Matt Tolfrey - Nothing Like Home

  • Share
  • Desert Hearts are an American crew who have built a musical universe around a DIY gathering in the California desert. The group now tours the world, selling out shows headlined by residents—Mikey Lion, Lee Reynolds—only their many fans have heard of. The Desert Hearts sound sits somewhere between the melancholy tracks you'd hear at All Day I Dream, pumping tech house and Burning Man-esque psychedelia. The latest release on their self-titled label, which has racked up over 30 releases, is something of a coup, inviting Matt Tolfrey, a long-established house producer, into the fold. It finds him in fine form. Sometimes one chord makes all the difference, and the key here is simplicity. The skippy, garage-influenced drum pattern on "Nothing Like Home" hooks you in, but the key is the way Tolfrey modulates the chord at the heart of the track. There's a great bassline and plenty of clever melodic touches, but your ears focus on that chord through its five-minute journey, until Tolfrey strips the track back to the spiky groove underneath. "Fallen" also squeezes a lot out of one simple motif. But where "Nothing Like Home" is dynamic, "Fallen" is static, a tool for DJs to hold a set's energy in place. Skirting the line between functionality and ingenuity, Nothing Like Home is the kind of house record that sneaks up on you.
  • Tracklist
      01. Nothing Like Home 02. Fallen
RA