Review: Since emerging on Shanti Radio a few years ago, Russian producer Makebo has made multiple contributions to All Day I Dream's popular label samplers. Here the Moscow-based artist delivers his first EP for the imprint, kicking things off in style via the lolloping but locked-in drums, hazy female vocal snippets, twinkling pianos, swelling orchestration and warming riffs of 'Skyline'. 'Whale' features bolder strings, longer breakdowns, double bass and more tech-tinged grooves, while 'Dark Places' is smooth, deep and alluring with some wonderfully melancholic and poignant musical elements catching the ear. Rounding of a rock-solid EP is 'Freedom', another toasty fusion of deep tech-house and deep house that boasts a lengthy, sunset-friendly breakdown two thirds of the way through.
Review: Lee Burridge and Matthew Dekay's All Day I Dream label have successfully carved out their own very particular niche in the house music canon over the past decade or so, specialising in melodic, mellifluous grooves coming from that place where deep house, progressive house and Balearic/chill-out/downtempo blur into one. And here, they serve up a 12-track compilation that sticks more or less entirely to that same blueprint. As such, it's perhaps unlikely to win them many new converts, but with cuts from the likes of Mass Digital, Squire and Death On The Balcony, fans of the label will be more than satisfied.
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'.
