Call Super at The White Hotel

Feverishly creative and meticulous in every aspect of his work, Call Super has carved out a unique position in the electronic music landscape. Here’s why you need to see him at The White Hotel.

Like many producers before him, London-born Joseph Richmond-Seaton spent his salad days in the clubs of Berlin. Nurtured by the techno community there, his vivacious, texturally-rich tracks made waves that quickly reached Europe’s dancefloors. With the release of 2013’s The Present Tense, though, his output ventured beyond the confines of the club. Trading techno jams for curious experiments, this bold EP suggested that the young producer was bent on disruption.

Call Super’s gaze-averting debut album, Suzi Ecto, confirmed that fact, positively disturbing the musical landscape around it. Widely regarded as one of 2014’s standout long players, it was described by Pitchfork as one of “the most evocative sound worlds that the genre has seen”. Immediately, it won comparisons to the likes of Lee Gamble and Actress, whose twisted meditations on techno tropes it does resemble in places. That being said, Call Super has very much imprinted his own voice on this record – one that’s defined by rich expression, lush textures and sparklingly clear sound design.

Its follow-up strayed still further from the dancefloor, with Call Super diving deeper into his idiosyncratic style. A thing of meticulous detail and wonderful colour, 2017’s Arpo saw the artist again pulling at the threads of modern club music, whilst bringing to the fore elements of jazz that have lurked in the shadows of his work for some time. With subtle instances of live woodwind scattered throughout the album, Arpo feels more like a living breathing entity than Suzi Ecto. There’s more humanity in its composition, and more structural fluidity too, with each track seemingly wandering along whatever path it chances upon in that moment. It’s wonderfully hypnotic.

Call Super’s ability to hypnotise reaches far beyond his productions, though. He is equally revered as a DJ, with Pitchfork remarking that his esteemed entry into the Fabric mix CD canon “brought to mind one of Salvador Dali’s famous clock faces – at almost every quarter-hour a tactile shift takes place, where sounds seem to melt away, revealing a strange new psychic space.” Technically gifted, his versatility and adaptability live is epitomised by the diversity of his bookings over the last 12 months, which include sets at Pacha Ibiza, Love International, Berghain, ADE, and a regular slot at the Golden Pudel, Hamburg’s famous sweatbox.

Manchester’s very own sweatbox, The White Hotel, will welcome Call Super on the 27 July. There, he’ll have four sweet hours in which to shine a light on every far-flung corner of his extensive record collection. Presented by the Ordinary Friends crew, this is going to be huge.