Deep House Recommendations May 2012

Review: It's entirely typical of Pepe Bradock that the French producer's first original material in several years should arrive with little prior warning. Since arriving on the house circuit in the late 90s, the Parisian has cultivated an enigmatic presence thanks to a paucity of releases and a disinterest in the self promotional circus that has consumed his peers. This of course hasn't stopped him getting collared for countless excellent remixes over the years, thus adding to the cult of Pepe. A four part Imbroglios series commences in supreme style here, with Bradock's unique production style shining through from the opening bars of "Katoucha?" which accrues all new levels of mind bending texture as it progresses. Few other producers would think to actually sample a cat purring or indeed succeed like Bradock does on the intoxicatingly off kilter "Inconsequent Pussy", and the remainder of the EP is an equally rewarding fusion of eccentric sounds and quirky rhythmic swing.

Review: Bjak and Dubbyman team up to become Twin Beats on the latter's Deep Explorer imprint. This is the pair's first collaborative release, but their studio chemistry is there for all to see as the first few bars of "Do It Properly" ease out through your speakers. It's floaty, jazz-flecked house bathed in pools of gently rippling bass tones, and things are given a sophisticated edge by the adroit vocals of Brian Cullen. This shares the A-Side with the slightly more upbeat "Water Walk With Me", with Cullen matching Marvin Belton in the modern day soulful crooner stakes. Flip over for a remix of the title track from - gulp - Larry Heard, with the Chicagoan legend turning in a typically sumptuous slice of machine soul that naturally hogs the vast majority of the B-Side, before an excellent EP is rounded off by a beatless outro.

Review: Greymatter's "Give It To Me Slow" is considered by many to be a classic in the Wolf Music canon, and further evidence of their status as one of the UK's finest house music hubs is provided here as San Soda and Session Victim get busy with giving the track some fresh sonic perspective. The effort from Belgian artist San Soda opens proceedings on the 12th Wolf Music 12" creeping from the sonic mists into a classic We Play House refrain, showing equal poise for rhythm and colourful melody. Session Victim provide an equally good revision, all low set bass warmth, intricate percussive rhythms that slowly swell into a thick set house groove rich in glowering emotive detail. Wolf Music cohorts Casino Times add some UK flavour with a further; particularly bass orientated remix, whilst South London club Tief is paid homage to on an all new Greymatter production.

Review: Marcellus Pittman, Kassem Mosse and Shake Shakir all contribute their own take on Madteo for this essential Meakusma 12"! If being anointed with the honour of the debut release on Hinge Finger wasn't notice of Madteo's potential, this release should convince you of his obvious standing amongst the techno cognoscenti. Pittman greedily uses all but an inch of the A-Side to draw out a thick and futuristic revision of "Mad See Scrolls" which simultaneously seems filled with textured, melodic light and shifting, uneasy analogue dread. Slip down the rpm on the flip and Kassem Mosse shows why he's bosse (sic), totally fucking with "Very Sweaty Palms" dissecting the vocal delivery of Sensational over a messed up 808 electro flex doused in a thousand lost sounds. If your brain hasn't been rewired completely by that, it's likely Shake's take on "Bangin On The Ceiling" will, paying equal disregard for vocal flow on a revision that sits somewhere between hip-hop and utopian beatdown. Just wow.

Review: Mancunian producer Trus'me recently announced a new techno leaning moniker - David James. Although we've yet to hear any material from his new direction, this remix 12" featuring some of Berghain's finest may offer some insight into the influences behind his move. First up, Marcel Dettmann remixes "Sweetmother" from 2010's In The Red, rewriting it with a tunnelling bassline and warping hints of the original vocals into a darker form. On the flip, Norman Nodge remixes "Good God" from 2008's $tilnocheck?, and opts for an approach slightly more faithful to the original, taking its rippling chords and holding them together with a fluctuating bass wobble and metallic percussive tones, before placing the whole thing in a sloshing goldfish bowl of watery sonics.

Review: Repress! Ukrainian producer par excellence Mikhaylo Vityk adopts his recently unveiled Vedomir alias in typically intoxicating style with a self-titled album for the Dekmantel imprint. Spread across two slabs of vinyl and accompanied by some typically refined cover art, this LP is impressive even before the needle hits the wax, and then you succumb to the rich sounds within. Veering from meditative moments of beatless analogue ambience to propulsive jacking house and glistening beat down, everything is tied together with Vedomir's undeniable grasp of intricate textural detail.

Review: Introducing an artist via a series of high profile remixes of material not yet heard is always a risky method, but when it's a label such as Hivern Discs you are always likely to go with the flow. So step into the world of mysterious producer Mistakes Are OK, announced as a producer residing in Hivern hometown Barcelona and granted the honour of the label's first artist album. It's clear the label are investing a lot in such an unknown quantity and intrigue is ramped further by the artists Hivern has elected to remix the music of Mistakes Are OK. Kassem Mosse and Mix Mup serve further illuminating evidence of their blossoming working relationship with a remix of "Best Before" that lollops at such a stunted pace even 45 rpm sounds too slow. It's mutant dance beats at their most disfigured and it's hard to envision this sort of music coming from anyone else right now. Given the anonymous nature of the original material, Downliners Sekt are quite apt choices to remould "Crumbs" into a track that lurches in the lower recesses of speaker fuzz before rising into a paranoid rhythmic stutter that can easily be branded post-burial if you care not to focus on its textural intricacies. Finally, Rush Hour regular BNJMN provides the most floor appropriate revision with a focused techno groove that gradually becomes drenched in melodic warmth.

Review: The Orbital Bliss EP provides four further expansive journeys into the outer reaches of the techno galaxy courtesy of Mr Patrice Scott, commencing in the ambient soundscape of "Tones & Things", the swaying chord sequences embellished by minor meteor fields of off key hats and luscious textures. From this gently utopian opener, "Oberon" finds Scott in more floor orientated mood, fizzing analogue textures swarming around the gloopy beat, whilst the expanses are filled with similarly futuristic strains of melody and texture. On the flip, the title track locks into a tighter, more introverted groove with simplistic rhythms allowing the gradual rise of hypnotic textural patterns the chance to hypnotise. Proceedings are turned inside out on the subsequent rechord version from Scott, with a much more strident beat relegating the kaleidoscopic textures to the dubby recesses, before the track explodes into blossoming incandescence midway through.