- Like so many players in the American underground, Keith Worthy isn't personally caught up in trends; as much as any producer pushing deep house in this country, he sticks to his guns and lets fickle record buyers and partygoers come to his sound as they please. Charting a producer's development, then, is quite a different story for someone out of Detroit than, say, a young gun out of Bristol. As Todd L. Burns pointed out a few years back, Worthy's career has been as much about advancing his ability to communicate through pre-established forms than about synthesizing influences into something wildly new, and the third installment of his Moments In Rhythm series for his own Aesthetic Audio continues the journey. While nothing on here hits quite like "Rockit Science (K-Dub's Motor City Mayhem Mix)" from the last volume, Worthy continues to advance his Keith Worthyness on "Theme Music."
Opening with "Is It In You?" Worthy sounds right in the deep house comfort zone: synths are murky, rhythms sum to a pulse. But once Worthy finds his bounce, everything gets tossed up in the air and mixed around, leaving just a resonant bassline to hold down the fort. "I Used to Love Her" (featured in nearly identical "Vox" and "Deepstrumental" form) doesn't venture off quite as radically, instead forming a stable arrangement around fluttering keys and energetic kicks. A "Dirty Reprise" finds a more sinister way into the eventual groove, but he doesn't change much else. It's a fitting summation for the record: Keith Worthy keeps getting more comfortable at the controls, but his confidence hasn't translated into a big leap.
Tracklist A1 Is It In You?
A2 I Used to Love Her (Blak Keys Vox)
B1 I Used to Love Her (Blak Keys Deepstrumental)
B2 I Used to Love Her (Dirty Reprise)