- Modern-day tech house with a sense of craftsmanship.
- Marlon Clark is the cofounder of Real Deal Records, a label that, in its own words, "winks to the past" with archival cuts of golden-era tech house. Albeit Records, the label Clark runs by himself, shows the fresh forms tech house is taking today. Albeit's latest 12-inch is Hullabaloo, the first full record from Sam Bangura, a resident DJ at Half Baked, founder of NorthSouth Records and, as we see here, an artist with a special flair for lean and punchy club sounds. Perfectly sculpted and full of warm personality, it's Albeit's best record yet, and a killer debut for Bangura.
All three tracks are dreamy, breezy and light-footed. The drums on "MNF" thump flawlessly under sun-dappled keys. "Camel Sands" has a syncopated kick pattern that feels more hip-hop than electro, thanks in part to the classic record-scratch sample that sits low in the mix, next to a burbling acid line. The pick of the bunch is "Pandemonium," an afterhours cut whose title feels ironic: far from chaotic, the track is all perfectly controlled energy, with soothing chords over the kind of delicately throbbing beat that, many hours in, urges you to keep going. Played out at the right time, that bit around the one-minute mark, when the claps and hi-hats appear all at once, would be a moment you keep replaying in your head days later.
TracklistA MNF
B1 Camel Sands
B2 Pandemonium