- Ego, the Diynamic label's family testing ground for their heart-tugging deep house located off the grimy Reeperbahn in Hamburg, is anything but gaudy. It's a no-frills club where scores of shattered beer bottles cover the floor, and an up-for-it crowd sweats out to giddy, disco-fied vocal house. This summer Diynamic transplanted that signature sound into a weekly residency at Sankeys Ibiza, their neon-and-blacklight bashes the talk of the island. Now comes the release of H.O.S.H.'s Neon EP, with two floor-fillers obviously indebted to those gleaming vibes.
H.O.S.H.'s productions tend to be deceptively contained, escalating to single climaxes and then yanking the reins as if ashamed of the sudden bursts of emotion. "No One," a collaboration with extraterrestrial siren Malonda, treads similar ground as last year's Life Is Music Is Life EP, which featured the half-lidded, exhausted meditation on heartbreak "What Do You Want Me to Say." On "No One," she is assertive and pulsing with life, murmuring about a dominant lover over squiggly synths and flowing waves of bass smeared across acid-house storm clouds. The groove buzzes with spasmodic energy even when the lyrics take a vulnerable turn.
"Woohoo," featuring Norwegian funk jokesters Ost & Kjex, has a sleazy, falsetto chorus that straddles the line between annoying and earworm. A hypnotic, knuckle-cracking bassline vibrates against stadium stomps and a delayed burble of alien silly string that gums up the progression. It's a patient, jangly track, a spirited invitation to the dance floor. Dub versions of both songs are negatively affected by the lack of distinctive vocals but reveal how clean-cut, uplifting and economical H.O.S.H.'s underlying productions are.
Tracklist A1 No One feat. Malonda
A2 Woohoo feat. Ost & Kjex
B1 No One (Dub Version) feat. Malonda
B2 Woohoo (Dub Version) feat. Ost & Kjex