Freska: Wrong Songs
Darkroom Dubs

Evgeny Bukreev certainly chose a curious title for his Freska debut album (on Silicone Soul's Darkroom Dubs), as there hardly seems to be anything terribly wrong with the hour-long set. Apparently the Russia native grew up absorbing everything from Kraftwerk to Black Sabbath—not that anything terribly Ozzy-like surfaces within the album's ten melodious songs—but even a cursory listen suggests that Detroit techno, funk, electro, and deep house are the uptempo album's more audible touchstones.

Wrong Songs most assuredly gets off on the right note with “Breathing In,” a funky house jam the Murmansk-born producer powers with claps, timbales accents, and a massive bass thrust. That tune's serpentine synth bass line is appealing, for sure, but it's even bettered by the sexy bass chug and horn-like flurries that give the following cut, “Slow Cold Slow,” such lithe propulsion. The bass lines in “Some Turns Inside” are so melodic and tasty, in fact, one could be excused for thinking the epic scene-stealer wouldn't have sounded out of place on Booka Shade's seminal Movements .

The album features party jams (the chant-heavy workout “I Got Love” and deep house throwdown “Honey From Within”) and symphonic epics (the string-drenched “North From South”), and “Stoned Bytes” even works in a reference to Bob Marley's Exodus (the familiar “Movement of Jah people” refrain). One final surprise awaits at album's end when “The Kathedral” includes a proggy vocal turn by Lars Are Nedland that calls to mind, like it or not, Jon Anderson of Yes fame.

Freska's fresh, soulful sound is buoyant and filled with percussive bounce, and the album's a non-stop pleasure fest of frothy club jams chock full of wiry bass pulses and body-shaking beats. There are no life-changing philosophical meanings to be gleaned from the ten tracks, though cuts as fabulous as “Doves On My Window” and “Honey From Within” require no further argument on their behalf beyond their bewitchingly jubilant selves.

May 2013