Swayzak - So Cheap EP

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  • Swayzak should really need no introduction. They've had more than a decade of releases, including four albums, on a host of big and small labels. Yet it's been three years since their last studio album, the hit and miss ‘Loops From the Bergerie’, and while they filled the gap by issuing the solid retrospective and remix collection ‘Route de la Slack’, somehow it seems like they've been MIA. Not surprisingly, their latest 12” sees them itching to reinvent themselves a little, but you can't help but feel they're going about it the wrong way. Gone is the fluidity and atmospherics of their earlier work, and in its place is muscle, as if the duo were keen to shake off the house tag. At times, there is also a nervousness to the production. The title track is a case in point. All the elements are here - a minimal house beat that ticks away like a clock, fizzing pulses of white noise, percussive bubbles - but the vocal samples are confusingly truncated, and when the synth pads arrive, they're almost unwelcome. There's no build, no real direction. The tracks on the B-side are better. ‘By the Rub of Love’ evolves slowly to become rigid, dirty glitch-house with a nice high end. The tribal percussion programming here sounds like the Swayzak of old, and there's a feeling of unbroken tension that'll suit the clubs, but again it's let down by a lack of purposeful feeling, or even a sharp edge. ‘Schalffen’ is the best of the three, perhaps because it is the deepest and most liquid. A simple track which changes slowly, its patience allows Swayzak to dig out more of the dub elements and to better place the melodic inflections. You can sense a certain promise and ambition in this EP, but it might be a case of waiting for Swayzak's new full length album, due out soon, to find it.
  • Tracklist
      A So Cheap AA1 By the Rub of Love AA2 Schalffen
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