UPFRONTBEATS

Seth Troxler’s taste-making Play It Say It label continues to set its own agenda with a fantastic new doublepack / mini-LP from Frenchman The Mekanism. Featuring eight club-focussed cuts, this compendium follows up the essential Acid Love EP released on this label back in 2015.

Parisian DJ/producer and Rinse FM France star Damien Roussel is well known to those with their ear to the underground house scene. He has been DJing for more than a decade and puts out his choice cuts on labels like Berlin’s Exploited, London’s Needwant and Leeds’ 2020 Vision as well as on Play it Say it of course. Looking back to Chicago but also forward into his own sonic realms, he is a fresh producer with plenty to say for himself, and this expressive new release proves that.

‘Breath’ opens the collection in prickly fashion, with firmly rooted drums the basis of a tune that develops into a jacking monster complete with fat acid stabs and chattery Windy City claps. It’s tense and robust throughout, and is the sort of track that demands the attention of whole festival arenas, especially when the clipped female vocals come in.

The crispness continues on ‘Journey,’ which is deeper and more groovy, with radiant chords bringing warmth and heat to a track dappled with sci-fi sounds and driven by a killer bassline. On the irresistible ‘Da Beat’, explosive drums, cow bells and rapped vocals all jump about with more acid stabs and the result is a track as brilliantly lively as you will hear all year.

The hard hitting, high impact style of The Mekanism continues on ‘Traverse’, a tribal number with whirring machines and malfunctioning voices, then ‘Get It’, a chunky and loopy house number in the mould of early DJ Sneak. The excellent ‘What’ gets loose and freaky, with flaming hits and wild style drums that demand you dance, ‘Follow Me’ is a bass driven, no-frills weapon, and finally ‘Time to Party’ will set any floor alight with its old school stabs and cowbells, grinding bass and big house drums.

This is a fierce collection of club-ready tracks that ooze class as well as charisma.

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