Motor City Drum Ensemble

Despite his chosen alias, Motor City Drum Ensemble’s Danilo Plessow hails not from Detroit but Stuttgart; the moniker is a tribute to the Midwestern American soul, jazz, and house music that have informed his productions since the beginning. Born in 1985, Plessow began playing drums at age six and was experimenting with computer production by the time he was 11. He was still a teen when he began making jazzy broken beat in the duo Inverse Cinematics. His Motor City Drum Ensemble project hit its stride in 2008 and 2009 with the release of multiple “Raw Cuts” singles on his MCDE label. Those records demonstrated his talent for sample-heavy club anthems rooted in ’80s funk and soul. That sound has remained his trademark over the years, while as a DJ, Plesso has proved himself a crate-digger par excellence: His 2021 fabric presents Danilo Plessow (MCDE) [DJ Mix] release, for example, winds its way through vintage house, techno, dub, and industrial, touching on classic disco and even ambient. The latter style, meanwhile, is at the core of his duo Vermont with Marcus Worgull.