- Butch's output is both astonishingly prolific and varied. Some of his recent work, like Lullabies To Paralyze on Visionquest or Songs About Unconsciousness from earlier this year, touched on neo-trance sounds with aplomb. That said, I'd wager most people associate Bülent Gürler with his trackier-than-tracky hits, like "No Worries" or "Drummers Drama," tunes made with the least amount of elements that are looped for as long as possible. He works in that spirit on Dope, his first release for Seth Troxler's Play It Say It label. But not only does it feel like a step backwards after a strong run of singles, it's an uninspired example of the simplest trick up Gürler's sleeve.
"Dope" is the epitome of Butch: a tribal loop repeats and repeats until the rhythm is burned into your brain, while weird sounds—nature and crowd chatter, in this case—fill out the background. There's a huge eruption of cheers and clapping around the midpoint, before the loop snaps back into place and continues to its unsatisfying conclusion. "Dope," at least, is warm, funky and a little hypnotic, but "Praise The Lord" is flat-out cheesy. A funk break bathed in reverb with a preacher sample, it sounds like something you'd hear in a trendy fusion restaurant ten years ago. "Dope" is a decent tool to play underneath something else; "Praise The Lord," on the other hand, is too distracting to even work on that level.
TracklistA1 Dope
B1 Praise The Lord