Unbeknownst to me, Mladen Solomun has been making a name for himself on the house scene in the last 4 years, culminating in his leadership of the Hamburg-based Diynamic label and with the release of Dance Baby, his full-length debut album.

We begin with Country Song, which immediately sets the tone for the remainder of the album, relying heavily on a funky (but ultimately repetitive) live bass loop. Boys In The Hood continues the dark funky mood relying on some sparse but effective electronic percussion (that is, programmed and not played live), until we come to Cloud Dancer which features the very first vocal cut of the album. By the time you reach Hypnotize and After Rain Comes Sun, you start to settle into the groove and actually enjoy the repetitious nature of Solomun’s sound. And by no means when i say “repetitive” do I mean it strictly in a negative sense, for in this case the selection of sounds that have been chosen to be repeated happen to be good ones, and not a detriment to the overall sound at all. As you ease into Midnight Snack, the formula thus far seems to consist of a very short bassline loop, simple and minimal drums, chord stabs here and there but no extended solos or live playing, programmed percussion, and with little to none of the signature ‘buildup/climax’ you get in most house songs. One gets the sense that cherry-picking certain tracks isn’t the way to go when trying to engage with this album. It needs to be absorbed from beginning to end with no interruptions, otherwise it sounds like nothing is actually happening. One minor gripe I have is a simple re-ordering of the last two songs, it felt like Forever was the REAL end to the journey that Story Of My Life was trying to be.

There is certainly a minimalist charm to these 11 songs (I’m woefully unfamiliar with Solomun’s previous work), which can turn the listener in either direction: appreciation (of the subtle nature of the minimalism), or dislike (of the largely repetitive quality of the songs). Indeed, the coin can land on either side depending on the listener. In my case, I’ve had my head and heart in house music for almost a decade, and “Dance Baby” provides me with a polarising reaction. These songs don’t do much or go anywhere spectacular. They’re not orchestral-laden like a Rasmus Faber track, or heavy on the songwriting like a Lisa Shaw song, or even complex in its arrangements like any old deep/funky Masters At Work cut. So what exactly does an album like this mean to me?

There seems to be almost nothing really happening, yet it’s in the absence of orchestra, complex arrangements and “songwriting” that we find Solomun’s groove. It slides comfortably into a decent bass riff, then add the beat, splash bits & pieces to give some slight sparkle, but not to fill the void entirely. Even the standard ‘buildups’ don’t really explode, but rather coolly drift back into the groove. And in the end you have a rather hypnotising album that flows much more like a minimal DJ set than anything else. Whether or not this remains to be a good thing, is again a matter left up to the individual’s own tastes and limits (like anything else in life). Dance Baby is predominantly a modern ode to the house music of old, an open-hearted love letter to sparser sounds that birthed the various incarnations of house we all love and enjoy today.