Mood Hut Vinyl & CDs

Review: Apodelia is Hotspring's second solo release on Mood Hut; the record is partly a further exploration of song forms, studio techniques and instrumentation explored on 2020's Obit For Sunshade. This latest addition to the artistic moniker of Scott Gailey Spring explores lifting into revealing; scouring fidelities, playing with emotion, and improvising by night. A timestretched, textural nocturne is painted in sound, echoing a more contemporary incarnation of mid-'10s Mister Lies; the glassy piano refractions of 'Glanzstrasse 6', the ripply audio-pools and autotunings of 'Organ With Fire' and the beat-cracklings of 'Day Moment' are all highlights.

Review: Seven years on from the release of his decidedly loved-up vocal deep house classic, 'Thirstin', Mood Hut co-founder Jack Jutson is finally ready to return to action - albeit with an album that might surprise those who've not paid attention to the inrtricacies of his blazed, glassy-eyed trademark sound. Opening The Door is less concerned with deep house dancefloors than much of the Canadian's previous work; instead, it applies his famously warm, jazz-funk and stoner boogie inspired instrumentation to AOR, yacht rock, Chris Rea (opener 'If You Don't Know Why' is like a cool, 21st century take on 'On The Beach'), West Coast jazz-rock, ambient jazz and mid-80s European Balearic dub. It makes perfect sonic sense and could well turn out to be one of the albums of summer 2022.

Review: Sydney-to-Vancouver dance debonair Jack J presents Blue Desert, his second album for Mood Hut. Friends of the label will know J's sound - warming house musical pumps come deep future Balearics - and yet on Blue Desert, we hear the sound tempered by a newfound indie vocal performance by J himself, and that's not to mention its expansive tracklist-trajectory, which, when followed in full, details a head-hung but still hopeful tale of rue and recompense. Of the highlights, opener 'Wrong Again' opts for the true-blue choice of a DX7 organ blearily blent with an open chorded jangle guitar and a sequencer-gated trance line, as J muses on taking a past life too seriously; 'Down The Line' brings impressive Oort clouds of reverse reverb and desert new wave; and 'My Other Mind' even echoes Squeeze, as J continues to lyricise over misunderstandings and perspectival shifts on life. Sight of the dance is not lost, however; 'Pink Shoes (part III)' ends things on a gushing iso-stab, rendering the beach disco in clear-as-day clarity, just over the dunes, at the foreshore's end.

Review: Mood Hut's semi-regular forays into ambient-adjacent territory are always worth checking, largely for their preference for hallucinatory sounds, new age melodies and loved-up textures over academic concepts and po-faced experimentalism. Their latest chill-out room friendly missive, which comes courtesy of Chinese producer Knopha, embraces this approach while also offering nods to his own off-kilter dancefloor productions. So, opener 'Fizz', a languid, post-club shuffler, is followed by the jazz-flecked, opiate ambient soul of 'The Light', and the sun-bright joy of 'Mizu Le Gout', where loose-limbed breakbeats, star-burst melodies and cut-up vocal snippets catch the ear. Arguably best of all, though, is the EP-closing 'Corundrum', where Mediterranean guitar sounds and echoing electronic motifs cluster around a UK garage-influenced ambient house groove.

Review: There are not very many labels that are as successful and revered in electronic music as Mood Hut is, coming up with gem after gem after its inception in 2012. 'Water Seeds' by Oro Azul offers four tracks that range from sub-aquatic, mellow and relaxing to tribal percussiveness that really takes things to another level. A little more chilled out than their normal output, perhaps, but certainly not a massive departure, there are some serious island vibes here.