Bubbling, detailed, beautifully-worked house music from the Parisian. I Want You tracks a jazz-not-jazz snippet of piano onto the dance floor; The Way You Look At Things steals the show, with its meticulous, highly evocative layering, and clipped, bewitched swing. Outstanding More

Rene's return to Blank Slate, one year on, with two further excursions in grooving, minimal, dubwise house music, moody and haunted; a kind of widescreen steppers, Berlin style. Right from the off, the Cywilizacja sequel is one step beyond, with hectic, scattered claps, and filter effects running into the distance. Again, melody and ambience are conjured from the moans and whispers of old films, but more pressingly than before. Half-submerged synths stick close to the hard-driving 808 beat. Midway, the elements become unglued, slipping out of synch, going off on their own... before the bizarre climax. Lamia retains the disquiet but eases up a little on the theatrics. Bobbling bass and queasy pads pock the orchestral miasma; some singing whipped from a student Tarkovsky opens the way forward for the bones of a rhythm.

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Blank Slate presents the debut of the Düve project, a collaboration between Soren Jahan and Ali Çakir. Combining live recorded drums and
instrumentation, samples from vintage 78s, internet videos and analogue electronics, this fifth instalment holds nothing back. Karv starts out with a brisk pace, jarring acoustic drumming held together by a sly shuffling 808 beat with a brooding syncopated bassline. Hints of Santur and robust, crackling horn explorations bring the duo's Turkish influences directly to the dancefloor. Woman steps back from the smoky fervour of the A1. John Evangelista takes centre stage on the bouzouki amidst echoing steps, soaring clarinet and bare-bones rhythmic accompaniment. Winding, filtered hand drums and flutes provide the counterpoint. Streets changes gears entirely. Brutal, unrelenting shouts and live street dance bands cut up between two duelling drum sequences in 9/8. Somewhere between breakbeat, collage and alternative house music, not for the faint of heart.
Closing the EP in style, 660 takes things further. A synthesizer voice, alternately gravelly, droning and forlorn, takes flight supported by thundering, tripping percussion. A nine minute excursion with a climactic melodic peak, the way only Jahan and Çakir know how.

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Bergstrom cuts to the chase: cavernous, reverbed chords, slicing high hats and steely snares strapped to a sinewy 909 kick, with a siren droning faintly in the background. Four-to-the-floor Ekaterina is the fever dream of funky house: icy hats and reverbs trick out a heavily filtered synth and a heaving sample of vintage polka. Kicking off the flip, more war: State And Revolution evokes a kind of long march beneath forbidding skies, its occasional skirmishes between razor sharp hats and muted claps blanketed by echoing synth stabs. Finally, Damperhof draws the curtains and departs the dancefloor: a mournful, impressionistic cello, a slow throb, a little acid, sombre chords bouncing around the ruins... this is Mirko at his most expressive.

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