- Chicago's Bernard Badie made his name in the early '90s with a run of muscular cuts released on labels like Cajual, Night Club and his own DJB Records. More recently, he's cultivated a fruitful relationship with Don Williams' Mojuba label, which has reissued a handful of Badie's older tracks and released some new material. Open Up belongs to the latter category, with four fresh tracks of colourful, retro-leaning house in Badie's signature style.
Things start slowly with the title track, which ambles along at 116 BPM as Badie purrs "Open up your heart to me" atop a two-chord pattern. As openers go, it's a slightly staid effort that doesn't do justice to the rest of the record. "Beat Down" quickly rectifies this—its raucous, woodblock-led percussion harks back to the tightly wound grooves of his Time Reveals EP. Badie teases a filtered drum loop that never fully reveals itself, a subtle yet effective ploy that could work wonders on a club system.
Over on the flip, "Kiss The Sky" has a quirky, almost tribal vibe reminiscent of his output on Cajual. It's lively enough, but the sound palette feels a bit cheap and the reiterated vocal quickly starts to grate. Badie gets back on track with the slick and stomping disco house of "Slow Reflex." It's an uplifting, sample-based burner full of natty percussion fills and silky Rhodes licks, and it sounds like the kind of thing you'd hear Tama Sumo put to good use on a Sunday afternoon in Panorama Bar.
TracklistA1 Slow Reflex
A2 Kiss The Sky
B1 Beat Down
B2 Open Up