Trailblazing LA label Not Not Fun continue a run of essential 12" releases on their dancefloor-focused sub-label 100% Silk!
Octo Octa (aka Brooklyn's Michael Morrison) kicks off this EP with the euphoric-leaning lead track 'Let Me See You', working the kind of ultra-rich textures which have come to characterise NNF records around a super-tough backbone of past and present club music tropes drawn from NY, B-More, and Chicago. Developing a darker, warehouse mood, 'High Reflection' pounds O/O's reverb unit hard, creating a warm bed of metallic tones for scattering toms to thrash around in, carrying the stepping rhythms of the track towards doses of climactic euphoria.
On the B-Side, 'I'm Trying' works samples from Amerie's 'One Thing' and classic Chez-n-Trent-style deep house chords into a heads-down house track, managing to hold off from being all-out cheese-track and instead establishing a subtle, emotive groove. 'Coldwaves' rounds things off on a sparser, bassier note, starting to chip away at some of the textures that abound on this EP to reveal a deadly dance-floor potential, and allowing a more refined spacing to the sounds.
This is club music that's inventive without being gimmicky, real song-writer trax, rooted in US house traditions (verging at times on the gloriously cheesy), but engaging as well in the landscape of experimental NY and London-based electronic music. Recommended!