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I imagine Toby Tobias, an Englishman, travels to the continent a lot. During these travels I reckon he’d drop by Prins Thomas’ house to catch up over a cuppa when in Norway. Maybe Chateau Flight when in France. Then when Stateside it would be a visit to Environ in New York. If venturing all the way to Australia he’d hit the Future Classic headquarters. So now I don’t have to talk about which genre of electronic music we conveniently fit Toby Tobias into.
Toby Tobias has made a name for himself making cutting-edge music for slower dancefloors. He’s put out semi well-known releases on Bear Funk and Tiny Sticks, but found a wider of an audience recently with a slew of cuts on Rekids. The label, headed by Matt Edwards (aka Radio Slave/half of Quiet Village ), has now released Space Shuffle, Tobias’ first LP.
It’s a collection of 15 tracks rather than a whole piece of interwoven music like some other electronic records. The tracks don’t necessarily blend and build together as one throughout. His big ones from the past are here – the Italo-Disco workout Close Shave (which was played by the DJ talent above) as well as Dave’s Sex Bits, the beautiful yet pounding piece that borders on Balearic with a touch of Steve Lawler-like tribal. But the newer stuff is where the treasure lies, particularly the tracks featuring Kathy Diamond. The Feeling is a slow-burning groover with nods to Donald Byrd discovering modern electronics. The songwriting is nothing spectacular, but Toby Tobias does well to craft not just tracks but a few songs.
What this album does do is straddle that weird world that exists between dancefloor, post-club lounge room, and headphones. There are naturally a few numbers that would work in a good tech-house DJ’s set. And while it does of course comprise elements of disco with live sounding instrumentation (including a xylophone) the similarities to that style is due more to the album’s pace rather than its sonic detail, which is very polished and modern. And try to ignore the cover art, which is more Eurovision artist than Rekids star.
Space Shuffle is out now through Rekids/Inertia.
