Santos - Abrasive

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  • After a slew of successful single releases on Mob (and more to come), Italian producer Santos has signed his second LP release to the label. Abrasive marks a successful partnership between Santos and Mob as label boss Tayo had convinced Santos to reissue some of his tunes from his Mantra Breaks label for Mob, repackaged to fit the style of the label with ubercool remixes crafted by some of the best breakbeat producers in the business. Lifted from the Another Planet EP - Mantra first 12" on the Mantra Breaks Imprint - is the opening tune I Cannot Come Back From This Space, which in my personal interpretation sounds like Santos' take on Meat Katie's "Dirty South" hit from 2001 - disco style breakbeats coupled with a dirty funkin bassline and disco guitar licks. Santos adds a freaked out vocal, an electro synth hook and industrial noises on top for good measure. Shock Da DJ follows on nicely continuing on the funky breaks vibe "I Cannot..." had started. A deep rolling bassline, a highly percussive break featuring an overenthusiastic cowbell, massive rising hoover sounds with plenty of male vocal calls shouting out the title of the tune. Damn funky with full sounding beats! No Ticket No Run was Santos' first single to be licenced to Mob and makes for some massive cross over potential, simply because it starts off on a breakbeat vibe then, after a really long breakdown, cuts into a deep tribal house tune before bringing back the breakbeat madness until the end. Latin influenced bongos give the tune an uplifting carnival feel accompanied by a funky disco guitar lick and a female vocal speaking in Italian - and you get all of this for 8 minutes! 70's Sensation was another tune lifted from the Another Planet EP and licenced to Mob who got Dylan Rhymes to provide a remix. The original features loud, smashing snares, razor-like effects, a melodic rolling bassline and an ominous male vocal who sounds like he'd play the archnemesis in a sci-fi movie. Cut to the middle and Santos introduces a church bell chime melody and farty bass noises. Speaking of the 70's, Santos takes a trip back in time on Disco Invasion which incorporates disco style beats in the vein of Giorgio Moroder (the man responsible for Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" and someone who Santos found inspiration in to make music). Disco Invasion incorporates electro-influenced disco bass, sirens, vocodered vocals and a disco style synth hook. Sabot was also another single release for Mob, however it appears in its original form from when it was originally released on Mantra breaks. The track itself gives the album an electro rock flavour, featuring rock styled drums, percussive breaks and a plodding bassline. The breakdown in the middle features a dark and moody guitar lick before bringing back the rock-infused madness visited earlier. Radio Berlino as the name implies takes on a German techno approach and is greatly helped out by a vocodered male vocal reiterating some phrase in German. Berlino incorporates a trancey synth line, dark bass and electro hooks laced throughout. From Germany, Abrasive then goes to a more exotic location in the African continent on Tzumbae bringing out tribal flavours with it's dark tribal bongo licks and deep tribal bassline. Finally, Abrasive closes out with Santos new single for Mob - the electro infused Try To Burn. Try To Burn is a more laidback number compared to the dancefloor mayhem from the previous nine tunes on the album and utilises a Daft Punkish French house beat, dirty electro bassline, an 80s influenced robotic vocal with plentiful use of tech samples and stabs scattered throughout. If 10 full length tunes wasn't enough for Santos debut album on Mob, CD 2 features remixes done of Santos tunes by some of the biggest names in the breakbeat business. Dylan Rhymes' remix of 70's Sensation gives the tune a dirtier tech-funk feel. Krafty Kuts takes No Ticket No Run and powers it up with a massive bassline - a remix the Krafty one himself had named as his best remix (during the time of its release). DJ Zinc's remix of Camels makes an appearance taking the original house flavoured tune and transporting it into upbeat breaks territory and there's also some unreleased and hard to find gems like Meat Katie & Elite Force's remix of Too Fast which was originally released on Mantra and tranformed into a deep tech-funker. Santos has pulled off quite a feat here for Mob, considering he was originally a house producer. Abrasive shows that he's taken all his experience and crafted a breakbeat LP designed for the dancefloor. It's a mish mash of styles including but not limited to house, electro, tribal, techno and electro all done with a breakbeat outlook and what makes the album ever sweeter is that each tune sidles along nicely with one another. This one has yet to leave my CD player, but perhaps a few more vocal efforts would have pushed this one over the top.
RA