- Tech house reissued on Desert Sound Colony's label.
- If "tech house" was a dirty word for the last decade or so, that's thanks not to the style in its original form, but to the torrents of copycats that came later, eclipsing the records and artists that made the sound big (a similar fate later suffered by minimal and dubstep). Today, the ouija planchette of collective taste has drifted back over early tech house, as more and more DJs discover or rediscover records from its late '90s and early 2000s golden era, many of which sound strikingly fresh in our current musical moment. Hence reissues like this one, released by Desert Sound Colony on his label Holding Hands, featuring three early cuts from one of tech house's best artists, Bushwacka!
Sound As A Pound cherry-picks tracks from some of Bushwacka!'s best records, an untitled, three-volume series released in 1996 on Sound As A Pound Recordings, a label related to London nightclub The End that released nothing else. Some have aged better than others. "11" is a fast and soaring cut with hints of disco that ends up somewhere different from where it starts. "5," an A-side in its day, is a chugging bit of piano house that feels a little nondescript now. "8," an uncharacteristically smooth, sunny afterhours cut, was the most head-turning track on the original series, and it's the centre-piece of this record, appearing on the A1 and given a breaky remix by Desert Sound Colony. Both versions are excellent and worth the price of admission alone.
TracklistA1 8
A2 11
B1 5
B2 8 (Desert Sound Colony Remix)