- London's Mr. Beatnick, a DJ and producer with roots in hip-hop and nu-jazz, returns to the deep house and boogie he initiated with last year's Synthetes EP, also on Semtek's Don't Be Afraid imprint. The new material is definitely of a piece with the last record (minus the pronounced Metro Area influence that marked the title track), favoring soft, rounded synth melodies and elegant drum programming. Whether or not it's an analog affair—it certainly sounds like it—all four tracks are models of the kind of cohesion you get when working with just a handful of machines: it's a remarkably balanced record, with every sound nestling neatly into place.
"Sun Goddess," a laidback deep house cut in the vein of Nebraska's A Weekend on My Own EP, makes for an obvious opener, thanks to a muted bass line, lush Rhodes chords and delicate synth ornamentation, coming across as fuzzy (and as juicy) as a peach. "Beneath the Reef" and "Shifting Sands" feature slightly tougher funk, but they remain bathed in a rosy glow; they sound a little like a dreamier take on Recloose (or a slightly less jazzy Floating Points). With "Savoir Faire," Beatnick expands his musical horizons to include a kind of quixotic Italo disco exploding with color and odd harmonies. All in all, the record sounds as versatile as it is stylistically diverse: while it's most closely connected to the subtly shaded, slightly throwback house coming from labels like Rush Hour (or, for that matter, 100% Silk), you could imagine it going over equally as well with Hot Natured fans, given the music's bumpy funk underpinnings. Too modest to call "crowd-pleasing," it's still amicable as hell.
Tracklist A1 Sun Goddess
A2 Beneath The Reef
B1 Shifting Sands
B2 Savoir Faire