review

EP Review: Crying Over You - J Cub feat. Bibi

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​Crying Over You - J Cub feat. Bibi

​Crying Over You is the latest EP to come out of the Saints & Sonnets, Huxley and Jimmy Poster's label.

J Cub is actually Jacob Kelly and here he teams up with vocalist Bibi to create​ a blissfully laid back house track. Slow, soulful vocals from Bibi front a track of tight hi-hats, warm pads and a gently rumbling bass. The original track isn't even remotely aimed at the dance floor - it is a pure, chilled house record for lazy days by the pool.

Instead two remixes have responsibility for​ creating something to make you move and so the original is actually bookended by these two mixes. BNJMN's take opens the EP and it's an organic-feeling dub of the original. The vocals are edited to turn them into additional instrumentation within the record and the track strikes a series of uplifting chords - the layered percussion create something less dense than a house track, closer to the soulful spin on dubstep that Joy Orbison has had such success with, albeit slower.

​The closing remix comes from Dial's RNDM and it is the most conventional of the three versions here. The vocal is cut up and spliced across the track's length, giving it a deep, sensual sound. It still ultimately retains the laid back feeling of the original but layers in some faster low-end bass lines resulting in a more progressive house feel.

Whilst the original is a pleasingly chilled effort it is the BNJMN mix that really shines here.​

Crying Over You is released through Saints & Sonnets on 14 August on 12", following thereafter digitally.​

Album Review: Things That Fade - Greeen Linez

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​Greeen Linez is a collaboration between Chris Greenberg (of British electronic pop band Hong Kong In The 60s) and UK-born but Tokyo-based for founder for the Disktopia label Matt Lyne. The duo released an eponymous EP through Diskotopia last year but next week sees the release of the full length album Things That Fade.

Unsurprisingly there is a definite Japanese influence to the Greeen Linez sound but it's perhaps subtler than you would expect, surfaced through the occasional Eastern style melodies and percussion. 'City Cell 2' slowly folds in layers of oriental sounding bells and thick, gloppy bass to create something part Asian, part European in sound.

​Things That Fade - Greeen Linez

The combination of both European and Japanese pop and R&B are gently stirred into dance and jazz influences - even a bit of kitsch muzak - to create a somewhat vertically challenged album. It is difficult to imagine doing much whilst listening to Things That Fade but one rather suspects that is entirely the point.

I seem to be being overwhelmed a little with albums of 80s inspired music perfect for soundtracking lazy days on Mediterranean beaches too but this is certainly well done. The jazzy guitar work on 'Knowledge' is an undeniable treat whilst both 'Palm Coast Freeway' and 'Hibiscus Pacific' sparkle like a dive into pure cyan blue coolness. The latter, with roomy echoing percussion and big warm disco keys is a loving tribute to the decades of music both Greenberg and Matt Lyne grew up listening to - listen to it in the player above.

Things That Fade is released through Diskotopia on 13 August​, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3.

EP Review: Midnight City - Balthazar

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Midnight City - Balthazar​

On this new release through Pulsewith Balthazar creates seperate distinct moods across the four tracks that make up his Midnight City EP.

A taught, swirling pressurised summer house track, 'Midnight City' builds through layers of strumming bass and female vocals to create a fairly straight up but catchy track. It is the loose, echoing feel of the rhythm section that sticks, capturing the hot feeling of the night time urban watershed moment the title references.

'Sons of Guns' is a slower and more foreboding offering - synths pick out melodies that create interference with a slightly labour-intensive bassline whilst the sound of distorted gasps of air punctuate the record, representing the windy deserts of the Westerns that inspire this track. It's a dark and cruel sounding environment, the occasional jangling guitar lines not the kind of thing you expect on a house record.

'Hopefully' is more urban and with a hint of the sleaze of Matthew Dear's gloriously debauched 'You Put A Smell On Me'. It's a thick, chunky track of deep electronic bass and robotic rhythms with a dramatic white noise ghost train peak and it's the tightest track offered up here.

The EP finishes on 'In The Face Of Death', a more ambient track than the others. It's a whirl of clicks and warm pads that builds to a cavernous, hollow sounding bass line that ends the release on a suitably climatic note.

Midnight City is released today through Pulsewith.​

Album Review: The Call - Spitzer

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​The Spitzer brothers looking gloomy

Spitzer's album has been some time in the making with two years passing since their debut EP Roller Coaster.

It was time well invested though. Over the years brothers Damien and Matthieu have flirted with styles, moving through alternative rock to remixes of Kylie to, well... This. The Call feels like it borrows elements of the brothers' earlier experiences to create an overall much more enticing proposition. The dark near-gothic post-punk sensibilities combined with dirty clicks and pops and stark minimal in a way very reminiscent of Ivan Smagghe and the original Black Strobe incarnation he featured in.

​​The Call is likened by the promo material to a seventies prog rock record despite its electronic focus due to it's narrative arc and all encompassing diversity. I'm not sure I can read as much into the album's concept as the person trying to shift the units but the variety is certainly present. The record quickly shifts from building techno on 'Marsch', the kind of clanging acidic monster Simian Mobile Disco would make, to the live rhythms and sinister guitars of the cinematic 'Madigan'.

Guest vocals further change up the pace. Vocalist Fab, of Frustration (signed to the Parisian label Born Bad), turns in a rampant and breathless performance on 'Clunker'. It's less "good" than it is alive, messy and grabbing you for your attention but it doesn't totally fall flat either.

Kid A, who collaborated with the duo on their previous EP, provides a stronger contribution on the haunting 'Too Hard To Breathe'. The vocals are delicate and statuesque - like Björk buried in layers of grime, fuzzy bass and syncopated beats.

It's the instrumental work that stays the course and will come back to you though - the thick distortion and subtle Adonis 'No Way Back'-style bass of 'Breaking The Waves' and the shattered reverb and drone of 'Sergen'.

Spitzer have made a compelling and imaginative debut - dark and sparse and yet intricate.

The Call is released through InFiné on 3 September 2012.