Track of the Day: Klaus - Neph

Strolling back home through a dusky industrial estate, I remembered an artist long forgotten from my musical memory bank: Klaus. So, putting my headphones on, I plugged into 'Neph' (his follow up from the amazing Tusk EP on R&S).

Lo and behold, the surroundings of the sun bathing gloomy factories and warehouses began to fit with the track. Sparse, skipping basslines intertwined with an echoing piano and saxophone (no Careless Whisper here, thank you) meld the piece into a blissful, warm comedown tinged with an element of sadness.

Nothing more can be said about the genius that is Klaus, merely heard. A man who blends elements of true musicality alongside the piecing together of fragments from the genre-formerly-known-as-dubstep.

Track of the Day: Vakula - Picture of You

Call me an amateur if you like, but I can get very bored by the current trend of grainy, analogue music...

 Maybe it's because some of it never changes, maybe it's those off-kilter, discordant synths; either way, I always feel like a typical idiot listening to a house track: always asking when it's going to "drop". However, no longer shall my boredom prevail, (at least for today), as I have found Vakula's 'Picture of You': a track that really has changed my mind on this musical phenomenon....

As bit crushed hi hats take turns with bursts of white noise, an arpeggiated, daydreaming synth adds a sense of otherworldly disarray to the song. However, it's not long until soft pads enter in and take a slight edge off the song, easing us into the bridge...

 Oh, the bridge, a heady blend of hands-up euphoria, suited and booted for Panorama Bar or just about any nightclub in the world.

As Hardwax would say, (and I am unoriginally stealing): "TIP!"

Track of the Day: Roman IV (Roman Flügel) - 'Cairo'.

 Via my love for the well known and rather stomping remix of More&more&more, I somehow stumbled upon Mr Flügel's alias Roman IV (the housier side of his recordings). Amongst said stumbling, I found the beautiful breaks of 'Cairo', from the very hard to find 1995 Roman IV release. 

 As the track's stuttering break beat and bass line wiggle their way into the ear drums, luscious pads gloss gently over the groove and repeating vocal sample; adding a harmonious balance to a track which is heavy enough to be played in a peak time set or somewhere in the middle to keep them kids dancing (if you're at all arsed about that malarkey).

 Anyway, what I find interesting about the track is that it brings to mind the 90's rave nostalgia found in early Joy Orbison or Head High, which makes sense I guess... However, unlike those hep cats I am not ashamed to admit that in 1995 I was not munching pills, but eating mushed up Weetabix with bananas and watching morning repeats of Biker Mice on Mars.

On a side note, can we please have an international Roman Flügel day instead of all this Ed Balls?