Review: Since making his debut eight years ago, Cairo-based Fulltone has offered up occasional EPs that tend towards the gleefully melodious, emotive and tech-tinged end of the deep house spectrum, making him a perfect signing for Lee Burridge and Matthew Dekay's All Day I Dream imprint. There's plenty to get your Serotonin levels rocketing across the EP, starting with the picturesque lusciousness of 'Love in Space', where twinkling synthesizer melodies rise and fall atop a shuffling, tech-tinged deep house groove. 'Castles in the Air' is warmer and woozier musically, with crunchier drum sounds and more nods towards the melodious end of tech-house, while 'Happy Accidents' is a bubbling tech-house roller smothered in gorgeous piano motifs. Finally, 'Oceans of Wisdom' cannily joins the dots between electro, deep-tech and flowery progressive house.
Review: If it's emotive, melodious dance music you're after, All Day I Dream's twice-yearly 'sampler' compilations are hard to beat. 2021's edition of their Winter Sampler series is another cracker and offers an attractive mix of previously unheard treats from both established label regulars and relative newcomers. There's naturally plenty to set the pulse racing throughout, from the warming haziness and rising melodies of Somelee's 'Sansara' and the Isolee-influenced bubbliness of Mono Electric Orchestra's 'Antartica', to the glacial electronics, deep chords and shuffling grooves of 'Endora' by Slow Hearts. Additional highlights include the pitched-down chug of Qess's 'Sarraqa', the rushing bliss of Nopi's fittingly titled 'Unforgettable Dawn', and the twinkling lead lines and bass-heavy grooves of Paul Deep's 'Aeras'.
Newman (I Love) - "Menina Que Passa" - (8:36) 120 BPM
Essay - "Archangel" - (9:23) 126 BPM
Modd - "Evening Fog" - (9:11) 122 BPM
Review: A sampler collection here from All Day I Dream, the label set up in 2011 by Lee Burridge and Matthew Dekay to explore "beautiful, emotional and melancholic shades of house and techno". What you get are 13 tracks coming from that part of the spectrum where deep house and ambient collide, with just a hint of prog and the very deepest trance in the mix too - tracks that will be equally at home in the warm-up, on weary 6am floors or chillin' on the sofa. Standouts include Fulltone's 'A Whole Lot Of Winters', one of collection's more overtly floor-friendly cuts, and Hermanez's deceptively funky 'Ensina'.
