Rick Wade: Night of the Living Deep
Yore

.xtrak: Back_up EP
Yore

Andy Vaz (Background Records) and Alessandro Vaccaro (Persistencebit) inaugurate Yore Records with an irrepressibly funky set of old-school Techno tracks by Todd Sines under the .xtrak guise. The Chicago-styled cuts resurrect the '95 vibe of the material Sines produced for and with DBX (Daniel Bell) on 7TH City and Peacefrog, as well as on Carl Craig's Planet E. Back_Up EP presents four slamming techno-funk workouts where acidy synths burble and ricochet over sexily slithering bass lines, backbeat hi-hats, stomping kick drums, and snares that crack and pop as forcefully as a slap to the face. On this premiere Yore outing, Sines invigorates the minimal techno genre with classic soulfulness and depth.

You can tell where Detroit House legend Rick Wade's coming from mere seconds into his EP's opener “Boogie With Me,” specifically when, following a stomping fanfare, a wah-wah guitar part borrowed from Isaac Hayes' “Shaft” appears. The Harmonie Park label head adds handclaps, flutes, and vocals (“Do you wanna boogie? / Boogie with me”) to create a style of classic funk-soul that has more in common with Stax, Chic, and The Meters than Kompakt and Perlon. Night of the Living Deep goes down easily, as the Michigan-born Wade offers four deep house cuts teeming with smooth, at times Latin-flavoured beats, grooving bass lines, and warm Rhodes accents. Hear, for example, how fresh Wade's material sounds on the jubilant closer “Frosnfeathers” with its entrancing flute and funk guitar hooks, not to mention its silky strings and steamy pulse.

May 2007