable. The result is an authentic, unabashedly nostalgic and undoubtedly cool sound that feels like being warm, toasty-drunk on a sunny summer day; a sound that has most recently been exhibited in September's outstanding Also Known as Good LP, and one idiosyncratic enough to necessitate the formation of his own label, ava., in 2011.

Going from strength to strength since then, and in doing so paving the way for other Cologne labels, ava. has continued to impress and to turn heads, working with the likes of Motor City Drum Ensemble, Max Graef, Funkycan, Retrogott, and Christopher Rau and charting its first full-length release with von Erckert's brilliant collaboration with compatriot Tito Wun on a ten-track, half an hour-long album titled Mr Pink What Have you Been Smoking.