- A house titan revisits his early sound with mixed results.
- Hot Creations, Crosstown Rebels, Dirtybird—whether in the UK or US, house heads love big basslines and catchy vocals. Claude VonStroke, who might go down as one of the US's most important label owners of the past decade, has done more than most to help popularise this crowd-friendly sound. Through high-profile DJ sets and his label, Dirtybird, he brought bottom-heavy house music to new audiences, even releasing the first EP from a would-be superstar, the Grammy-winning Australian artist Fisher. Slink, VonStroke's new EP, is said to be a throwback to Dirtybird's early years, which the vocal snippets ("yeah," "hey!") and six-note bassline make clear. But "Slink"'s white noise-filled breakdown makes that period seem in the distant past, the kind of thing VonStroke would've scoffed at 15 years ago. For the real Dirtybird experience, stick with the loopier "Please Oh Please Oh Please."
TracklistA Slink
B Please Oh Please Oh Please