- London's Lampuka label, run by former Phonica employee Raimo Brincat, turns to Stockholm's Pistol Pete for its second release. Despite his alias, don't expect a rootin', tootin' hoedown here; this is as relaxed as club music gets. "Garlic Express" strikes a balance of Smallville-styled deep house and luminous dub techno, with crisp claps and hi-hats slicing through swirling chords. (What it might lack in harmonic development it makes up for in vibrant tone colors and lush texture.) It sounds wonderful, and the rhythm has just the right amount of skip to give warm-up sets a nudge forward. "Can't Won't" begins with a syncopated groove beneath billowing augmented chords, and then shifts into gleaming dub techno for its latter half, with a hint of what might be voices buried deep in the mix. It's dreamy and forceful all at once, but its insistence on that lone, billowing chord feels a little too linear.
"Aelka Inget" is another hybrid, this time between dub techno and slow-motion house, with soulful vocal samples and expansive chords wrapping themselves around bone-dry kicks and snares. Raimo's remix of the same ups the tempo, pares away the reverb, and adds bright, bouncy synthesizers to the mix. It's a lovely throwback to the richly colored dub techno of MRI's Rhythmogenesis, full of sparkle and subtle movement.
Tracklist A1 Garlic Express
A2 Can'T Won'T
B1 Aelska Inget
B2 Aelska Inget (Raimo Version)