Author: Matt Oliver

Compilation Review: ‘Geddes pres. Mulletover – The Story So Far 2004-2012’ (Murmur)

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★★★☆☆

Praise be to the power of bass. Because up until the halfway stage of Stuart Geddes celebrating eight years of Mulletover, the UK club night that has since travelled the world from starting as a London warehouse reviver, it’s a set of deep house that’s perfectly fine, warm, alluring and ideal late night/early morning mating dance material involving James Teej and Maya Jane Coles. Just a bit, same old same old for detracting deep house non-getters.

Then Geddes drops Shall Ocin’s “Movin On.” The sexy get sexier because of a bassline underscore that’s of a filth where the tough get going. It’s followed by Ethyl & Huxley’s “3 Feet High,” another bass-bolstered groove turning the well-heeled into fiends for the low end. The two are a mid-album pivot that really jolts you, takes the mix out of context without compromising its ideals and temporarily changes the session’s whole perspective. And not even with bass that’s complicated.

Admittedly the rest of the cast, featuring tracks and remixes by Scuba, Nina Kraviz and Phonique, return to the womb-like glow Geddes sets, not caring when bedtime is, pieced together with a contradicting timeframe (eight years celebrated, where the oldest track is from 2009). This is a mix where you probably can’t beat the experience of being there, but for ten minutes or so the game is raised.
File under: Mic Newman, Tom Demac, Metrika

Album Review: Joe and Will Ask / ‘Vikings’ (Deadly Recordings)

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★★★★☆

Making the state of the art out of the time honored and traditional, Joe and Will Ask show the number of times they’ve pored over the pages of the rulebook they never intend on re-writing. With that, they have to be aware that safety first can verge on the ordinary, as “Last Forever” and “Put It Down” both show. Then again, it’s a margin that makes them pop-ready in parts, and with the unusually sung “This Song,” the pair have done their research on the relevance of past electro dance.

“Baywatch” shows that a piano hook remains one of the most gripping devices in a house producer’s armory, a glorious track both bullish and beach-worthy without the need to dance in slow motion, developing the rolling ivories and sun and sea-faring “Freya.” When steeped in bass but staying melodic, “Goat Race” performs another failsafe: a one-two of tingly keys tip-toeing on top of a roaming boom, and then “Santander” turns the amps up on Nalin & Kane’s “Beachball” to really kick some sand up. Joe Ashworth and William Green are hand-raisers with a policy of raving responsibly like it’s a public service announcement – one that everyone should support.
File under: Kissy Sell Out, Burns, Zombie Nation

Compilation Review: ‘Paper Cuts #1’ (Paper Recordings)

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★★★★☆

About the biggest sweat the rejuvenated Paper imprint induces is a perspiring big toe, tapping to the disco glories of Crazy Penis and The Treatment, breeze and flutter from Mudd & Keyboy, and Latin blooms inspired by Brennan Green. No nasty nicks here from the Northwest of England and its Paper trail that stretches back to the mid-’90s.

Disc one in particular is fulsome of its encouragement to work on your tan. Don’t you dare exert yourself; even if Dicky Trisco and 2 Billion Beats come through with a little more of a can-do attitude, Jamie L and Atjazz will suavely and contrastingly float you back down, and don’t ruin the moment by chatting idly amongst yourselves either. If it’s deemed background music acting like wallpaper up in the club, you should therefore be hugging the walls in appreciation.

Disc two continues to deal in comforts and classic house themes. There’s Ralph Myerz and Jamie L for a second time woozily eliminating aches and pains, astral aromatherapy from Leca, and slightly more knuckling down where Kahuun and especially Neil Diablo set the compilation’s teeth to temporarily chomp down on the bit. Generally the spoonfuls of sugar expand and progress, and who wouldn’t want to be waited on by characters called Sleazy McQueen and Flash Atkins?
File under: Daco, Proviant Audio, Mic Newman

Album Review: 2econd Class Citizen / ‘The Small Minority’ (Equinox)

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★★★☆☆

Aaron Thomason proceeds with his glum outlook and remains poet laureate for a settlement that you won’t find on any map. A sophomore album of hip-hop instrumentals etched in folk melancholy and a tense yet beautiful itchiness, he creates a world of folklore in which 2econd Class Citizen commits his own Grimm fairytales to a sepia-toned storybook.

Through the off-color mood that has become his trademark dictates, trudging through acoustica and reverb as if dealt the wrong cards throughout life while the band plays on, 2CC does make hearts beat faster. The drama, which Thomason has always hinted at without always exposing openly, comes flooding out, through the upped tempos of “Stop to Wonder” and “Change.” “Liberated Lady” creates a crimefighting, afro-kinking superhero who is also an obvious album out of towner, compared to the title track’s saddened hippy lament and campfire cradle “Memory Page.” “Metamorphosis” faces a powerful, spiritualized choir attempting to arrest Thomason’s slump, and “Stay With Me” is the subsequent rock backlash executed with perfect timing.

A classic case of the artist doing what they do best: you don’t want 2CC veering too far from his lifeblood, though that means progress can be seen as limited. Come hell or high water, Thomason’s heavy-hearted patent struggling to stay afloat remains magnetic.
File under: RJD2, DJ Food, Aim