The Weekly Froth! With Julio Bashmore, Matthias Zimmerman and Evan Stalker

Julio Bashmore

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: ‘Troglodytes’ by Julio Bashmore

TUNE! That’s what this is. Bashmore does it again with this fabulous track, which I would happily fit into any set (well…). It’s got these fab, masculine talking vocals, which is very house.  I believe there is something like that male vocals have to talk and female (or feminine) vocals have to sing and that they are the ones that bring all the emotions to songs. Not only the vocals are great though, that sound is really catchy and not just that same old same old beat or anything. It is that mixture of the beat, the lighter instrumental sounds, and then those masculine vocals which make it work. And work it does. If you want a quick peak on what this song is all about, just listen from 4:00 to 4:30, which gives a good indication of the contrast that I like so much. First almost nothing but that talky voice speaking of a time where there was nothing but primal instincts (cavemen, troglodytes!), and then the beat comes along with that light sound which makes it shine. The combination that Bashmore finds is just a really nice one, it just fits his house vibe, which the Jimmy Castor version isn’t exactly. But as said, it just fits, Julio surely heard that right.

‘Martin’ by Matthias Zimmerman

At the start it has this marching army thing going on, but thirty seconds in it changes gear to something different altogether. Something much lighter in sound and feel. At around the 1:30 mark it switches it up again and this electro feel starts to shine through a bit more. The two minute mark brings it down to the point where the vocals can peak through a bit (though by all means this is not a vocal track),  which is the introduction to yet another change of pace. I love the change up at 3:20 or so, which goes from that stripped down vocal part to this happy and light feeling beat that I think is quite nice. The song is released by the Tigersushi label of Joakim, who knocked it out of the park last year with his album Nothing Gold. Good to see the label isn’t solely relying on his own sounds to bring good music to the people.

‘Somewhere Deep in the Night’ by ONRA

The start perhaps is the most interesting thing of the whole three minutes of this track. Those first ten seconds, which are imbued with atmosphere by that combination of basically three different sounds. Really nice. That kind of non-rhythmic beat, I’m not a big fan of that. I like it when a beat has set intervals, and this is not very symmetrical at all in that regards. I think the vocals (and perhaps even the lyrics, but I’d need a few more listens for that) kind of fit those first ten seconds very nicely, evoking the same kind of vibe. It is just that this kind of beat (which, lets face it, kind of is the hub of it all) does not really fit my personal preference.

‘Cosmic Fluff’ by Rory Philips

Starts out with a nice cheeky sound this, which is a prelude to the beat that comes in after a good half minute or so. Philips keeps this one rolling for the dancefloor, playing with pace and  sound. It is really something you can put on in a club, it never lets on, and if it drops the pace it is only in anticipation for its comeback. It is effective, though the second part of this track doesn’t have the freshness of the first in my opinion, with Philips basically riding it home and just mixing some of the generic club sounds in that you can find on any mixer (not that there’s something wrong with that, mind you, but it basically is the only variety going on in the second half).

‘Earth is the Place’ by Nathan Haines (Jean Claude Gavri edit)

Jean Claude Gavri takes on this Nathan Haines track with Verna Francis providing some lovely vocals. She provides the punch to this hypnotic jazzy thing that I imagine will be played late (late) at night. She sings that she does whatever she wants to do (I’m paraphrasing here), because she is a woman. And woman does as woman want. In the meantime Gavri makes sure that you have got a rhythm to hold on to and that the pace is kept up. He knows not to mess with a woman though, and the vocals get plenty of space and they are really the thing this song revolves around. Love the sound he brings in just before the seven minute mark as well, though he doesn’t use it for long as he quickly goes with the percussion to make sure people are actually able to fade in another song (always good to make live easier on those delivering us a good night out, eh?).

‘Parkway’ by Evan Stalker

Sure, it has been on SoundCloud for a good year now, but the quality label On the Prowl is going to release this one in a short while, with a remix of Runaway to boot. One can see why it fits on that label, because this is house music, and this is music one would want to dance to. Loads of nice little transitions which pick it up or give it a slight twist as to make sure the song doesn’t outstay its welcome. And the basic sound surely is one you can do some twisting and shouting to. Some classic house sounds can be found in there, like that deep sound just after the two minute mark, which leads the song into its strip down. After which, obviously, at one point, the beat comes in again, sounding more deep house than before. The synth puts it all in balance a bit, and at one point those hi-hats come in again (if they are hi-hats, I’m rubbish at identifying instruments…) to loop it back to that starting sound. No wonder the guys from On the Prowl are picking this one up and giving it some remixes, solid stuff this.