Dave Seaman’s Audio Therapy label occasionally does some very good things. What it does consistently is keep it real with quality electronic offerings from up-front artists. Fresh and forward thinking it is, but the brilliance doesn’t always shine through - which is evident in the Spring/Summer 2008 album. Although available in a mixed format really this album is more about showcasing a collection of artists that put material out on the label, and there’s nought wrong with that considering were talking about artists of such calibre as Jim Rivers and Popof.
Tiger Stripes is first up with STHLM Hussle - a genre-defying slab of chunky house with layer after layer of melody in the way only he (a la the awesome Survivor) could get away with. This is actually a really great track, uplifting and driving with an insistent bassline - but the vocal snippets are a little bit annoying. Tom Neville & Gower Ramsey follows on with a slower tempo piece of deep, tech-house, The Druid, which has a phat bass frequency and some nice arpeggios towards the end but to be honest, is a little forgettable. Mizfitz’s Whiskey Den Ruff is unfortunately more of the same; a nice tight piece of tech-house but somewhat uninspiring.
The prolific Jim Rivers is up next turning in a twisting, deep bassline, late night bleeper that really is rather good. Extremely druggy, you could place the awesomely named Right Side of Wrong on the dark dance floor of DC10. Popof and Nina’s Blablabla is, for me, the best track on the album and is what attracted me to this package in the first place. A simple melody underpins some phased percussion, dropping into some squelchy acid and TB-303 style bass. Nice simple stuff but really working. It’s at the break when the track comes into its own with a trademark Popof LFO bass riff – which is a real roof raiser, but when the bass drops back in you just know it’s gonna’ be working the floor. Fans of Oxia’s mix of Butch - On the Line will like this – and that is no small compliment.
At this point the album loses momentum and I start to lose interest. All the tracks I wanted to hear are behind us and the second half of the album is a variation on a theme – big and/or nasty bass, minimal melody, tech-housey grooves. There’s nothing really wrong with any of them but there’s no progression in the mix at this stage. But I do like the Eelke Klejin track It All Comes Together that is cleverly sequenced as an album finisher. Tight, almost break-beat, drums drive the track forward but the arpeggios, strings and squelchy bass sit so well with each other giving us a great example of what is missing on this album, a well-polished track, but still not the stuff of legend by any means.
If you were lucky enough to pick up the vinyl sampler with the Popof, Jim Rivers, MOS and Tiger Stripes tracks you’d be thoroughly confused to note that the tracks were listed in exactly the opposite way they should be. Perhaps a future collectors item, but they did capture three of the best tracks of the album; Popof and Nina, Jim Rivers and Tiger Stripes. If it only had Eelke Klejin there would be no real need for an album.
A house music moment in time thoroughly well-captured, encapsulating the changing sound of now. Great iPod fodder, or if you play the wheels of steel it’s well worth dipping into for some short players. Dig it.