The Weekly Froth! With Delroy Edwards, Kraver and Suzanne Kraft

By Stef Siepel

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘4 Club Use Only’ by Delroy Edwards

I guess you could say this has got a bit of that nasty to it. You can hear it from the very start basically, where instead of just that intro beat, at one point you already get some disruptive sounds. Just so you know its not going to be something smooth and stellar, but that it has got an edge to it. In essence it’s got a nice deep beat to its house, but underneath that surface he puts a sort of grainy effect to just add that bit of rawness to it. That bit of underground. This one has got no vocals, but it just relies on those beats and additional sounds to pack the punch. And it succeeds. Really something you’d expect to hear at 3AM when everyone is already hot and sweaty and ready to have sex on the dancefloor. At 4:40 you get some surprisingly light handclaps that are in contrast with the deeper sounds, and it kind of sounds more like a transition to a new song than as a transition to the same track’s second part. Other than that, just some great late night house with a bit of an edge to it.

‘Calling You Back’ by Kraver

I just love that burst of freshness as soon as the song opens. Just that light sound that pops out, fabulous. The rest of the track is a tad more subdued. It has got a nice mixture of some more dreamy elements with some instruments that make sure the track keeps rolling along. At 1:20 you’ve got some ’80s sounds that again pack that freshness (and pack a delicious dose of retro without hamming it up). That is what really makes the song I think, those lovely light ’80s sounds. I like the slow “fade out” with that piano as well. It is a catchy, four minute tune that will have the dancefloor remembering a past probably most of them never consciously participated in.

‘Horoscope’ by Suzanne Kraft

It starts with sounds that, to me, kind of suggest a clock store gone mad (or gone riverdance). To be honest, it takes a while before I am used to this, but after the two minute mark I’m getting the hang of it. It uses that repetition well, but the main thing is that, in between those beats and handclaps (or whatever) there is this little “Spanish” guitar sound that just is so beautiful. It is such a contrast with the mechanized sounds that surround it, and the obvious computer fueled repetition of all the other sounds, that it just adds a certain aliveness to it that is kind of wonderful and surprising. After five minutes you get some lovely high vocals in there, which kind of have the same affect as that guitar. It’s those contrasts of the mechanized and computerized with what I would connote to humanity and living entities which makes this such an interesting listen.

‘Walk on By’ by El Perro Del Mar (Radio Edit)

There are two things that immediately jump out while listening to this track. A) the vocals, which are so lovely and smooth. B) that screeching sound that, at seemingly random intervals, suddenly pops up in the background. As if this lovely, Sade like song was recorded in a parking garage, and that some times you hear those cars checking out. Quite strange, in my opinion, as those sounds also seem like the opposite of what the overall vibe of the song exhumes. The rest is a lovely song with smooth vocals and kind of a “foreign” feel to it, with “foreign” meaning exhuming the sounds of a country I’m not living in but for some reason can’t quite pin down at this exact time (though feel free to put in your 2 cents in the comment section).

‘Fantastic Voyage’ by Statickman

If you like your bass, this one gives that a swing right from the get go. After twenty seconds you get these frantic sounds and drums that immediately make a mockery out of the SoundCloud label “nu-disco”, unless disco got revitalized into something else completely since I got to bed last night. It’s got energy though, no mistaking that. It releases it in bursts, and between these bursts it puts these kind of spacey intervals as a prelude to the boom that is to come. It’s a bit too frantic for my personal taste, I must admit. I can see the young kids going off on this with a great light show and everyone just going manic (not dancing, mind you), but this is definitely something that sidelines me to the balcony. Perhaps me not liking this goes back to that fact; it makes me feel old. And who ever liked that?

‘Ivory Waves’ by Pete Herbert (Downtown Party Network remix)

I like the prominent drums at the beginning, especially when it adds some percussion to round that feel off. As expected, soon the beat joins in, as that was really the most logical thing that was ever going to happen. That all leads up to the main sound, which kind of is not that what I had expected. If you talk about logical conclusions to certain things, this wasn’t it. You suddenly get this kind of dulled bass sound that, for some reason, does not feel all that compatible to the starting sound to me. After two minutes you get some light keys action, which is pretty nice, especially with that sound after about 2:30, which suddenly makes me think, Ah, that’s why they called it Ivory Waves, as if that were an actual sound. The parts with the light synth sounds, those are definitely the best. Nice, catchy, and easy-to-listen-to; too bad the rest does not necessarily mesh or match it.