- Marieu is a Berlin-based Italian producer, frequent collaborator with fellow countryman Lucretio and co-head of Restoration Records, a reliable outlet for the many collaborative configurations the two work up. Marieu's first solo EP on his new label Enlightened Wax can be an unfriendly, uncompromising affair, doing away with most of the common deep house signifiers and leaving nothing but empty space in their wake. Luscious reverb, soulful vocal samples, loping percussion—all gone with the wind in Marieu's rigor mortis rhythms.
The A1 is the most inviting, a groggy beat lazily waking up one scratchy element at a time, warped and demented chords looping perpetually off in the distance. On "Light2," the discomfort is kind of thrilling, as the rusty piano sample rubs a storm of friction with the harshly clipped vocal samples and trash-can kick, like Marieu slashed up the master in all the wrong places and then spat on it for good measure. "Light3" takes it a step further, incorporating a split-second Bollywood vocal sample over an equally distinctive vocal that becomes hypnotic as its stomach-churning bassline threatens to capsize its barely-afloat kick drum, while the fourth and final entry returns to the conventionality of "Light1," almost normal in its use of disco-inflected strings and jacking chords, but savagely militant with its kick/hat pattern that feels more like a constant one-two punch than anything else. Marieu's Enlightened Wax debut is dark, tortured stuff, and all the more decadently functional for it.
Tracklist A1 Light1
A2 Light2
B1 Light3
B2 Light4