Touching Bass Vinyl & CDs

Review: Young South London dance veteran Ben Hauke delivers a worthy full-length LP for Touching Bass, Club Cute, a self-described love letter to the city's club culture. Feeling outwards from his establishing, Rye Wax-adjacent EPs and 12"s - which sounded more rooted in 4x4 house, albeit with an unmistakably SE-tinged wonky bent - Hauke's latest here leans further into the broken beats and UK garages more befitting of a full-length dance record. Welcoming a star cast of vocal and production plus-ones to the party (Jadasea, Brother Portrait, Shy One, even Katy B (!)), the effortless feel of UK club culture, particularly the midnight moods endemic to quote-unquote 'SELDN' and its many nighttime haunts in centres like Peckham, Deptford, New Cross and Bermondsey, is felt lightheartedly - cutely - throughout.