Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: VVV / ‘Across the Sea’ (Fortified Audio)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★★★☆

Shawhin Izaddoost is the V-Cubed producer from Austin, TX who has the advantage of having access to dubstep’s self-protecting mode, but pulling it out from the corner it usually cowers in. The very title Across the Sea could well be code for embracing transatlantic developments in dubstep and bass, and has pockets of glumness and strong-silent typecasting. “Dolven” is your classic post-dubstep fading into grey, pulled back by ear-collapsing bass and jumbled vocal spectres. But with it, two-step skips shake up the place so that the ghostliness become something not to be afraid of or empathize with.

Synths and bass continually blow away the cobwebs, applying physics and physicality so that VVV is constantly pushing away negatives. Garage enlivener “Aisle Seat” bests in classiness and determination, ‘Retreated’ is too glossy to take a backseat, and “Traverse” is a merger of frisky 2-step and dubstep/bass’s looking for solitude and shelter, with neither getting in each other’s way. With the 8-bit bites of “Under Control,” VVV shows he’s one for fusion with a kick, for both inside and outside of headphones. While not breaking completely new ground when it comes to a unique inventory, it’s an album that’s a flawless demonstration of how to impart power when presenting something seemingly so fragile at heart.
File under: Kerogen, Burial, Sully

Album Review: Kid Massive / ‘A Little Louder’ (Transmission)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★★☆☆

Without wanting to oversimplify and complete a review within the first line, if you like the David Guetta/Swedish House Mafia house-to-chart continuum there’s every chance you’ll be hanging onto every last beat of Kid Massive. Its riff upon riff of faux euphoria meets songwriting with commercial acumen: whether it be through Mark Le Sal’s Taio Cruz-like vocals (which usually guarantee spins and success) or brattish Sam Obernik pulling pigtails on “Yawn,” this has got the big rooms by the shirt collar.

At a concise 12 tracks all of the Dane’s set plays and strategies come with a foolproof safety net. Hip-houser “Get Wild” is in the style of Bodyrox or Kele, “Heaven” rewires Chris Brown’s “Yeah x3” (which scored zero points for originality anyway), and the title track featuring Peyton and “Life is Better” have all the mechanics of a particularly ubiquitous Scandinavian trio. There’s no use in saying that the majority is phoned in and represents house’s current lowest ebb (the punk-funk/biker chick tie-in “The Way Down” goes in because it has to), because although there’s no new angle Massive explores, striking while the iron is hot at a temperature recalculating cheesiness, he will have the club using the palm of his hand as a dinner plate. Plus Guetta could always do with some ‘super-producer’ competition.
File under: Fedde le Grand, Avicii, Lake & Lys

Album Review: Tazz / ‘Adventures of Tazz’ (Tsuba)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★★★☆

Canadian quality control has fast learning decksmith Tazz respecting Detroit/Chicago origins with his own vintage-is-the-future motif. Bearing classic acid hallmarks (“Worked It”) and comfortably bridging the gap in the place to be from then and now, his Adventures — do not take this as musical journey truism, but 10 days-in-the-life-of dancefloor outings — involve boosting historical skitter and swing and being careful not to over-elaborate. Sticking essentially to kick-n-clap drums and straight-ahead rhythms, with time and technology comes added horsepower so that the fabled essence has muscle made to last. The dirt that keeps “Captain Groove and The Oscillators” shaking, and the fidgets and warbles of “La Salade Techno” that can barely contain themselves (Tazz temporarily abandoning the gradual instruction of the groove), use their primal position to create a roominess that leaves its stomping boots on.

Added to by the luminescence of the newer school “That’s What It Said,” the train of thought leans back to a time when deep house was a more studious, scientific appreciation of the art, instead of looking toward the urbane. Not that Tazz really overlooks anyone — whether smartly attired or rocking warehouse chic, he keeps the traditionalists happy, giving contemporary house heads a thorough working over, and owning the dance floor throughout.
File under: DJ Marcelo, Mr. Fingers, Boo Williams

Album Review: Area / ‘Where I Am Now’ (Wave Music)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

★★★★☆

Chicago’s Area works by a moniker that’s a nightmare should you want to do a background check on him through a search engine, but perfect for framing a closed book character secretly building up a back catalogue. Working in the darkest, dankest regions of house and techno, “Skyline Face Silhouette” is sunshine peering through a crack in Area’s basement of operations that the producer then attempts to swat away as if frightened by the intrusion – by far the brightest element passing through an album of ever lengthening, minimalist shadows.

Tub-thumping on disused drums of toxic waste creates pleasingly adroit rhythms (“Lag” and “Cecentric” bearing a dark kind of tropicality) allowing Where I Am Now looks to move into the light (“Moving Away”), preserved in a glitchy skin and making you think Area wouldn’t mind giving up his underground dwelling, were it not for a tormented, mystery-sustaining personality. “Mass Conserved” goes back to Area sounding concerned and tetchy when hope looks to prevail, treating the dance floor like a game of minesweeper. Some of the 4×4 ventures can be viewed as lacking immediate spark, but pardon Area for not doing somersaults when the balance and vibe is so precarious, particularly with the 10-minute forbidden calm and storm of “Missing A Few.”
File under: M50, Lightness, Simultaneous Poems