August / September Roundup 2015

Here's White Noise's favourite songs of the last two months, including a few that slipped through our net earlier in the year. It's a bumper package spanning all our favourite styles, get stuck in.

We kick off on the sunny side, with top soulful house from Damiano Von Erckert, Braque, Chaos In The CBD, and new blood Flørist. Things get deeper and stranger via new material from top producers John Roberts and DJ Richard, alongside new slices from 45 ACP and CAll Super. Bicep and Midland keep the heat up in darker waters, before we descend to full-on electro with Helena Hauff, Aurora Halal and intriguing new voice Rita Furstenhof.

Tracklist:

Leon Vynehall - Midnight On Rainbow Road [LP Review]

Damiano Von Erckert - We Flow ft Amalia

Flørist - Final Bounce

Laguna Ladies - Egyptian Bag (Moomin Remix)

Braque - Diners En Ville

Chaos In The CBD - Midnight In Peckham [EP Review]

Bell Towers - Hyper - Realised - Self [EP Review]

DJ Richard - Vampire Dub [LP Review]

John Roberts - Orah

45 ACP - Fjm

Call Super - Meltintu

Jayda G & Fett Burger - Velvet Vortex (Sleep D Rainforest Version)

Severed Heads - Greater Reward (Piano Power Edit)

Paradise 100 - Heat.Wav

Lipelis - Weirdshit Xu Paelk (ft. Simple Symmetry)

Khotin - Sorry Sequence

Midland - Stop (Don't Let The Beat)

Bicep - Carmine [LP Review]

Rita Furstenhof - Hadron Collider

Helena Hauff - L'Homme Mort

Aurora Halal - Shapeshifter [EP Review]

Andrea - Outlines

2 8 1 4 - 恢复

As ever, here's the one we couldn't find on Youtube:

Kasra V - Last Orders

Chaos In The CBD - Midnight In Peckham

Label: Rhythm Section

The Rhythm Section club night, a family affair run out of London’s Peckham Pool Club for the last year, has smoothly made the transition to record label over the last year. The team, helmed by rising star Bradley Zero, have been showcasing the jazzier side of London’s house scene, with notable releases from the likes of Henry Wu and Canada’s Local Artist. Their latest is one of the most chilled and mature yet, courtesy of Kiwi brothers Chaos In The CBD.

The pair have nimbly genre-hopped over EPs for the likes of ClekClekBoom, Hot Haus and Amadeus, and here they showcase a particularly laid-back strain of house, focusing on acoustic instruments and tasteful composition. It makes for a stylish, super-smooth listen, but the lack of variation in style means that some cuts shine brighter than others.

Observe is one of the best, an upbeat piano line clipping over a swaying, NuGroove synth line and bristling percussion. Later title cut Midnight In Peckham lets a sax drift lazily over feathery keys and twinkling synths, the soundtrack to a Film Noir coda where the detective and femme fatale drive off into a monochrome sunset.

Elsewhere the duo continue to mine the same jazzy strand of house, with Trust Is Key’s gentle melodic oscillations and the languid brass of Luxury Motivation, but the sonic homogeneity across the release means there’s little reason to play these ones out over the EP’s catchier siblings.

The kick drum has been relegated to a pulse across the four main tracks, but Chaos In The CBD join forces with club-jazz experimentalists Archie Pelago for a stomping final cut, its boom-bap beat unhurried but certainly adding a pinch of muscle to the delicate arrangement. As a whole the Midnight In Peckham EP doesn’t offer much in the way of variation, but if you dig house at its smoothest and most tasteful, there’s plenty of accomplished grooves on offer.

7/10

Read this review in context at Inverted Audio.