House of Downtown - Release

Release
The House of Downtown
(State House/Universal NZ)

I'll say it in the first para: This is very good long player.

In style, it's similar to the Bob Sinclair, Daft Punk, Subliminal Records, DJ Sneak style of slamming, fast-paced house, mixing hard 4/4 beats with filtered breakdowns and live vocals from gospel-influenced singer Tulele Faletolu whose booming voice gives his featured tracks real momentum.

This is What You Do, Deeper Love and Rise Above (my fave) all kick ass.

There are some great quiet moments as well, notably Cookin', with its Samoan drumming, seashore noises and Pacific ambience.

Can two white boys based in Auckland's suburbs can make a decent house music long player? Here's proof. House of Downtown, Christiaan in particular, have a set of influences, war stories and pedigree as valid and notable as any house producer in the world. Christiaan's background producing hip-hop and R&B throughout the 80s and 90s lends itself to Release in subtle but notable ways, as does the last seven years of Emerson's life, DJing every weekend and playing Luke to Christiaan's Obi Wan in the studio.

The production and structure of the tracks are - as you would expect from an engineer of Christiaan's ability - tight as a wasp's arse. Throw into the mix Emerson's dancefloor nous and general slam-it-out-to-the-dancefloor mentality and you have a set of tunes that hang together exceptionally well.

I've had a CD-R copy of this LP all summer, and have grown very fond of it. The track order on the full release is slightly different according to Christiaan and the quality is about a million times higher, but as he says, "the big tunes are still the big tunes" - so, all good. Buy this.