Motor City Drum Ensemble
A German drummer with a sampler, a crate of old soul records and a series called Raw Cuts: how Danilo Plessow became Motor City Drum Ensemble.
- Alias of Danilo Plessow, German DJ and producer raised in Schwäbisch Gmünd, near Stuttgart.
- Known for Raw Cuts, a series of sample-based house twelve-inches.
- Mixed DJ-Kicks for !K7 in 2011, with the exclusive track “L.O.V.E.”.
Motor City Drum Ensemble sounds like a band from Detroit. It is one German producer, Danilo Plessow, who made his name in the late 2000s with short, dusty, sample-heavy house records called Raw Cuts.
Drums, samples and a name
Plessow grew up in Schwäbisch Gmünd. He started playing drums at about six and was making music with samples on a computer at around eleven. As a teenager he travelled to nearby Stuttgart to buy vinyl. His references run from Moodymann and Marvin Gaye to 1970s jazz and early J Dilla and Pete Rock. The alias joins three things: Detroit’s music, Stuttgart’s car industry and his collection of drum machines.
Raw Cuts
Raw Cuts made his name. The twelve-inches were lean, looped house tracks built mostly from old soul and funk. Faces Records collected the first six on CD with new material; reviewing it in February 2010, Exclaim! traced most of the samples to Motown-era Detroit. In 2011 Plessow told Dummy he sampled only vintage records, roughly from the 1960s to the early 1980s, and that he did not want to repeat the Raw Cuts formula. The series closed in 2014 with a remix twelve-inch on MCDE by three Detroit producers: Marcellus Pittman, Mike Huckaby and Recloose.
DJ-Kicks and beyond
In July 2011, by then based in Cologne, Plessow mixed DJ-Kicks for !K7. The selection ran from Aphex Twin and Peven Everett to Robert Hood and Mr. Fingers, and included his own exclusive track, “L.O.V.E.”. He described the music’s roots as black music and told Dummy: “I can’t stand music that seems lifeless.” The Send a Prayer EP followed in 2013, and a mix for the fabric series, fabric presents Danilo Plessow (MCDE), in 2021.
Outside MCDE, he records as Vermont with Marcus Worgull, long linked to Innervisions, the label of Dixon and Âme. Their album Vermont came out in 2014, followed by II on Kompakt. He co-founded MCDE Recordings, Four Roses Recordings and Space Grape Records, the last focused on live music with Jéroboam and musicians from Kyoto Jazz Massive. He has released on more than twenty labels, presented a show on Worldwide FM and, in 2016, curated part of the Nuits Sonores festival in Lyon.
In the mix
His records are warm and loose, with swing in the drums and crackle in the samples. He has called his Roland TR-909 “very, very beloved”. In a set they work early in the night, or as a deep turn when the room needs to breathe.
FAQ
Who is Motor City Drum Ensemble?
The best-known alias of Danilo Plessow, a German DJ and producer who grew up in Schwäbisch Gmünd, near Stuttgart.
Why is it called Motor City Drum Ensemble?
The name nods to Detroit’s music, to the car industry around Stuttgart and to his collection of drum machines.
What is Raw Cuts?
A series of sample-based house twelve-inches by Plessow, collected on CD by Faces Records around 2010 and closed in 2014 with remixes by Marcellus Pittman, Mike Huckaby and Recloose.
