Jesse Rose is a name that’s been popping up all over the place in dance music for the last couple of years, often alongside visionary cohorts like Switch and Sinden. He’s been touted as dance music’s ‘Next Big Thing; thanks to his ability to bring together a multitude of stylistic influences and craft them into what’s becoming known, love the label or hate it, as ‘fidget house’. What Do You Do If You Don’t? is his debut album and it’s been getting a lot of hype – any artist being credited with the birth of a genre is a pretty big deal. So how does it hold up?

The album opens with Forget My Name, with Hot Chip’s Joe on vocal duties, which has been getting quite a bit of airplay leading up to Rose’s Australian tour. The track sets up the boppy Berlin influence that streaks through the album, as well as flaunting Rose’s ability to weave clubland and pop gear with credibility intact. It’s cheeky, to use Rose’s own description, and so also sets the tone of an album that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The next track, Well Now boasts a sudden change in style. It’s built around a sample that could be a steel drum band, a big spike on the backbeat, and growling old-man vocals that sound like they’ve come from a 1930s blues record. From here the album moves back into slightly harder-edged dancefloor stuff with stand-out tracks including Asided and Miss Taker, featuring the vocal stylings of David E. Sugar. The jazzy Night At The Dogs samples Mr Scuff so heavily it should probably be called a remix, and the gentle Never Ending closes the album off with a smooth groove.

Like many great albums, it’s easy to listen to What Do You Do If You Don’t?, piece together a pretty vast array of influences, and marvel at how they’ve somehow been moulded into cohesion. Take the irreverent gaiety of Jacknife Lee, the production finesse of Trentemoller and the clarity of Deadmau5 and you begin to get an idea of where Jesse Rose fits in. Fidget house is fun. It’s refreshing to hear something that’s fun and that is this well made. It’s like a harder, all-house version of Basement Jaxx.

Rose’s touch is characterised by short, overt musical stabs and a frequently changing tone that nearly always lies on the good side of upbeat. His melodies are short, simple snatches and the basslines grinding, funky beasts that are aimed squarely at the dancefloor. The percussion brings together the meticulous arrangement of minimal with more predictable – though unfailingly pristine – four-to-the-floor house beats. There are pop vocals and clean hip hop samples. There are collaborations, horn blasts and that old favourite, the programmed Steven Hawking voice (otherwise known as the vocoder). There is, basically, something for everyone – and that’s the best thing about an album primed to become a dance classic.

Check out the tracklisting…

01. Forget My Name ft. Hot Chip
02. Well Now
03. Pop Yer Porn
04. Miss Taker ft. David E Sugar
05. Wine Gum
06. Asided
07. Night At The Dogs
08. Day Is Done ft. Hot Chip
09. Heavy Still ft. Afra & The Incredible Beatbox Band
10. You’re All Over My Head
11. Touch My Horn
12. Never Ending