Review: Athens label Tale & Tone bring us a three-track EP from fellow Greek producer Plecta, with all three cuts coming from that place where deep and progressive/melodic house start to blur into one. 'Magnolia' itself is a lilting, Balearic-leaning cut with rolling drums, sweeping pads and monastic chanting - file under "rather lovely" or "a bit polite" according to taste! - while 'Abala' ploughs a druggier, more hypnotic furrow with Eastern flourishes. Neither, though, prepares you for 'Chrysalis' - eight epic minutes of deep, hazy, proggy psychedelic wonderfulness with Spanish guitars that cut through like a knife, and utterly essential.
Review: London based Rashid Ajami is up next on Tale + Tone with the deeply meditative polyrhythms of "You Don't Know Me" which is perfect soundtracking for Sunday afternoon rooftop parties in the summertime. We must say that Madraas remix up next is really the standout track here, with its glassy-eyed and bittersweet vibe, followed by another ethereal and sensual offering titled "The Day We Never Met".
Review: Rising Goa, India producer Greenage comes to Tale & Tone with four prime examples of Balearica at its best - the kind that remembers the dancefloor should never be TOO far away. The EP opens with the floaty (but still pleasingly beefy) prog-tinged vibes of 'Tear Drop On Fire', where the piano ebbs and flows like the tide. We then move on to 'Sands Of Goa' itself, a textbook Balearic affair with Eastern vocal snips and swooning strings, followed by 'Beauty Of The Past', an Afro-flavoured headnodder, before the similarly flavoured 'River Of Joys' plays us out. It's 'Tear Drop...' that takes the gold, though.
Review: Lee Burridge's elusive new label Tale + Tone has impressed us with its smooth grooves of late that came courtesy of equally mysterious producers such as Newman, Lost Desert and Cornucopia. However, Berlin legend Daso finally presented as someone a little bit more familiar - even if it had been a while since we last heard from him! Now they have called in Los Angeleno duo Dance Spirit, who combine Reagan's formal music and computer programming training with Chris's burning passion for dance music and DJing to create a duo of true synergy. They've had a strong run of releases recently, on tastemaker labels such as Superfreq, Supernature and Sol Selectas: so go figure! "Wash Me Clean" (original version) has all the hallmarks of parent label All Day I Dream: slow burning syncopated rhythms, ethereal pads, lush orchestral arrangements and in this case - some life affirming female vocals for good measure.
Review: From what we can tell, Tale & Tone is a New York City based label run by the legendary Lee Burridge (of the All Day I Dream label & party series) with label partner Hoj Jomehri - a veteran DJ of the west coast scene. Following up a great releases by German tech house hero Daso and the mysterious Lost Desert, they now present the debut of French born/New York based producer Newman. "The Sky And The Earth" is dreamy tech-house with evocative elements and perfect to create a sense of drama on the dancefloor - much like Burridge's main imprint. It comes complete with lush orchestral style arrangements and ethereal Enya like vocals. Prepare to delve deep into the exotic on the sublime second offering "A Walk In The Plains" which is packed full of ethnic polyrhythms, Middle Eastern style chants and yet more emotive strings to hold up the suspense throughout this gorgeous track.
Lost Desert & Mike Tohr - "Innercity Playground" - (7:48) 121 BPM
Review: Serial collaborator Lost Desert, whose real identity is a closely guarded secret, has previously impressed via a pair of top-notch hook-ups with veteran DJ/producer Lee Burridge. On this Tale & Tone outing, the masked dancefloor crusader is once again in a collaborative mood. On opener "Hunter" he joins forces with producer Amari and singer Adomas for a wonderfully evocative trip into gently soulful, deep tech-house territory (think woozy vocals, twinkling pianos, spacey chords and hypnotic drums). Mike Tohr joins in the fun on "Innercity Playground", an even deeper and more intergalactic fusion of crackly aural textures, Pete Namlook style chords, sampled children's voices, gentle melodies and shuffling drumbeats.
Review: Buenos Aires based Facundo Mohrr has released previously on Kindisch, Kermesse, Natura Sonoris and L'enfant Terrible. He can now add Lee Burridge's top imprint Tale & Tone to the list - where his dreamy and deep tech-house sounds are a perfect fit with the label's aesthetic. The Polaroid EP features the lush and ethereal beauty of the title track, with its splendid symphonic arrangements and gorgeous melodies, the funky latin tribal-house vibe of "Fly" and then closing out with the rather evocative "People Like Them". This is exactly the kind of life-affirming/ positive vibes that label boss Burridge would be spreading out, at one of his famed rooftop parties this summer.
Nightmare Walking (Facundo Mohrr Back To School remix) - (8:42) 122 BPM
Review: Scene newcomer Luis Daniel's influences come from his old vinyl collection from the '90s - '00s and esteemed producers from his home city of Miami over the years. The legendary Lee Burridge has recently been a fan of his releases, so therefore it's fitting that he was tapped for the next release on Tale + Tone. The 'Nightmare Walking' EP features four tracks perfectly aligned with the label's sonic aesthetic: from the slinky and evocative title track and its Todd Terry influence, which later receives a rework by Argentinian upstart Facundo Mohrr which takes the track deep into the exotic, and the deeply cavernous dub techno vibe of "No Need". Luis Daniel's star continues to rise.
Review: The Iranian-born, California-based DJ Hoj returns on Tale + Tone, the label he runs with legend Lee Burridge, with the 'You Are A Wonder' EP - featuring five tracks of groove driven melodic house. This release is a tribute to the electronic dance music community: friends, family and supporters that have made things so special for him over the years, and are now so sorely missed due to the current pandemic. From the amazing exotics of opener 'Sweet Verse" with its live instrumentation, the deep, sensual and low-slung mood music of "Feel That?" or the utterly evocative dancefloor drama of "You Are A Wonder" which receives a remix by label staple Newman. This is the typically mesmerising and sunkissed Sunday groove you've come to expect from this much loved label.
Review: NuKreative are Jamesen Re and Danny Bonnici, a duo who hail originally from Melbourne, Australia but are now based in Los Angeles, and here they come to Lee Burridge's Tale & Tone with a three-track/four-mix EP from the organic/melodic house school of thought. Amega's trance-style female vocal on the title track - available in unhurried and dreamy Original or beefed-up Hoj Remix forms - may be a little too pop for some but will doubtless go down a storm with daisy-crowned girls at Burning Man or Coachella; elsewhere 'Senerade' is epic and meditative, while 'Melodia' adds a hint of tribal rhythms.
Review: Since launching in 2017, Lee Burridge and HOJ's Tale + Tone label has carved a niche as the preferred home for artists whose ultra-melodic, evocative music sits somewhere between deep house, tech-house and progressive house. On this EP they add another fitting name to the roster: sometime Stil Vor Talent artist Raw Main. Check first the gently rising and falling tech house/deep house fusion of sparkling opener "Le Chat Noir", before admiring the hypnotic, late-night grooves and gently undulating synthesizer lead lines of "Pigalle". Listeners who love the rich musicality and slow-burn positivity of progressive house will love "Garden of Eden", the EP's most expansive and musically intricate moment, while "Montrematre" is a fine fusion of rolling tech-house drums, opaque chords, squelchy bass and intoxicating additional percussion.
Review: Following fine releases on SUBBEAT and All Day I Dream, Paul Deep pitches up on the similarly minded Tale & Tone label. The Argentine is known for the atmospheric and melodic nature of his productions, and all four tracks here continue in this vein. He first wraps slowly falling melodies and ghostly chords around shaker-heavy drums and chunky bass on 'Genbu', before employing picturesque melodies, sunny motifs and a similarly thickset groove (crunchy beats, weighty bass) on 'Filira'. 'Fudo' is arguably the prettiest track of the lot, with extended, spine-tingling breakdowns sandwiched between chunky, bass-heavy house grooves, while the Greenage remix of 'Genbu' is a sparkling, morning-fresh slice of sunrise-ready dancefloor bliss that sits somewhere between deep house and tech-house.
Review: Melodious deep house/progressive house fusionist Nicolas Rada has previously impressed via releases on Balance Music, Or Two Strangers and The Soundgarden, so it's fair to say that he's a good fit with the fast-rising Tale & Tone label. That much is proved by EP opener 'Alter Ego', where glistening, yearning electronic lead lines, bubbly synthesizer motifs and dreamy chords dance atop a shaker-heavy tech-house groove. Further proof arrives in the shape of the more spacey, and even deeper 'Sonder', whose wayward synthesizer melodies are a genuine delight, and the pitched down ambient/deep breaks fusion of classy closing cut 'Her Thoughts'.
Review: While 'melodic' house is bigger than it's ever been right now, the emphasis tends to be on swirling, instrumental synth epics - but here Hoj/Newman take us back to an earlier era of prog, when floaty, dreamy Balearic vibes topped with sugar-sweet female vocals were the order du jour. Lead cut 'Want To Run Away' gets away with this slightly anachronistic approach, though, thanks largely to the two-pronged attack of a seriously phat bassline and a sultry vocal performance from Amega. 'Listening Close' operates in similar territory musically but sports a delicate male vocal courtesy of Aaron Percy, while a dub and radio edit of 'Want To Run Away' complete the package.
Review: Tale & Tone's latest is nominally an EP, but at seven dancefloor-length tracks deep, we should probably consider it a compilation. Either way, it's another strong offering from the label, packed to the rafters with melodious, atmsospheric and ear-pleasing blends of deep house and tech-house. Highlights include the dreamy, string-laden headiness of Lucefora and Facundo Losrado's 'Spirits of the Sound', the sparkling, loved-up, sunrise-ready warmth of 'Passage' by Irdi Imrak, the more melancholic and percussively dense contribution from Mariano Montori ('Reflection') and the slowly building deep tech-house shuffle of Debelu and Eduardo McGreggor's 'Sunset in Yucatan', where drowsy pads, foreboding electronics and gaseous chords catch the ear.
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