ABOUT THIS ITEM

It's been a year since this cat first registered on my radar - "Trust" still finding a firm place near the front of my record bag whenever playing out in the field. He still remains criminally underrated in my opinion, but since then he's pricked the ears of Harvey via the Backwoods remix of his seminal debut. Annyway, here's his next release on Groovement (my non-stop-shop for outdoor, housey vibes) and it features the exceptional talents of Detroit's Jerry The Cat on the B-side! Let's start with "Eleven2cosmos" - a deep house burner on the organic side of production. Congas, pads, twinklings of 303 and a catchy vocal refrain discussing the cosmos make this one of the blueprint deep house tracks that just works, with all the instrumentation and arrangement being cleverly and subtly put together. "Antro" has bigger hooks and catchier melodies making this one for the busier, more pumping main rooms than the eyes-down deepness of the first track. Again however, Vahagn demonstrates his prowess in drum programming, synth work and instrumentation, with the whole track sounding sophisticated and timeless. On the flip is "Shades & Shadows" - the money shot if you ask me. Jerry the Cat provides percussion, DiamondDancer the vocals and Anthony John on 'impossible guitars' (bare with me, they do come about halfway through - heavily flanging and cascading). Anyway, it’s a driving 9-minute tech-house epic, with a nagging acid line, sublime key changes and atmospherics plus a great organic drum palette which should see it beamed across outdoor terraces the world over. We get big long breakdowns with some empowering vocals strewn across them before dropping back into the hugely enveloping groove. The guitar licks that rip through the mix towards the end give this a very contextual psychedelic edge which seems to be the in-thing right now. Strictly for extended nightclub use!

A1. Eleven2cosmos
A2. Antro
B1. Shades & Shadows