Review
Genre and Mood
Langoth and the rapper Da Fonz made Grounding the title track of an album that Discogs files under house, electro, future jazz and downtempo. Its label, Vienna’s Sunshine Enterprises, said only that the track “has its typical Viennese style”. The feelings, groovy, relaxed and warm, borrow the label’s creed of “warm and organic sounds”, written about its whole catalogue rather than this one track.
Song Summary
Grounding is the second track of the album Grounding, which Sunshine Enterprises released in 2006 as a CD with a DVD of videos; the album version runs five minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Langoth is Michael Langoth, born in Vienna in 1955, a video artist and cookbook author who began producing electronic music in 2002, joining loops with jazz and live elements. Da Fonz, listed by Discogs as Alfons Kammerlander, raps on it. The label’s notes tell how the album began: a meet and greet turned into serious studio sessions, the “family” went “straight to the essentials down in the basement”, and Grounding was born.
Musical Breakdown
No source we found walks through Grounding part by part or gives its tempo, so this section keeps to the credits.
Main Section
Discogs credits Da Fonz with the rap on the 2006 12-inch and as the featured artist on the album, so a voice speaking in rhythm is the track’s front line. The album credits drums, guitar, percussion, concertina and trumpet players, but not track by track.
Music Video
Langoth made the clip himself, music and video art, and it opens the album’s DVD. The clip runs six minutes and eleven seconds, longer than the album track; Sunshine Enterprises later posted it as the long version.
Concepts in Focus
A <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist credit names a guest, and here the guest brings the words. The credits even disagree about them: Langoth’s own upload gives the lyrics to Da Fonz, while the YouTube art track lists Michael Langoth as producer, composer, arranger and lyricist.
A music video is usually promotion; for Langoth, video came first. His video Retracer won first prize at the fifth Berlin Videofest, part of the Berlinale, in 1992.
That long upload is an alternate version: the same track by the same maker, given more room. Compare it with the 12-inch, where Grounding (Original) sits beside Telemark’s Backbeat Mix, a remix by another producer.
Artistic Context
Sunshine Enterprises, the label arm of an Austrian club and music network established in 2000, names Langoth among its “friends of the family” in its Discogs profile, next to Madrid De Los Austrias, who play “with and without Dorfmeister”. That is the Vienna of Kruder & Dorfmeister, whose Kruder & Dorfmeister – Johnson shows its slow downtempo side. Langoth’s albums there are Sentimental Cooking (2004), Grounding and Drei (2014); the Grounding DVD even carries a feature on the remix as an analogy for cooking.
Impact and Reception
We found no review of Grounding and no chart entry. What it left is quieter: the 12-inch with Telemark’s remix, a place on the 2008 compilation Wasabi Martini, and the clips on YouTube. Play it with the video, the way its maker made it.
