Deep Art

Mmmm, I’m really, really loving Ewan Pearson’s new collaboration with Al Usher as Partial Arts, their first in a while. Trauermusik is out on Kompakt, the first time to my knowledge that Pearson has released original material on the label. Anyway, what I love about ‘Trauermusik’ is its wonderful warmth, the way the strings, woodwind and deep house chords are fused with a more contemporary squelchy electronic bass. It’s not hard to imagine that ‘Trauermusik’ will be the ideal soundtrack to this summer’s smaller dance fests -  it’s the kind of music that lends itself to loafing on the grass (or astroturf) on a sunny day, beer in hand, looking up at the clear skies. I didn’t really ‘get’ Alter Ego’s remix. It’ll probably be really successful, thanks to its ‘Rocker’-like riff, but surely Flugel and Wuttke are capable of better things than a standard grinding bass number? Another release to combine old school house musicality with the click, whirr and shuffle of modern production techniques is Lopazz’s new release for Get Physical, Share My Rhythm. Lopazz hasn’t released anything on the label in nearly three years -  it’s not that he’s very slow in the studio, but rather that he does ‘other’ music to pay the bills and plays in a live band. Anyway, his comeback is full of sweet, uplifting chords and squelchy, bass-heavy rhythm with hints of minimalist edginess. Whether or not 07 will see an explosion of similar ‘deepinal’ tracks is irrelevant -  these comeback records will hopefully transcend classification…