Various Artists – Lunes De Fiel Vol. 1
Not content with providing a sprawling platform for Italo acts new and old with Bordello A Parigi, Otto Kraanen’s latest project is to launch a house music sub-label. Given his track record, it’s fair to assume that Bitter Moon will be a lovingly curated and tastefully packaged imprint and won’t add to the slew of two-dimensional nouveau deep house records begin released weekly.
Uncanny Valley artist Credit 00 is on impressive form with “Love Alone”, though the track falls short of the hyperbolic – and grammatically questionable – description offered by the label as “a director’s cut of a downhill Indiana Jones on LSD fighting hungry alligators at the riverside of the Elbe valley”. Nonetheless it does offer a neat line in eerie synths that curl up invitingly in trippy swirls and a purring, mid-tempo bassline. Wasted Gaze’s “Temporary Chills” is more rudimentary-sounding. Heavily inspired by Chicago house, its bass and Rhodes keys warble cheerily in unison as snares crash and hollowed out drums keep the whole thing together.
Then there’s Skatebård. As anyone who has tried to collect his records will attest, the Norwegian producer’s releases sell quickly and, it is sad to say, command high prices online, including his “Love in the Night” release on Bordello. “Answer Search Someone” is an unusual track. Bolstered by doubled-up claps throughout, it revolves around a bassline that could be lifted from an old UK progressive house record on Guerrilla and features a speak and spell vocal intoning the track’s title.
Even the chords that sweep in as the arrangement progresses have that sense of staged drama that used to sound so compelling on old Drum Club or early Leftfield records. This being Skatebård, things never go quite to plan and there are some off kilter keys to contend with later on. Going on this first release, it is possible that Bitter Moon will provide the shot in the arm to house music that Bordello administered to Italo.
Richard Brophy
Tracklisting:
A1. Skatebård – Answer Search Someone
B1. Wasted Gaze – Temporary Chills
B2. Credit 00 – Love Alone