Time for a couple of suitably summery house 12″s me thinks. While Paul Leonid Smith’s release schedule has never been too top-heavy it’s still been 3 years (longer than I actually initially thought) since his last 12″, on Sistrum. It was a solid affair if not quite as strong as previous releases and while he is still keeping it as deep as ever with his new release on burgeoning Dutch label Photic Fields this is his strongest to date, so it’s a very welcome return from the Irish man. It also continues what’s really been a strong year of releases for irish producers and labels. Actually, the last Photic Fields was from Irish wunderkid Automatic Tasty, back in February.
“67” fades in like it has been gently simmering along in deep space regardless of who’s listening, and it sets the tone perfectly for the 3 tracker. Rumbling deep bass and perfectly timed, gentle kicks carry it’s soothing intonations all the way through. “SD2” keeps things as deep as before but with a subtle acid line easing up the drama just the smallest amount, with a lovely strings refrain floating around in the background to great effect. There’s a studied restraint on show which is hard to do right. Get it wrong and you’ve got a go-nowhere deep house snoozeathon, get it right, and you’ve got a lush, hypnotic jam perfectly suited for sunny eves. Smith has got it bang on with the 2 A cuts here. Things slip every so sligthly on the b-cut “Random Waves”. It works in a similar style as the previous two cuts but I think it’s that washed out dubby synth that’s centre stage that makes it drag a little bit for me. It’s one of those classic house sounds that I’ve always been able to take or leave. It’s still a pretty solid affair but the 2 A cuts are the killers here.
Erdbeershchitzel is a name I’ve been vaguely aware of before. It may well just be because it’s such a mouthful as I can’t actually recall any of his music previous to this. Also, Delsin is not a label I check as often as I used to, so the new Cushions EP was a really welcome surprise. To get it out of the way I suppose one can look at Theo and Floating Points as reference points for the music, but I’m not gonna bother waffling on about that. These are quirky, sunkissed and fairly thumping house jams that while containing a nearly overly compressed wall of sound still manage to have a lilting organic edge. The opening title track is focused around what could easily be a riff on a flute, nicely off setting the deep kicks and crunching percussion, with a subtle but euphoric bassline buried into the mix.
After such a graceful opener the release actually becomes unstuck on “Am Bassele”. It’s just too cluttered and the nice ideas it has going on get lost in the mush. But the Ep’s highlight is the slowburning “Crossroads” on the B. The tempo is reduced though the kick is as heavy as before. Swirling keys reveal themselves in a nicely relaxed, drawn out fashion, and really that’s the general character of the song, until it breaks nearly 2/3rds of the way through. The breakdown threatens to come in at least twice before it finally drops, a patience carried over from what came before. But then everything that was slowly eased in before hand is thrown together and some more; the song closes out as a crunching, psychedelic slab of funk. It’s a busy mix, but is pulled off with some aplomb. It’s been getting many repeats spins in the last week and will as long as summer keeps being, yknow, summery.