Dirtybird Records chief Claude VonStroke has been teasing us with the prospect of his long awaited follow up album ‘Urban Animals’ for quite some time now, particularly catching our attentions with snippets of ‘The Clapping Track’ and ‘Can’t Wait’ surfacing online back in July. Barclay Crenshaw is somewhat a satisfier of the masses amongst the underground electronic music community. With his distinguished sound renowned for befitting many a club related setting, some would expect the bewhiskered bossman to have lost at least some integrity but he has stomped back onto the scene with a killer set of tracks.
For his third LP he is once again pushing the boundaries of the conventional house sound, as well as scattering his signature playful bass lines and joyous synths throughout. Unsurprisingly some of the album highlights are found in the collaborations, the Barry Drift featuring track sounds like a tranquilised Tiga esque beat, making it nothing short of fantastic. MC Fox’s tight dancehall sounding vocals boom over personal favourite Oakland Rope working flawlessly with the D&B beat and harmonies from Py. CVS has even made what sounds like sampling from a Nintendo game, into an unblemished ditty with Plasma Jelly.
The full album is available for streaming below, make of it what you will, but there’s no denying the virtuoso has an acute skill for producing catchy rhythms that are equally as fun as they are forward thinking. Well worth a listen and a round of applause.
Claude VonStroke – Urban Animal LP (Drops September 24th)