★★★☆☆
Once upon a time Arthur Pochon was a man for jazzy broken beat, boho hip-hop and lounging that wasn’t too cool for the dance floor but definitely knew that slumming it sophisticatedly was his meat and drink. Fast forward six years from Between Yesterday & Tomorrow and Bleek is now a deep house cadet making informally logical progression. The trouble brewing underneath “Chora,” a sub-tribal diversion sizing up arenas, and the electro-influenced “Kafeneion,” are precursors to Bleek’s smooth, technically faultless navigations. The bass-driven “Backwash” and comforting “Super Blue,” which in particular has more potential opportunities than most, travel through colour cycles, and Bleek has the measure of most styles, inserting a nagging drone into “Feel Me”, and making marginal adjustments to stay as steady as you may remember him from his past appreciation of hammocks and easy loungers – you can feel “Sheer Addiction” patting the couch.
It’s a struggle to comment on anything unique about the album’s personality; however, if you can be critical about being too precise, then so be it. The methodically neat veneer is him flicking the first domino and watching the rest fall in sequence. For a deep house set it does have hold a certain twinkle and doesn’t keep burrowing downwards until it turns ears off, but it can’t help but fall into the category of not being at all bad, but where being average won’t do.
File under: Zoowax, Norken & Deer, Claro Intelecto