- A young, fresh perspective on the power of house music.
- If you couldn't tell from the artwork, TSHA's fabric presents mix is a tribute to acid house, or at least the classic idea of it: freedom, the second summer of love, musical experimentation. She's a young DJ, part of the latest generation to discover the genre's incredible legacy and timeless sounds. The mix is also a tribute to fabric itself, a club that has been at the vanguard of so many sounds for so many generations, from microhouse to drum & bass to Berghain-style techno and the wiggly, addictive tech house that used to rule its Sundays. To TSHA, fabric represents dance music at its most elemental, which is what she presents here: chunky kick patterns laced with curlicues of 303 and perfumed with vocal hooks, a brash and catchy take on house music with hardly a breather over its 80-minute runtime.
fabric presents TSHA starts with a splash of classicism, as Ben Gomori remix of a '90s Soulful Behaviour cut leads us through a stretch of monstrous, reverb-drenched kick drums vamping chords. (Mac & Ward's remix of Posthuman is another major highlight.) But the mix suddenly takes a left turn when it crashes head-on into Jacques Greene's 2010 Night Slugs anthem "(Baby I Don't Know) What You Want," which immediately changes the mood and introduces to a new type of nostalgia: one that yearns for not the golden age of house but post-dubstep.
The inclusion of Jacques Greene immediately places TSHA's fabric presents mix into a different continuum. It's not the throwback fantasy of a DJ who has spent decades DJing but someone for whom even the relatively recent past is a blank canvas to reimagine, which TSHA does again and again, mashing eras and subgenres together. She wobbles into "Mancmania," a dank, Moodymann-sampling acid whirlwind, and each blend from then on feels hot and sharp, careening from one track to the next in a very UK way. The focus isn't on blending tracks or moods together, but letting each new record shine in its own way.
If there's a key to understanding TSHA's take on house music, it's her productions, which have a pop approach—vocals, full-verses, radio-friendly arrangements—without losing the fundamentals of the genre. She goes for songs that have major hooks, like Sally C's "Downtown" or Ryan Clover's deep house psychedelia, and she lets them play out for a few minutes, mixing quickly but giving each room to breathe. She also knows that the right percussion loop or element can be a hook in itself, so we get earth-shaking tracks from Shed as WK7 or Aspect's "Norf"—whose gate-crashing bassline creates one of the mix's memorable moments—which provide rhythmic traction between the poppier cuts, like TSHA's own "Boyz," an irresistibly swung garage track.
Listening to fabric presents TSHA, I couldn't help but think of Cinthie's DJ-Kicks, another mix from this year that underlines the mass appeal of house music in its most elemental forms. Where Cinthie's mix—the product of a lifetime in dance music—harkened back to house music's roots as well as new producers carrying Chicago's torch today, TSHA seems more set on the future, a different kind of timelessness, from a distinctly UK perspective. For her, the golden age of house music might not mean Phuture or Kerri Chandler, but Night Slugs, and this is the fresh perspective and energy she brings to her fabric presents mix. It's the spirit of acid house as passed down through the generations, four decades later, still going as strong as ever.
Tracklist01. Soulful Behaviour - Get To Groove (Jazznotic Groove Mix - Ben Gomori's Bad Behaviour Edit)
02. Stefan Seay feat. WILLYOUARENOT - Acid Kiss (MOOD Mix)
03. Posthuman - You're Mine (Mac & Ward Extended Remix)
04. Conny - Song For Eva (Shan 3AM Pump Mix)
05. Delicious Inc. - Eau De Chante' (For Men)
06. Trax Unit - Get The Werk
07. Jacques Greene - (Baby I Don't Know) What you Want
08. Granary 12 - Mancmania
09. Para - Naked
10. Jeran Portis - Unproven
11. UNCLE KNOWS - FLOCK
12. WK7 - The Higher (Hardcore PCK Mix)
13. Ryan Clover - Velvet Lace Dream State
14. Nowsm - Funny Lies (Edit)
15. Sally C - Downtown
16. Nicolson - 1988
17. TSHA - BOYZ
18. Gallegos - Sycophantic Maniac
19. Elkka - Harmonic Frequencies
20. Aspect - Norf
21. WTCHCRFT - Uhmm
22. Protect Ryan- Liam Features
23. Undivulged - Moppie
24. Tom VR - Soared Straight Through Me (Kareem Ali Remix)
25. Mafro - Miss Me