- Hot Keys aren't anonymous, per se, but you'll have to forgive us if we can't tell you much about them. The Vancouver duo of Jesse Brow and Ryan Trann don't have a back catalog as best as we can tell, but their debut for Parisian minimal mainstay Karat suggests a longstanding love of the sort of details-oriented producers (Portable, Seuil) the label has championed. On Full Moon Cycle, that preference for subtle sounds serves them rather well.
The dubby echoes and stuttering digital clicks that kick things off on "Boomer" lead into a forceful pulse that hardly needs time to get rolling. Hot Keys leaves plenty of room in the mix, though, allowing each breathy cymbal brush and snare shuffle an almost luxurious attack and decay. "Full Moon Cycle" has a similar airiness, but an ambient loop chugging in the background seeps up steam-like through every available crack in the soundstage. Lowering your eyelids to let the track's sunrise strings and hard-panned morsels tickle your imagination uninterrupted is probably your first impulse, but its live drumming ensures you don't drift off entirely. "House of Business," aptly named, contains all the urgency the other two cuts here shun, though its minced vocals can't seem to get more than a few wet consonants out; whatever's afflicted him seems to have ensnared the herky-jerky deep house band as well.
Tracklist A Boomer
B1 Full Moon Cycle
B2 House Of Business