- A surprisingly understated take on house and downtempo from one of dance music's brashest collagists.
- Hermione Frank's music as Rroxymore has always sounded like it's breaking at the seams. Her 2019 debut album, Face To Phase, was corroded beyond repair as industrial drums and serpentine techno stomped and slithered across ambient soundscapes. With this CV, I'm sure I wasn't the only one scratching their head after seeing her latest EP came out on Will Saul's Aus Music label. She's no stranger to making house tracks, but those tend to be a bit gnarled and twisted, like the syncopated, circus-on-acid belter "Organ Smith." I Wanted More, however, is a surprisingly subdued EP exploring shades of deep house and downtempo.
The tone here is gentle and laid-back, though Frank still reaches in her reliable bag of tricks. The rumbling bass hits in the perky "Midnight Shift" are fast enough to give you whiplash against a backdrop of East Coast deep house, something that could have been put out by Jus-Ed or Fred P.. The garage house title track is made for lazy mornings, with an an R&B vocal floating over a marimba line and simmering 2-steppy beat. Best of all is "Drunken Clouds," a lazy IDM number with a hazy breakbeat and Warp-style melody, but it's more South Central than Sheffield with those G-Funk chords slipped into the mix.
In Frank's past work, the de- and reconstruction of club tropes has always been political for Frank, whether that was attaching herself to manifestos or showcasing overlooked music from the Black underground. And I also think there's something political (even if unintentional) about I Wanted More. It's been tempting to fall prey to narratives that house music is currently being reinvented by pop stars—just thumb through the op-eds with titles like, "House music had its Black roots ripped up—now Drake and Beyoncé are reclaiming them." I Wanted More is a rejoinder to this discourse, a reminder that Black producers have always pushed the genre forward. There have always been myriad underground producers championing the genre and I Wanted More is the sound of Frank taking her seat at the table.
Tracklist01. Drunken Clouds
02. I Wanted More
03. Midnight Shift
04. Last Day Last Dance