- On his debut for Hivern, house producer Aleksandar Grozdanovski approaches a gentler take on the tuneful tracks he crafts with singer Genoveva Kachurkova as Herzel & Genoveva. Shades' three originals are still synthy and romantic to their core, but now the music sounds like it's on the downswing, pleasantly free-falling. "Daydreamer," a whorl of glistening harmony and a soft-droning bassline, couldn't have a better title. "Closure" and "Shades" are both steeped in clouds of reverb and New Age pads, like dance music made inside a bathhouse. Herzel's work is far too beat-oriented (loose and limber as those beats may be) to be considered ambient, and yet it's hard not to wonder how well Shades would work without the drums.
Lobster Theremin affiliate Palms Trax rounds out the EP with two remixes of "Daydreamer." His "Backroom Office Tool" is six minutes of one lean, effective groove, with only an extra synth sequence in its last quarter. The UK artist gets more ambitious for the "Nothing But A Dreamer Mix," and, through a kitsch '90s house motif, reveals the sunny disposition underlying Herzel's original. Despite being well-crafted, the remixes feel tacked on to offset how deep and serene the rest of Shades sounds. Herzel could have better used the space to delve further into his house music impressionism.
TracklistA1 Daydreamer
A2 Daydreamer (Palms Trax Backroom Office tool)
A3 Daydreamer (Palms Trax Nothing But A Dreamer remix)
B1 Closure
B2 Shades