Review: It's been almost four years since Letherette's Richard Roberts last release a solo record as Maniqin, so this surprise EP on the Wulf label he co-owns is arguably well overdue. Given the wait, it's only right that Opalescent is an expansive, six-track affair, with Roberts bouncing between picturesque, melody rich lo-fi deep house ('Don't Stand Still'), dreamy deep house funk (the really rather good 'Slapper'), woozier fare (the drowsy chords and crackling drums of 'Slide 6'), arpeggio-driven goodness (the cut-up vocal snippets and undulating synth-bass of 'Angry Jam'), sweaty warehouse heaviness ('Bump') and classically luscious dancefloor warmth ('Iridescence', where spine-tingling keyboard chords rise above funky bass and crunchy drums). In a word: excellent!
Review: Two years ago, Letherette launched the Mander House series via a limited-edition cassette of sweaty, hip-house influenced workouts. This belated follow-up is similarly sample based but stylistically a little different, with the sometime Ninja Tune-signed duo offering up a mixture of dusty deep house, loopy disco-house box jams and hazy, loose-limbed jazz-house. Highlights include the dewy-eyed female vocal samples, swirling strings and jazz-fired house drums of 'Break My Heart', the R&B-sampling peak-time bump of 'Too Much' (think Seven Davis Jr, and you're close), the chopped and screwed heaviness of 'I Don't Need You' and the soaring, Soundstream style disco-house weightiness of 'Triple'.
Review: Some six months on from the launch of their "Mander House" series of club-ready reworks, mixing tools and beats tracks, sometime Ninja Tune twosome Letherette are ready to unleash a second volume. As you'd expect, highlights are plentiful, from the cut-up blues-house bounce of "Oh Lord" and strutting, bass-heavy deep house hypnotism of "Chains", to the loopy jazz-funk-goes-disco-house bump of "Tell Me That You Like It". The EP also boasts two versions of '80s disco revision "Just For You". The first is a swinging, sun-kissed, loved-up chunk of tactile house goodness, while the second - a "Live Edit" - is a much more locked-in, percussion-heavy roller that giddily emphasizes a rubbery bassline and rush-inducing breakdowns.
Review: Wolverhampton duo Letherette are two childhood friends with a current of empathy between them so strong that they seem more like brothers. The Ninja Tune staples return to their Wulf imprint, this time with Mander House Volume 1. With the essence very much akin to their Brown Lounge beat series, Mander House sees Andy Harber and Richard Roberts up the tempo. They're all relatively short tracks which are great to use as tools or for looping and assembled like a collage - using an extensive collection of samples from dance music's yesteryear. There's one very familiar hook on the infectious house of "Major" or the lo-slung disco groove of "Baby Who" through to the melancholic and bittersweet dustiness of "I Do".
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