The Rhythm Odyssey & Dr. Dunks - Fox / Saffron

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  • There's more going on than meets the eye in these collaborative tracks from The Rhythm Odyssey (Dean Meredith) and Dr. Dunks (Eric Duncan). These two 12-inches for Golf Channel follow a similar pair released last year on the same label, and operate in much the same vein: slow-burning, intricate house with a smart ear for detail. Each is fixed around a consistent central motif or theme—often a piano or guitar lick, or an anchoring bassline—while all kinds of extra materials ping-pong around the mix, from weird electronic scrawls and delay rebounds to diva vocals and blasts of brass. "Fox" is essentially a disco edit, albeit one with a distinctly ravey flavour. It's not dissimilar to Soundstream, in that rather than using funk and disco samples to create something that approximates the originals, the duo treat their source material more roughly, reducing it down to the bare bones. It's dotted with lithe scrabbles of funk guitar, flickering keys and washes of brass. "Fox (Version)" attacks the same palette of samples with heavy reverb, causing them to blur together into long streaks of colour. The original's bassline, meanwhile, is pushed up in the mix to the point that it pounds up and down the register, piston-like in its regularity. The second 12-inch is more varied. "Saffron" is most at home in the middle of an extended mix session; it blossoms into life swiftly and remains at a continually high energy level throughout, as a jaunty piano motif gradually distends downward into something entirely more sinister and dissonant. The notable drop in tempo on "Night Addict" suits the duo's sound well—opening up extra space within the track allows the rough grain of their production to peek through. Here a churning lead line tears through the mid-range, in a manner reminiscent of Frak's demolished electro sketches.
  • Tracklist
      A Fox (Version) B Fox A Saffron B Night Addict
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