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(Om/Stomp)
The tenth release in a series of quality music from San Fran house label, Om Records, known for hosting such legendary artists as Mark Farina and Kaskade. The ‘Lounge’ series seems to just keep getting better with quality tracks from old hands, J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science, to young producers Shazzam. This whole album oozes cool and it guaranteed to chill out and nod your head with 14 tracks of nu-jazz, downbeat, broken beat and deep house.
The lush vocals of the opening track by Samantha James, ‘Rise’, is a beautiful way to kick things off. Nice upbeat undertones and a powerful voice set the tone for this release. It is interesting to hear Joey Youngman’s track, ‘Gotta Be Love’, as it is much different to most of his releases that I am familiar with. Intermittent scratching and snippets of vocals samples are heard amongst a myriad of soft swinging horns. A must for interested Youngman fans.
Next is the bluesy guitar riff of Stolen Identity’s, ‘Argentina’. Nice heavy beats almost make is the track overbearing, but pull up just in time. The dreamy vocals of Jianda, in Jianda & Patchen’s, ‘Wish’, are the standout for me on this album. It is absolute bliss listening to her and is worth the price of the CD alone. The funky brokenbeat that accompanies it is guaranteed to stick in your head long after the track is finished.
J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science’s track makes brilliant use of what I thought was a fairly underutilised instrument in modern dance music, until I heard it appear on a few track on this album, the flute. I now view this wind instrument in a whole new light after listening to ‘Chopsticks’. Next up is a real jazz vibe from newcomer, Simeon, with ‘Not Feelin This’, soulful vocals, funky drum licks and subtle horns make this track very smooth.
Another producer who most househeads would be familiar with, JT Donaldson, gives us a more downbeat number than his usual work, with an instrumental house track. However, compared to the other tracks on this CD, it is quite upbeat. A funky main sax line will have you nodding your head and shaking your hips off the couch and onto the dancefloor.
All in all a quality release and definitely worth checking out if you are into downbeat or downtempo house. My only criticism is that a lot of tracks are ridiculously similar, a bit more diversity amongst the choices wouldn’t have gone astray.
