Various - Bosconi Stallions

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  • Deep house is a description so overused in dance music that it has become almost meaningless. But how else would you define the output of Tuscany's Bosconi Records (our latest Label of the month)? Sweet and gritty, spatially open, texturally varied, meditative even, it is deep house in the sense of having emotional depth and intelligence. That this Stallions set, a warm and pulsating fug of eclectic 4/4, is far more daring than the banal music often tagged as deep house is our problem, not theirs. A perfectly weighted 55-minute mix (credited to the Bosconi Soundsystem, a four man team led by label-owner Fabio Della Torre), the first half of Stallions is reminiscent of a Dixon or Michael Mayer set. Tracks aren't faultlessly beat-matched into one monotonous groove, but instead blended in grand fading arcs and clever transitions. The eerie library music samples and shimmering, disembodied funk guitars of San Proper and The Clover's "Voices" melt into the suppressed agitation of A Guy Called Gerald's "Thu The Diehold." By the time IFM's heartbreaking "Dirty Vibes" usurps the monolithic "The Legend Of Neglect," Stallions is operating in Levon Vincent territory, where New York house is reborn as a dark and clattering reverie. Later, the mix slips into more orthodox main room house grooves, but there's nothing wrong with that when such familiar loops are sandwiched between the playful eccentricity of Della Torre's edit of Nightdrivers, or the evergreen bloops and blurts of The Oliverwho Factory's "Mind Free." That Bosconi usher in the flutes and jazz-funk references of Riccio's "Put The Man Out" to close the set tells you all that you need to know: the label is operating beyond genre distinctions and audience expectations, in a semi-detached world of its own.
  • Tracklist
      01. San Proper & The Clover - Voices 02. A Guy Called Gerald - Thu The Diehold 03. Eduardo De La Calle - Virata Rupa 04. Altered Natives - The Legend of Neglect 05. I.F.M. - Dirty Vibes 06. Life's Track - Dark Clouds 07. Nicholas - From Somewhere Else 08. Nightdrivers - Quanto Tempo Ci Rimane (Fabio's Consolation Edit) 09. Alex Picone - Dry Scream 10. The Oliverwho Factory - Mind Free 11. Nick Anthony Simoncino - Tramonto Techno 12. Brothers In Low - Testacorta 13. Rondenion - Sunrize 14. Riccio - Put The Man Out
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