Huxley’s prolific march for deep house domination continues with another strong release, this time on Tsuba. Here we’re treated to two originals and a double dose of remix action from MK.
‘No Matter What’ is classic Huxley, opening with a vocal hook that’ll spend seven minutes crawling into your ear and much longer than that trying to get back out again. It’s complemented with thick globules of bass that bubble to an infectious groove, whilst warm silky stabs flow luxuriously over the top. The elements themselves aren’t revolutionary, falling neatly into the category of ‘2012 house’ but it’s the restrained grace with which Huxley layers them that makes this track. His gentle manipulation of the vocal, the constant movement of the stabs or the subtle coagulation of the bass. As the groove threatens to wear off, a tickling staccato synth and lazer shots lure the rhythm away from the bass-line, lifting the track into an airy break. The stabs make a dash for the fore, evaporating into dense, heavily laden clouds that swell and burst as the regrouped low-end reclaims its position and sucks the track back down to earth. Smoothly touching down to familiar analog undulation in a condensed drop of dance floor elation.
‘Can’t Sleep’ offsets the EP’s title track with something a little darker for those who prefer their house without vocals. Rippling pads break over jagged chords and are swept away by an undercurrent of powerful sub bass. A percussive bass-line haphazardly tries to hammer down it’s own rhythm but is caught in the maelstrom between extreme lows swelling under antagonistic blasts of synth. The combatting frequencies and niggling shaker give ‘Can’t Sleep’ a jittery feel, if it doesn’t keep you shifting awkwardly all night then it’ll certainly do the job for nearly six minutes.
MK turns in a classic house version for his remix of ‘No Matter What’. He deftly dices the vocal into, arguably, even more catchy snippets than the original. His bouncing woodlog bass-line skips gleefully under tight, stunted hats. In favour of the ubiquitous breakdown MK opts for dropping everything out and re-imagining the bottom end, changing it up to support new vocal chops and a chiming melody. His dub isn’t totally devoid of vocal, keeping the smaller cuts and stretching it out in it’s entirety for the breaks, whilst re-arranging the underlying track to maximise the nostalgic pleasure garnered from its bass line.
Tsuba have really delivered here, with the combined notoriety of Huxley and MK and all of the tracks being equally playable you can expect to hear the ‘No Matter What’ EP a lot over the next few months.
Huxely – No Matter What + MK Remixes (Tsuba) Drops Nov 12th
Rating 8/10