Beni – House Of Beni

Beni - House Of Beni

By Stef Siepel

Naturally, the title of this album is a not so subtle pun. Beni named his debut House of Beni, obviously to signal that you are in Beni’s place where his rules go. Also, it is Beni’s house (music) that you will be hearing. Arguably this pun is not the greatest linguistic accomplishment ever, but in all its simplicity it does bring across the necessary information. Namely, this is an album by Beni and his friends, and what you’ll be hearing is music aligned to the sort of stuff you might hear at a house club. And the tunes on this album do evoke a place where it is getting down, where it is getting dirty, and where the hormones are raging. In other words it’s saying, welcome to my house, let’s jack it up.

Nomi Ruiz, of Jessica 6 and formerly of Hercules and Love Affair, is perhaps the ideal temptress, so what a great move it is to put her at the door to lure people in. Seductively she sings about swaying bodies, and she adds that “we’ve got a lot to explore on the dancefloor”. So she sets the tone right from the get go, and luckily for the majority of this album Beni doesn’t disappoint her. He immediately churns out a stomper with ‘Last Night’, again going for the physicality of people dancing. “Give it to me like we did it last night, lady”, indeed. The third track takes the foot off the pedal for a moment (which, since the second track was the first real full throttle track, I consider that rather early) with Sam Sparro doing some vocal acrobatics on the higher end of the tonal spectrum. “There is no body, like your body”, he sings. Again, pun intended most likely. Three tracks later Sparro, who does showcase some spectacular singing chops, gets the chance to stop people kissing and hugging and get them back on the dancefloor with something more up-tempo.

Unfortunately for Sparro, who delivers two good vocal turns on two stellar songs, he is practically sandwiching the motherload: ‘It’s a Bubble’ featuring Sean Delear and Turbotito. An Eighties house club would’ve been perfectly satisfied with this naughty dance track hovering around 125 bpm (according to my calculations). The lads are inviting you to get moving, saying that they can’t “flow without you”. The vocals are spectacularly on the money in terms of turning the seductiveness of the album into a downright proposition to start one thing or another. The music starts with percussion and there remains this sort of African sensibility in it while rooting itself firmly in the house legacy. Before Sparro returns Mattie Safer (formerly of The Rapture) puts a bit of a rock edge to all this dancing with his raspy vocals, though the music itself doesn’t suddenly bring out the guitars if you are worrying about that.

‘O.P.U.L.E.N.C.E.’ is the first in a series of predominantly instrumental tracks, and that sound that comes in after half a minute is genius as well as pure house. After that Beni throws in a dash of African rhythms to make what is a terribly good track. Unfortunately, the two tunes following it form the weakest links on the album. ‘Love Scene’ is a short, rawer, more experimental affair that seemingly came out of nowhere and goes to the same place. ‘Yeah’ is a deeper cut on the album, but since the album doesn’t really have a DJ set flow this too seems like it’s a bit out of place since there’s never really a build-up to it (and if there is, the placing of ‘Love Scene’ in front of it surely killed that). Also, I have the idea that deep house has been done better than this before. ‘Zig Zags’ is a typical album ender, taking the pace way down. The vocals of Via Tania place the song at the tail end of the night where the only thing you’ve got the energy for is to sit and stare.

Despite slightly losing momentum near the end, House of Beni is definitely an album to listen to if you like your house seductive and physical. It really paints the picture of a place where a wide variety of people have gathered to get it on. From seducers to complete blow-outs, they are all here, with opening track ‘Sway’ and ‘It’s a Bubble’ as complete stand-outs. The album makes for a hot party for sure, and I think it will nudge plenty of people to grab their coat and go on a hunt to try and find wherever Beni lives. For obviously, that’s the place where it is going on and going down.

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