Someone Else: Elsewhere EP
foundsound

Someone Else (Sean O'Neal) unleashes some serious dance-floor moves on his latest EP Elsewhere. O'Neal's particular brand of gritty techno goes down as easily here as it has on past efforts, but this time out the material is bolstered by an even greater injection of soulfulness than usual. Digging deeply for nearly eleven minutes and animated by a chugging bass throb, scratchy funk accents, grooving house patterns, and emotive voice fragments, the grandiose opener, “Sunny Day in Smallville,” percolates mightily. The clubby cut rocks with serious purpose without ever easing up on its motorik charge before passing the baton to the slinkily soulful “Funny Day Elsewhere.” The sliced'n'diced vocal treatments are certainly ear-catching but the tune's major appeal is its fabulously tight and slamming groove. That dimension doesn't go missing in Michael Ho's pumping “Funny Day Elsewhere” overhaul though the Tuning Spork producer does up the funk-house quotient a notch or two. The release is rounded out by a digital bonus track, a high-velocity makeover of “Sunny Day in Smallville” by Italian producer Kriss that swings as determinedly as O'Neal's original. Elsewhere delivers more than half-an-hour of tried'n'true foundsound magic.

May 2009