Review: Coming off a year of releases from Black Life Smoke, Alex Albrecht and Francis Harris this fourth drop from Scissor And Thread's Tailored Cuts series brings with it music from their artists of the year with some added intrigue coming in remixes from LNS and Northern Electronics' Anthony Linell. Label boss Franic Harris too turns in a remix of Tomi Chair's "Heat Exhaustion" with the sound of synthesised pan pipes dancing over the top of a deep subby loop and rhythm track. Sophia Saze has her track "Alien" stripped back into a lighter atmospheric number rattled by rock hard drums. Alex Albrech's Melqueades project goes deep into forever piano territory with "Schaefer Street" while the distortion and sizzle of Black Light Smoke goes deep, deep and disco in "Hustle" and "In Gold".
Review: Black Light Smoke (or Jordan Lieb, if you wanna get all formal) hails from Nashville, Tennessee, but specialises in deep, soul-drenched electronica rather than honky-tonk country & western. On this forward-thinking EP he blends influences from deep house, UK garage, indie dance and more, to come up with six pleasingly understated headnodders, with the emphasis on chopped, steppy beats, cavernous sub-bass and, most frequently, chipmunk'd fem vox - though lead cut 'Nothing Makes Me Feel' itself features a mournful, downtuned male vocal instead. Think Burial making a future bass record for Warp or Ninja Tune and you're somewhere in the ballpark!
Review: Since he last released on Scissor & Thread in 2014, Black Light Smoke (the electronic music alias of TV and film composer Jordan Lieb) has taken the opportunity to explore darker, wonkier styles of dance music with mixed results. Happily, this return to the Brooklyn-based imprint is something of a triumph. Check, for example, the woozy chords and rush-inducing dreaminess of enveloping deep house opener "In Gold", the lo-fi proto-house-meets-deep house shuffle of "City Life", the picturesque dancefloor breeziness of "Up In This" and the hip-hop tempo, synthesizer-heavy fuzziness of "Every Beat (No Regrets)". Also impressive is "Make My Peace", a deep, acid-flecked jack-track that manages to simultaneously feel both paranoid and calming.
Review: Next up on New York imprint Scissor & Thread is label chief Francis Harris collaborating on "Mercy Of Means" with DJ Aakmael. He has built a reputation for some of the deepest, rawest house music sounds coming out of the States, releasing well-received tracks on the likes of Freerange Records, Release Sustain, Kolour Dogmatik and NDATL. The title track sees the pair conjure up some deep and spiritual vibes before they fly solo on a couple of tracks each. "Deep Muzik" sees the Virginia based Aakmael deliver his signature 'raw' sound, while Harris gets properly deep and dusty on the bittersweet and melancholic hypnotism of "Part Song" .
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